Today’s my birthday! I’m celebrating by going to the monthly DC Shape Note sing and singing things like “David’s Lamentation!” Um, well… in a festive way. (Maybe that was not the right song example to give) Is “Balm in Gilead” better? Meanwhile, for you guys, I’m pleased to announce that the ebook version of Arriving at Amen is discounted all week! If you’ve read the book and liked it, maybe today’s a good day to give me a birthday present... Read more
I’m a big fan of the blog A Queer Calling, and I’m lucky enough to know Lindsey and Sarah in real life. They write thoughtfully and generously about their experience offering learning how to live their vocation of love in a partnership, and they’ve placed hospitality/offering love to others at the center of their relationship. I’ve tried to make a space in my life for one-to-many hospitality (seeking out apartments and buildings with large living rooms, centrally located in the... Read more
— 1 — First things first: the song of the week — 2 — Elsewhere in science news, I really enjoyed this article about lizards who find their way home by a still unknown mechanism (especially all the weird ways scientists have tried to rule out various answers) Then the researchers created caps with pieces of Ping-Pong ball, and attached them with surgical glue and cork as a cushion, to the heads of the anoles to interfere with polarized light... Read more
Keep your grain of salt handy (non-Christian responses question totaled just 36 replies), but that was enough to identify a Christian winner in the round that asked contestants “What’s a question you’re currently uncertain about, where you’d like to “flip to the back of the book” and find the answer now?” The ability of markets to provide fundamental governance services. Conventional theory holds that private property rights protection, rule of law, etc. cannot be provided by the market, and thus must be... Read more
All right, take all the results with a grain of salt (non-Christian responses were low for this question — just 21 replies), but I’m hard pressed to crown a winner on this question instead of just saying that the judges lost. Technically this was the highest ranked fake-atheist response to “What role does ritual have in your life? What role would you like it to have?” I’ve always loved routines, but I think that’s not quite what “ritual” means. I... Read more
The first prompt in the non-Christian round of the 2015 Ideological Turing Test has a just-barely winner. The Christians mostly fell behind the real non-Christians, but our winner was practically tied with the atheist ranked just ahead, so I’m awarding the win on points. Here’s the winning fake-atheist response to “Name a book that shaped your moral sensibilities (and talk a little about how) Fiction is fair game.” T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. When I was young (e.g. ages 8-12) I... Read more
Turing test results continue tomorrow, and, in the meantime, I’ve got links if you want to read like me or screw up like Peter. Ethika Politika has a summer reading recommendations feature running, and I’ve contributed the five books I’d recommend from my reading so far this year. Includes theology, data visualization, autopsies and this: Helen MacDonald. H is for Hawk. Training a goshawk is the strangest approach to grief I’ve ever encountered. I kept reading excerpts from this memoir to... Read more
The third prompt in the Christian round of the 2015 Ideological Turing Test is the first not to have a winner. Every non-Christian was ranked below the real Christians, when the Christian readers voted. But here’s the faux-Christian response to “What is an element of your tradition that is underappreciated by your fellow believers” that got closest to victory: I like to tell people about “Creatureliness”. It’s the idea that we should be grateful we humans are not in the role... Read more
The answers are up, and now the votes have been tallied for the first question in the Christian round of the 2015 Ideological Turing Test. Here’s the faux-Christian response to “Why, in a world of many splintered sects, should *your* tradition be trusted?” that real Christians found the most convincing: I’ve grown up in my sect (Episcopalian!) my whole life, and accept I’d probably be something else if I’d been born somewhere else. The point isn’t the specific theological claims that any... Read more
The answers are up, and now the votes have been tallied for the first question in the Christian round of the 2015 Ideological Turing Test. Here’s the faux-Christian response to “What sin, if any, lies at the root of all sin” that real Christians found the most convincing: The root of all sin is man’s sinful nature, but if I had to identify a particular *sin* that lies at the root of all others, it would be pride. The first step... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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