by Jeff Worthy I had a different agenda altogether this month for an article concept (Part III of the Blade Runner series—coming soon), but as life often does, events conspired to force me to grapple with another issue deserving of reflection for this month’s article. Though I have pondered my own mortality in recent years, realizing that I am 51 and have more years behind me than ahead of me, I am not grappling with anywhere near the same universe of challenges... Read more
by Jeff Worthy Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small–small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Three, Passage 10... Read more
by DT Strain The events of the past few years have highlighted the power of social media. Specifically, the power of it to lead to greater levels of misinformation and manipulation when powerful interests utilize it in clever ways. These have included micro-targeting campaigns that play on people’s fears or other interests in misleading ways. It has included messaging designed to increase conflicts between groups. The result of all this is more isolation and alienation between ‘tribes’ who misunderstand one... Read more
by Leigh Anderson My college-aged granddaughter mentioned that she’s majoring in journalism with a focus on public relations. She’s grown up with social media, which is what public relations has turned into. I started thinking about how people feel social media connects them to others without any thought of what being connected really means. They want to be individualistic, and at the same time to connect to (many) others. It’s hard for a normal person to find a balance between... Read more
by Thomas Schenk Every life inevitably ends in death; the creation of the new requires the demise of the old. Thus, in the process of Nature, for every one gained there is a minus one. Yet in Nature, this 1-1 does not equal zero, but equals the great abundance we see all around us. How do we account for this? The simple explanation is that while the 1-1=0 of mathematics is a timeless truth, the 1-1 of Nature takes place in... Read more
by Thomas Schenk The last six hundred years has seen a succession of discoveries, great and small. At each stage of this process of discovery, we humans have been challenged to think and rethink about the nature of the world, the nature of the human self, and the interrelationship between these two. People either had to reconceptualize their worldview, or simply try to ignore the new facts about the world. Most then, and many still today, choose this later strategy.... Read more
by Gregory Gronbacher Introduction At its core, Christian naturalism is a philosophical and theological perspective that combines elements of Christian spirituality with a profound respect for the natural world as understood through scientific inquiry. Unlike traditional supernaturalist interpretations, which emphasize the miraculous and otherworldly aspects of Christianity, Christian naturalism shifts the emphasis to the interconnectedness of all life, the beauty of the cosmos, and the ethical imperative of caring for all living things and the environment. Jesus from a Naturalist Perspective... Read more
(Today’s posting is by guest photographer Richard Todd. See below for a brief bio. Also, I would like it to be a reminder that we would love to hear from members who express their spiritual naturalism through the arts. If you have art work you would consider publishing, please contact us.) When my friend Thomas Schenk asked about posting some of my photographs on SNS, I thought of the saying, frequently attributed to Yogi Berra, that “You can see a... Read more
by Daniel Shkolnik Creator: xijian Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto I recently spoke with Chuck Ceraso, a friend and mentor, who gave me an important reminder: you don’t have to teach spirituality in order to be a spiritual teacher. Ceraso, or “Uncle Chuck” as I call him, teaches painting. He never talks about spirituality directly, but his students sense that he’s not just teaching how to draw and paint, he’s teaching them how to live through the metaphor of painting. We don’t... Read more
by Eric Steinhart Astrology is a popular target for skeptics. They think it uses your birth to make predictions about your personality or your future. This is the way astrology was portrayed in the newspapers: you look up your sun sign in the daily astrology column, and you get predictions about your day. So this is Newspaper Astrology. Skeptics say that Newspaper Astrology is false and that the people who use it are irrational. On this point, naturalists agree with the skeptics –we don’t... Read more
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