Christmas is a lot more fun with kids. Fatherhood doesn’t really begin in the delivery room. What happens in there is more like getting hit between the eyes with a steel hammer with lots of blood and water thrown in… Continue Reading
To believe is human, to doubt divine. ~ Peter Rollins
If we found out that our neighbour visited someone who was ill, or fed someone who was hungry, simply because they were going to receive a monetary reward for it, we would never look kindly on that act. We would… Continue Reading
From the Twittersphere: “One day we’ll see legal discrimination by *place* of birth as evil as discrim. by other features of birth –gender, orientation, color.” — Charles Kenny (@charlesjkenny) June 25, 2011
Dostoyevsky: If God does not exist, then everything is permitted. Zizek: If God does exist, then everything is permitted.
Changing status to: Hopeful skeptic (Thanks Nick Fielder).
When I hear people in the church talking about how they really aren’t anti-gay people, it’s just that they want what is best for them, or that they aren’t promoting discrimination towards gays, only they want to keep the institute… Continue Reading
This American Life had a great show this week on relationships ruined by political views. While listening to stories of estranged families and ruined friendships because one person voted Romney or Obama I couldn’t help thinking how similar this sort… Continue Reading
Stay safe friends and family. We’re thinking of you…
I have seen the future. It involves eating at less expensive Italian restuarants. It possibly also involves bits of food being thrown around in public.
Saw this while checking out a Brian McLaren book online: “For God so loved the church that he gave to himself his only Son, as a penal substitutionary sacrifice, so that those elect few who believe in this atoning doctrine… Continue Reading
“Lead me well, don’t clear my way It’s fascinating how the pallor can stay upon your face When you are light like a little boy Flying kites and shouting to the world You’re shouting to the world your joy Don’t fade, you’re staying here with… Continue Reading
Welcome to planet earth, little Zoe. You’re surrounded by our love.
I often hear people talking about having an unshakeable faith as though it were a good thing. Maybe it is the gap now between where I am in my own life and the place where formal churches seem to be… Continue Reading
From fixtures and forces and friends Your sorrow does stem That hype you and type you Making you feel that you must be exactly like them. ~ Bob Dylan
Ben Walsh speaking the truth on what happens to 21 year olds when you show them a big pile of money. This Wall Street intern has it exactly backwards: But eventually, you start to expect more. You’re definitely seduced. You think, “If… Continue Reading
Updating to: Believes in the question: “is there a God?”
I’ve been delving into the Stoics this year and can’t help but feel the influence on my views on Christianity. I’m very sympathetic to the idea of being an agnostic about the afterlife. I don’t think that it should have… Continue Reading
I think this definition of the spiritual need or insight in humans is about as good as any I’ve come across. For some it is not based on reason and for many it is not even about experience. But the… Continue Reading
I sometimes look at other people’s Facebook statuses when they talk about God speaking to them and I can’t make up my mind whether I’m envious of having that sort of intimacy with God or whether I think they’re just… Continue Reading
There’s a line in Lewis Carroll’s “Through The Looking Glass” in which the White Queen advises Alice to practice believing six impossible things before breakfast. I’ve recently decided not to embrace that technique for a while. Sometimes we get frustrated… Continue Reading
I learned this over the last few weeks: If you’re trying to allow your life to be influenced by Taoism and Stoicism, you really shouldn’t be too upset by the onset of male pattern baldness. Marcus Aurelius would be very… Continue Reading
Via Pete Rollins I discovered Kester Brewin recently. Phew! If you think Pete is a little edgy, Kester pretty muchs pours gasoline all over orthodox theology and lights a match. I’m a big fan of brave theology. I tend to… Continue Reading
The problem of evil traditionally goes a little something like this: If God is good and all powerful, then why do really, really bad things happen? Surely a good God would stop that suffering? If there is a God, He… Continue Reading
Spiritual abuse… highlighted by Matthew Paul Turner. I’d prefer not to come across as moralising but this is toxic Christianity. This is what makes recovering from some versions of Christianity just so hard to do. I’ve not quite seen an… Continue Reading
Andrew Sullivan with a piece on leaving the Church in order to follow Jesus: “Organized religion itself is in trouble. The Catholic Church’s hierarchy lost much of its authority over the American flock with the unilateral prohibition of the pill… Continue Reading
I heard Pete Rollins once tell a little anecdote that is a great illustration of the difficulty of relating to fundamentalism. He once said he sat down with a local fundamentalist pastor to try and sketch out the differences between… Continue Reading
If you move away from modern evangelicalism, there’s a label applied to you: backslider. It’s a nasty little term that assumes you have moved into darkness and that the evangelicals still hold the truth. But when you look back at… Continue Reading
Note: This piece was written for Partially Examined Life and appears in its full context there. It is an expansion on an earlier entry written on this site about zombie ethics. A common difficulty with the philosophy of ethics is that… Continue Reading
I believe God calls some people to unbelief so that faith can take new forms. ~ Christian Wiman