The Case for Religion
My friend Rich @ TheoCentriC has a review of Keith Ward's book The Case for Religion. I'll have to admit that I'm intellectually prejudiced against anyone using Lee Strobel's format of The Case for X as indicating a good apologetic text is soon to follow, but I always enjoy Rich's commentary and trust his perspective and insight. From his review: “A convergent spirituality becomes possible in the modern world, which is not an agreement on doctrines or practices, but is an acceptance that many diverse paths of prayer and meditation converge upon one supreme reality of wisdom, compassion and bliss. That, it may be felt, is the heart of true religion” (232). If we ...2007 LA Times Festival of Books
The 2007 LA Times Festival of Books Religion & Culture Panel spoke this weekend on CSPAN and is available for watching here. It has an eclectic group of authors who spoke including Zachary Karabell (Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence), Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), Jonathan Kirsch (A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization) and headed by Thane Rosenbaum. It's about one hour long and worth the time to hear the wit of Hitchens and the more nuanced arguments of the other panelists on a ...Book Review: God is Not Great
This then becomes the great prize of humanism, and consequently that which religion most fears, that man should see his own errors for what they are and all that is and see himself as the only savior he will ever have. While we may have need of divine intervention, in much the same way as we may need another deposit in our bank account or a mentor to speak to the errors of our ways, such need has no relevance to what is, what was, or what might be. That religion makes so much of what was and what is yet to come is to suggest, as Hitchens does, that it might not be worthy of entrusting with ...Hitchens & the Inevitability of Iraq
Christopher Hitchens has a new article at Slate on Ali Allawi's new memoir, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace in which Iraq as a fractured state on the cusp of implosion (our involvement or not) should be recognized. From Hitchen's essay: Without needing or wishing to soften any critique of post-invasion planning, I would propose that this analysis has a highly unsettling implication. Hell was coming to Iraq no matter what. This point is undergirded by another one, which is that hell was already making considerable strides in Iraq in the decade before 2003. Again, Allawi's cool analysis and careful evidence darkens this already black picture. All the crucial indices, from illiteracy to unemployment to ...Carnage Hits Home
The heinous nature of yesterday's killings at Virginia Tech defy comprehension. But they are not without their immediately contemporary parallels, and unfortunately one such is in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan makes the comparison: Imagine that this kind of massacre happened every day. Imagine a police force that was far too small to even respond to most of them. Imagine this occurring repeatedly for years until the perpetrators and their accomplices became the de facto power-brokers throughout the land. Imagine the shootings also being accompanied by the brutal torture of victims. Imagine families never having finality on whether their own siblings or parents or children have been murdered or not. This is Iraq today. Now think of the justified rage many ...John Bolton & the BBC
John Bolton recently sat down with BBC reporter Jeremy Paxman. There are a couple of important points to draw out of Bolton's appearance: first, the neo-conservative justification for "what went / is going wrong" in Iraq is shifting to the Iraqis themselves. We heard this first from the Administration during the run-up for the November '06 Congressional elections, and it has a certain cache to it: ultimately no one is responsible for the outcome of their own governance other than those being governed. If you find that satisfying, ask yourself if it really makes sense after what we pre-emptively did, or whether you're just frustrated with the slow bleed that Iraq has become. ...Finally … a Break in this *&%$#@ Weather
We have been having some of the worst April weather on record, but today at least it is sunny! So I took the dogs out to a local park where they could run and play. My girl shepherd Porsche can be off leash, which she flaunts over my boy shepherd Laser who can't be (a shelter dog we adopted, lovely dog, but always looking for someway to run off!). Anyway, some pictures of our outing below.Eisenhower & Pre-Emptive Wars
Found this an interesting quote from a President who knew something about strategy, the military, and the reasonable aims both can and cannot accomplish: All of us have heard this term "preventive war" since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it.... I would say a preventive war, if words mean anything, is to wage some sort of quick police action in order that you might avoid a terrific cataclysm of destruction later. A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today.... I don't believe there is such a thing, and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. But again, this was also ...Jeff Sharlet’s Fightin’ Fundies
The most recent Rolling Stone has a good article by Jeff Sharlet on Ron Luce and his organization Battle Cry. If you haven't heard of this organization, it's membership can usually be determined by the overly serious visages from teenagers who at their point in life should be discovering a lot of things other than religious thinking cloaked in military metaphors. That, or anyone wearing a t-shirt with one of a host of pithy slogans like: "ABREADCRUMB & FISH" or "Not Of This World" or "RAISE THE DEAD". You have to look carefully, because the t-shirts are designed to look like any avant-gard rock & roll band or Lucky-Jeans paraphernalia. And that's a good ...H.L. Mencken & Agnosticsm
Hat Tip Andrew Sullivan: "All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely. "For who hath known the mind of the Lord?" asked Paul of the Romans. "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His was past finding out." "It is the glory of God," said Solomon, "to conceal a thing." "Clouds and darkness," said David, "are around Him." "No man," said the Preacher, "can find out the work of God." ... The difference between religions is a difference in their relative content of agnosticism. The most satisfying ... « Previous EntriesAbout MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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