May 08, 2008
March 23, 2008
March 22, 2008
Reflections on an empty tomb
Resurrection of the body is an incoherent idea. But the immortality of a bodiless soul isn't much better. What survives of us is the mark we leave on the world we have lived in.
Resurrection: some Easter reflections
Among the religious doctrines that run me axle-deep in the mud whenever I reflect on them is literal resurrection to eternal life. I'm astonished to learn via Rachel Zoll that expectation of a literal, personal, physical resurrection is coming back in serious theological circles. Physical? What can this really mean: my body has done OK for me over the years...
March 21, 2008
March 15, 2008
Rock on Christian soldiers
Matthew Yglesias (his girlfriend, actually) reviews Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.Making fun of Christain pop culture is easy--there's a lot that deserves to be made fun of. What makes Rapture Ready worthwhile is that Radosh--a secular Jew--goes beyond mockery to engage seriously with Christian believers who make, consume, and even criticize Christian pop culture,...
December 28, 2007
Piety, virtue, and folly
Socrates was: (a) a virtuous man (within the limits of his time); (2) not an atheist; and (3) not a fool. Bigoted Christians and bigoted atheists seem to have a problem holding these three propositions in mind together.
December 06, 2007
One more thing Huckabee got wrong
With Mike Huckabee's other troubles, this hasn't gotten as much press. But here is a recent statement regarding gay marriage (h/t Devilstower @ Kos): GQ: Is the strategy shifting because social conservatives are losing on those core issues? Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to have gay marriage even in liberal Massachusetts. Now it's there. Huckabee: I don't...
December 04, 2007
November 26, 2007
On the apparent fragility of Moslem faith
A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan for lese Islamicité because her 7-year-old students voted to name a stuffed bear Muhammad. There seems to be a constant dribble of stories like this out of conservative Islamic regimes, where laws forbidding disrespect to the religion and the Prophet are common. Apparently Islam makes every other religion in the world so...
October 24, 2007
"By all good souls is he abhorred...
...who'd make a Babbitt of the Lord" is the moral of Thurber's fable, "The Bat Who Got the Hell Out". This story, about the revival-meeting atmosphere of the Colorado Rockies, is irritating to the point of creepiness, rolling up fatuous pietism, hypocrisy, and flat-out blasphemy, in a wrapper reeking of intolerance and pride, and generallly besmirching two institutions that deserve...
October 15, 2007
The Epistle to the Sybarites - yours for only $9.95!
Ms Coulter insults Jews - and trivializes Christianity.
October 01, 2007
July 13, 2007
"Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason"
Why does the Washington Post give Michael Gerson editorial-page space to parade his theological ignorance?
June 18, 2007
Blasphemers
A Pakistan minister blasphemously justifies suicide bombing to defend the Prophet's honour.
September 16, 2006
The Regensburg incident
Pope Benedict's unwise choice of citation from the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Palaeologus has naturally upset many Muslims. That aside, the speech is well worth reading....
The Regensburg incident
Pope Benedict's unwise choice of citation from the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Palaeologus has naturally upset many Muslims. That aside, the speech is well worth reading....
July 11, 2006
Defending the Pope
Mark seems to find this comment from the Pope deeply disturbing: "In contemporary culture, we often see an excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual." Frankly, this is a comment that would be relatively uncontroversial among most believers in Catholic social teaching, on the left or right. It's also almost exactly the same sort of thing that Amitai Etzioni...
April 14, 2006
Semana Santa and white Lego
Holy Week in Andalucia, with thoughts about religious imagery in general
