Michael Dowd posted on what he calls the “New Theism” (as well as mentioning other terms). I’m not sure that I find that particular label “New Theism” helpful, since “theism” is often associated with precisely what Dowd rejects, the idea of a personal or anthropomorphic deity. I appreciate his comparison of the movement he is trying to spearhead with those strands of Judaism which still find religious language useful, but do not treat its depictions of an anthropomorphic deity as... Read more
I’ve always enjoyed the ironic double entendre of the large notice at the top of this sign at the Church of All Nations next to the Garden of Gethsemane: Another version of it became something of a meme a while back, and I even blogged about it before having been to the church where it was found. The point of the sign is to keep the church as a place of worship, a place for silent meditation and prayer, when... Read more
The short Doctor Who mini-episode “Good as Gold” written by British schoolchildren comes at a particularly apt time, as Matt Smith recently carried the Olympic torch in Cardiff! Read more
Alvin Toffler is of course putting in other words the sage advice offered by Yoda a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. But as a statement about contemporary education (rather than specifically Jedi training), Toffler is surely right that the pace of advance in knowledge means that anyone who wants to keep up with the best available understanding will need not only to learn, but at some point unlearn and relearn. To some extent, this has... Read more
In my Sunday school class today we talked about Israel and Palestine, as this was my first Sunday in church since my trip. Because the question of distances between places came up, someone in the class looked up Israel on Google Earth. As a result, we all got to see something that one can see on the ground, but which seems to me to come across even more poignantly in the satellite image. The investment and distribution of resources between Israel and... Read more
Jim West often has a bee in his bonnet about atheists, but he doesn’t always seem to have actually observed any, and so I thought I would share this to help him out. From The Far Left Side. Read more
Rachel Held Evans wrote a beautiful post on Huck Finn and the need to listen to our conscience rather than texts at times, even when those texts are considered sacred. Richard Beck concurred. Tony Jones and Bob Cornwall were among those who emphasized that it is not only allowable but important that our views evolve on subjects like this one. Bob Cargill made this image and shared some reflections on it: Jay Michaelson discussed traditional marriage in its various permutations.... Read more
I got back from my trip to Israel yesterday, just in time for Towel Day, in honor of Douglas Adams. Some are calling this “Super Towel Day” since 5+25+12=42. The trip had a couple of Douglas Adams moments or aspects, such as the fact that one of the books we all read together was A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus, and when we went to the Dead Sea, I told the students that since they can rent towels there, they didn’t... Read more
We made it through passport control and customs at Tel Aviv airport, in what seems like record time. The early hour of the morning helped. So now I can blog about the day’s events. We started off at the traditional site of the last supper, in what would have been the upper city of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time. We also saw a site some consider the tomb of David, passed through the Armenian Quarter, and even had time for... Read more
From Tree Lobsters, solidly at the intersection of religion and science fiction. Read more
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