A friend from the church I used to attend emailed me this column by Eric Zorn and asked me my opinion of it.
In the column Eric Zorn praises the ‘Humble Majority’ revealed in recent Pew Forum findings. Here are a couple of excerpts
In reading the results of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s poll of American religious beliefs and practices, the number that jumped out at me was 70. That’s the percentage of adults affiliated with a faith tradition who said they agree with the statement, “Many religions can lead to eternal life.”
It all adds up to whopping proof of the existence of what I’m calling the Humble Majority—the roughly three-quarters of us who feel that, at some point, the great riddles of life are, in fact, riddles.
The Humble Majority is a spiritually diverse crowd, to say the least. But the poll indicates those people share a common view that no single religion or philosophical system has a monopoly on the Absolute Truth.
Basically Eric is saying “You can’t be humble if you’re certain that your beliefs are more true than mine.” He’s reacting against people who dismiss his beliefs as certainly inferior.
Yet isn’t he doing the same thing they are, in dismissing them as certainly arrogant?
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Jeremy has an interesting post up about his Buddhist friend John’s response to a Christian festival.
John was helping Jeremy demonstrate Chinese Juggling Sticks at the event. Jeremy was curious about John’s reactions throughout the event. Here’s John’s first comment along with Jeremy’s thoughts
As soon as [John] showed up, the first thing he said was, “I didn’t realize this was only for Christians. Am I welcome here?” Ironically, this was an “evangelistic” event, but every single person I talked to was already attending a church somewhere, while John, the Buddhist, immediately felt unwelcome. I think it had something to do with all the Christian music blaring everywhere, the Christian symbols on every square inch, and everybody wearing Christian t-shirts.
John also commented on the music and that the bottled water cost $4. Check out Jeremy’s post to see the rest of John’s comments.
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Here’s my latest response in the local newspaper dialog on doubt and faith I’ve been having with Rev. Dean Lueking.
If you want to see the whole dialog (which has been going on for almost two years now) I have links to it here. It began when I wrote about why I don’t go to church anymore for the newspaper. Dean, who I didn’t know at the time, wrote an elegant gracious response. I wrote back and it turned into a dialog.
We’ve continued writing back and forth in the newspaper since then and occasionally meet to chat (when he’s in town – he travels a lot, doing ministry around the world for the Lutheran church).
Dean, I was interested to read your thoughts about The Way as it applies to people inside prisons. ['The Way' reaches behind bars, Viewpoints, May 28]
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In November I posted about Lakshmi, the young girl with eight limbs, four from a conjoined twin which didn’t fully develop. At that time she had a lengthy operation to remove the extra limbs.
I was pleased to read a CNN update on Lakshmi saying she’s doing well:
Posted in General Conversation | 2 Comments »Lakshmi Tatma whirls around in her walker at a charity school for disabled children in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, one tiny arm holding a balloon, her bandaged legs splayed wide apart, an enormous smile on her face.
Twirling in a wheeled plastic disc is unremarkable for most 2-year-olds but a big achievement for Lakshmi, a child born with eight limbs who her rural villagers believed was a goddess, not a girl, and who underwent a surgery last fall unlike any her doctors had ever performed.
In case you hadn’t heard, George Carlin died yesterday. Here he is talking about ‘soft language’.
Posted in General Conversation | 10 Comments »(I’m not sure if these are all real)
Posted in General Conversation, Videos | 3 Comments »Over on the ChurchRater blog, Beth reflects on her experiences of women’s ministries this year and asks, wouldn’t it be better to have DSF, “Do Something Fellowship, instead of BSF (Bible Study Fellowship)? What an awesome question! Go check out her post.
Posted in General Conversation | 4 Comments »As of today I’ve been psych meds free for five years.
I wrote about it here (on my personal blog).
Posted in General Conversation | 7 Comments »Yesterday my counselor asked me how I dealt with discouragement.
I said “I think about something else”. I do that not to avoid the facts, but because when I’m feeling discouraged it’s mostly because I’m worrying – which is a waste of time since it’s based on “what ifs” rather than facts.
Years ago I thought ‘thinking about something else’ was avoiding facing the reality of something, that it was just a delaying tactic. Since then I realized it’s a legitimate and useful strategy for dealing with thinking that doesn’t change my circumstances and negatively affects my mood. This approach is not just postponing the inevitable because that kind of thinking is unnecessary and never needs returning to.
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