Pacifist, Humanist, Pragmatist — Trying To Make Sense In Aftermath Of Sensless Virginia Tech Shootings

There are plenty of wonderful tributes to the victims, survivors, and their families on the web, both in the MSM as well as Facebook and Myspace. It’s important to understand the human losses this week. Personal stories of the victims make clear the depth of losses in the tragic shootings on the Virginia Tech […]

Test Your Religious Beliefs

This is one of my favorite online tests. I don’t always get the same result but I always get similar results.
Beliefnet.com’s Belief-O-Matic asks 20 questions, sometimes with some subtle choices, and you can mark each answer you give as being important or unimportant to you on a scale of 1-3. From your answers they rank […]

Faith, Ecstasy, and the Unknowable

I find it amazing, frustrating, and somewhat amusing to be at a new “crisis of faith” at mid-life. There have been several periods along the path where I believed I’d reached my “terminal belief system,” even while knowing that many become more religious later in life.
I always attributed late-life conversions to fear of the […]

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

The meaning of words is very important to me. As I write, words will flow from my fingertips that seem to express what I want to say, and as a particular word appears on my screen, I’ll question it. I know the word when I see it in context, and the language flows naturally, but […]

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth Banned in Schools

How wonderful it is that there are still parents in the Judeo-Christian tradition willing to sacrifice their children to God. Like their forefather, Abraham, Federal Way School District parents, in Washington state are ready to condemn their progeny.
Abraham, as I remember from Sunday School, obeyed his God with a sense of grief. The folks […]

Who Really Hanged Saddam Hussein?

I began hearing reports that Saddam Hussein would be executed this weekend just a day or so ago. Coupled with that information was speculation that there would be video, either in the mainstream press or on the internet. That such an event might be televised changed the execution from a bad idea to questioning what […]

Anderson Cooper

I don’t dabble in pop culture much. Admittedly, too often I avoid it, and then feel ignorant for the worthwhile bits that I miss. As of today, having watched one full segment of 360°, I’m hardly in a position to evaluate the show or Cooper’s work. The show I saw today, I think was a […]

Episcopals Take Their Crayons and Go Home

Last week nine Virginia Episcopal parishes voted to leave the U.S. Episcopal church to affiliate with the Episcopal Church of Nigeria. (see Harold Meyerson, Dec 20, WashingtonPost.com.)
[The] Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, … has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a “satanic attack” on the church, and … supports legislation in his […]

Lay Your Hand on the Koran and Repeat After Me.

I’ve never quite bought into the meaning of swearing on the Bible. I’m sure it is supposed to mean that because the book is held in reverence, the oath-taker will also reverence the truth or the ideal to be upheld. Attaching any additional meaning to the act seems either superstitious or offensive to the devout.
When […]

Marriage equality for all: abolish marriage!

There’s a lot to discuss on Gay Marriage Equality, for tonight, let me share this one anecdote.
There is one place where logic cuts through so clearly that it amazes me that the average lay person doesn’t get it. I have a very bright, liberal, open and warm couple of friends, a man and a woman […]

The fundamentalists have it fundamentally wrong

This moring I was listening to NPR. I like their “This I believe” segments, even when I don’t agree with the beliefs of the speakers and writers. This morning Richard Rohr was the presenter. His piece was titled “Utterly Humbled by Mystery.” He developed a portion of a theme I’ve been working on for a […]