thinktoomuch.net

How does a fundie know he’s right? This question was recently touched on in a long discussion with a “proud fundamentalist”. The question then was about how one knows whose interpretation or emphasis is correct, given we had four people present with interpretations that differ to varying degrees. I now believe the tradition to be [...]

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Found via a blog post on his blog, in this video of Peter Rollins, he shares an ancient Jewish parable about what it means to wrestle with scripture, what the tradition means to those that belong to the family. the essence, not that we find the right answer, but that we wrestle with the tradition [...]

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This post was promised as a follow-up to Sadducees and the Afterlife. That makes this the third post in a series of three, the first was Hope. Here’s the paragraph I pruned from the previous post in this series — you need to read that post for this to make sense: I love this piece, [...]

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I don’t believe in literal, physical demons… In fact, I bet even those that believe in demons, don’t believe they’re actually made of stuff, of atoms, for example. People that believe in demons typically believe in a “spiritual realm”, in which these “spiritual things” happen. What is this “spiritual realm”? And supposing such a realm [...]

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This post was separated from the original, to move the off-topic comment thread to another location. I will try to shift the on-topic comments back to the original post later, but that’s harder to do.

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Nearly two weeks ago, six male students decided to have some fun for themselves by barging into a church service naked. Four were successfully blocked from reaching the auditorium, but two made it all the way… and opened fire with pepper spray. (UPDATE^2: this source, which claims the pepper spray may have belonged to the [...]

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Wikipedia’s definition of theology is as follows: Theology is the study of religion from a religious perspective. It has been defined as reasoned discourse about God or the gods, or more generally about religion or spirituality. Now in a recent conversation about “Creation vs Evolution” on the Shofar Facebook group, this sentiment was raised (by [...]

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There has been much debate about whether or not Shofar is a cult. I prefer not to take part in such debates, being someone that doesn’t care much for labels. I’m too fluid in my definitions. And besides, those already debating this point are providing more than enough entertainment for the observer. (And more than [...]

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In the future, when I share stories about interesting conversations, I want to protect the anonymity of the person I was talking to. If I were to write a number of posts involving the same conversation, I may mix it up a little so that readers can’t build up too much of a profile. It [...]

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A recent email exchange with a creationist brought up this sentiment again: He has to believe in evolution because that is the career he chose. He sucked up what they told him. This creationist tactic is disingenuous. They are taught that the reason scientists accept evolution, is because they would not otherwise get a job, [...]

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