Benjamin asked this question in a recent comment:
Can I do the same thing with religion as with the Bible, and throw out the flat book approach–take what works, chuck the rest?
Which got me thinking.
To me it’s fascinating that this is even a question. By insisting “you cannot do this”, some conservative Christians have made it into an issue. If they hadn’t, would anyone even be asking whether they can use their own judgment about what applies to them out of a book that’s 2,000 years old? Read the rest of this entry »
07-09-2008 |
41 Comments »I guest posted Christians, Compassion and Interfaith Meetings on Bill’s blog Friendly Christian today. It’s about the Seattle Seeds of Compassion Dalai Lama meetings which I’ve already posted about here.
I’ve been intrigued seeing some Christian bloggers criticize Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt for participating in the Interfaith panel discussions. The focus of this event was compassion. It seems to me that anyone who agrees to participate is saying “Yes, I agree that compassion is important” and anyone who declines is saying “No, I do not share the rest of the panel’s belief that compassion is important”. Read the rest of this entry »
04-24-2008 |
47 Comments »In his new book, Surprised by Hope, NT Wright (Bishop of Durham, England) says what some Christians believe about heaven is quite different from what’s in the Bible.
In a recent interview with TIME NT Wright explains that beliefs about heaven matter because they affect how we live and what we care about.
If people think “my physical body doesn’t matter very much,” then who cares what I do with it? And if people think that our world, our cosmos, doesn’t matter much, who cares what we do with that? Much of “traditional” Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfil the plan, you won’t be going up there to him, he’ll be coming down here.
[...]
If there’s going to be an Armageddon, and we’ll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn’t matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.
03-18-2008 |
4 Comments »Amy sent me this the other day:
I want to suggest a topic for discussion: the way atheists are portrayed in the media. After seeing “The Bucket List” (which I really did like) I’m getting tired of movies portraying atheists as rude, callous people. The same thing happened in “This Christmas”. The only non-Christian in the family was the drug dealing, distant son. “Dogma” treats unbelievers like they’re stupid. Not all nonbelievers are like that.
I liked all three of these movies, but I would like to see a movie that includes a NICE atheist every now and then.
That’s my opinion. I’d love to hear what others think.
I’d love to also. As well as commenting on atheists in movies, feel free to comment on other types of movie stereotyping too.
I’m guessing it’s not just atheists who have opinions about how they’re portrayed in movies.
01-28-2008 |
17 Comments »John MacArthur and Doug Pagitt give different answers. (I saw this on Bob Hyatt’s blog)
09-14-2007 |
20 Comments »Benjamin Ady tagged me to join in Christians confess.
I think he wants to know “So, when you were a Christian, just how much of a jerk were you, anyway?” :-)
Seriously, I like how Benjamin joined in this confession, considering if he might have things to confess from when he considered himself a Christian. My first reaction was “I don’t want to add myself to a list of current Christians because that doesn’t seem quite right. It seems like people might misconstrue me joining in as me taking an opportunity to complain about what jerks Christians are, in the guise of confessing.” My second one was “Hey, I wasn’t a jerk! I did my best to be a decent person back then”. But my third was “Do I have anything I regret from those days? Anything I thought, said or did, because of being a Christian?”
I do and some might be too personal to post here. But I can give you a general idea. Read the rest of this entry »
08-09-2007 |
27 Comments »I’d love to hear about any routes people here might be taking, or considering, to hear about ideas & beliefs they might not normally run across, &/or interact with people who hold different beliefs. (Or, even, routes people tried or considered, that didn’t end up happening.) There have been several posts about experiences like this on ebay atheist and Conversation at the Edge over the past year or so; I’ve included a partial summary, with links, below in case anyone wants to look back at some of those. Those include: atheists going to church…Christians going to mosques…Christians inviting atheists to interfaith events…Abortion protestors and abortionists actually talking to each other. You know, not the kind of interaction you’d typically run across every day. ;-)
I’m also interested in hearing how people here might plan a session, or a series of several sessions, to explain their beliefs to others who don’t share those beliefs. Who might attend? How would you get the word to those people? What setting might work? What tone, and topics, might you aim for? How would you know if the effort was ‘worth it’?
Go ahead & describe either something you’re actually doing or planning…or something that seems pie-in-the-sky-but-neat-if-it-could-happen! Read the rest of this entry »
02-22-2007 |
4 Comments »Everyone seems to like a good story. I certainly do — I learned to read early and have been an avid reader ever since.
I think one reason stories work so well is that they don’t demand that we understand them a particular way. They come alongside us, gently inviting us to find meaning in them and parallels with our own lives.
This leaves us wonderful room to find our own connections with the story. Since our brains love to find connections, we do and are often shocked at how powerfully a story touches us.
01-29-2007 |
12 Comments »This week, because of Martin Luther King Jr Day, I’ve been poking around on the Internet for information about MLK and nonviolence. I’d read before that MLK was influenced by Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, and that Gandhi was influenced by Jesus.
Turns out, if Wikipedia and other sources are correct, both King and Gandhi were influenced by Leo Tolstoy’s 1893-94 book The Kingdom of God is Within You. “The Kingdom…” is about the principle of nonresistance taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42) and exhibited by Jesus at his arrest (Matthew 26:50-52) - and how Tolstoy thought the church was ignoring this and other teachings by Jesus from the gospels.
There are some more comments, and links to the text of this and another book by Tolstoy, and a quote from one of his books, for those who want to read on.
For discussion, feel free to comment on any aspect of this that strikes you. I’m intrigued by these questions:
01-18-2007 |
18 Comments »In comment #68 of Class #1 David H posted the following insightful comments.
I think [super-imposing 'belief' over 'Christ' as a foundation for the Christian faith] is a far-too-common “Christian” practice. Were you to read a denominational doctrine statement you might be able to compile a point-by-point list of other examples. Even biblioatry — worship of the Bible — has become a huge American Christian phenomena.
Obviously it occurs, the bigger question is why? I have a few thoughts on that. Read the rest of this entry »
10-11-2006 |
11 Comments »