It is hard for an atheist to know what to say when reviewing a book like A House for Hope; The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-first Century. Its authors, John A. Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker, are deeply religious and their book’s intent would appear to be devotional and inspirational. It presents no creative, original, or intellectual premise that is developed and for which a conclusion is reached. Read on…
There is a tiny area at the back of my head where I run mental jobs that are the human equivalent of background tasks. I can poke them back there to run on their own, and they pop out with a “DING!” when they have something to say. Some of them have been there for years; they keep dinging but still need more work, so I put them back. Read on…
Those of you who have read my posts here and elsewhere will know that I miss the Freethinking Unitarian church that I joined in the 60s and which the parent organization has tried to turn into just another christian denomination over the past twenty or so years. I have other Web sites that are dedicated, in part, to reversing that catastrophe. Now, along with a few others who feel the same way, a new think tank has been formed to … Read on…
A child of twelve in a wonderful Black Baptist church can be captured by the activity, no matter the boy’s personal color. The preacher perched up high, talking about heaven or hell, saying we’ll all be saved by jeee-sus. All those people shouting and singing, happy and good people. Box lunches full of homemade fried chicken. It was a dream come true for an adolescent boy. Read on…
It is probably fair to say that unbelievers are not a very cohesive group. Independence is the nature of the beast; if it were not, the unbeliever would not have made the effort to develop a world-view that is so far from so many of his fellow human beings. Like them, rather, she would have accepted the “common wisdom,” agreed that there was a god that was the master of her fate, and bedded down with the sheep. Instead, the … Read on…