Traditionally, as catechumens prepare for baptism in the Catholic Church, we hear three specific Gospel readings at the three Scrutiny Masses before reception of the Sacraments (John 4:1-42, John 9:1-41, and John 11:1-44). Because my parish does two cycles of RCIA per year, I ended up hearing the story of Bartimaeus, the blind man as told in a different gospel. On October 28th, the reading was from Mark 10:46-52 as follows: As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and... Read more
I’m going to be received into the Catholic Church this Sunday (baptism, confirmation, and first communion). Here’s what’s going to be going on here at the blog from now until Thanksgiving. In the spirit of my blogging advice from yesterday, I’m going to be doing some arts blogging as a lens on some parts of my conversion/spiritual life on Thursday and Friday. (Fairly musical theatre heavy, natch). On Saturday, I’ll be on my anti-football hobbyhorse in honor of the Harvard-Yale game. Sunday,... Read more
This weekend, I went up to Baltimore to attend a session of the Fall General Assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The session was called, “An Encounter With Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue” and included a presentation of survey results about Catholic blog reading habits, a panel discussion, small group discussion, and then a period where the bishops asked questions of the bloggers en masse and then we switched and asked them questions. They encouraged us... Read more
Veterans Day occurred yesterday in the U.S. It’s a federal holiday for the recognition of all veterans and coincides with the international recognition of Remembrance Armistice Day at the end of World War I. I thought it would be appropriate to follow a day of recognition of what soldiers did in the wars with a few articles about what they do after. Troops returning home may mark a technical cessation of hostilities, but there’s more to do to bind up the wounds of... Read more
This post is part of a series discussing Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. By the end of Breaking the Spell, Dennett has shown the reader that religions may have memetic staying power independent of their truth. And, even if a religious reader isn’t convinced that their own religion is explained away by evolutionary processes, he hopes his book will awaken the religious to their unique duty to short-circuit dangerous religious memes. He writes: “There is more work to be done, and it... Read more
This post is part of a series discussing Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. Back in the cultural history of religion sections of the book, Dennett touches on a very powerful argument against religion. He writes: “And here is an interesting fact: the transition between folk religion to organized religion is marked by a shift in beliefs from those with very clear, concrete consequences to those with systematically elusive consequences–paying lip service is just about the only way you can act on them… But... Read more
I’ve been reading Hillary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety, and I’ll admit I don’t like it as well as Wolf Hall. I don’t feel the same intimacy with Robespierre that Wolf Hall gave me with Thomas Cromwell, and the distance is killing me. However, I thought readers of the blog might like this dialogue between Camille Desmoulins and a French judge in the early days of the revolution. “I object to the use of the courts as instruments of the intrusive moralizing state”... Read more
— 1 — This has been a contentious week, so, if you want to have high-intensity fights not about the presidency, may I suggest the board game Credo? Here’s the description from BoardGameGeek: Odd premise for a game, players represent early Christians arguing over the actual precepts of their Church. The game mechanism involves collecting worshipers to your side, gaining money and influence over different factions, and you can win by reaching different goals. As the game proceeds, gradually the... Read more
This post is part of a series discussing Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. As I said yesterday, most of Dennett’s book isn’t directed to the question of whether religious claims are true. But in the final chapters, he takes a crack at the question. Dennett warns the reader that his discussion is going to be cursory; he’ll lay out his objections and give the reader the citations they need to examine the arguments in detail. From beginning to end, this section... Read more
In November 2012, I read and blogged through Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Below, are all the posts I wrote on the topic, along with a link to a rejoinder from Chris Hallquist in the atheist channel. Dennett is one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism (along with Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens), but this book is more descriptive than debate fodder. The Bit I Liked Best About Dennett’s Book – In order to improve... Read more
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