When it comes to religion, some of us want to have it both ways: when deeply religious people do bad things, we are quick to say that their religious beliefs are to blame, but when deeply religious people do good things, we take little to no interest in their religious beliefs, as if those beliefs [...]
Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category
#49 Reporting to God for duty
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Corrie ten Boom, Desmond Tutu, Diana Butler Bass, Dorothy Day, Florence Nightingale, John Newman, Scott Walker, William Wilberforce on March 7, 2011 | 2 Comments »
#47 Men, please get as mad as hell!
Posted in Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Afghanistan, forward-thinking men, Hamid Karzai, Indonesia, Iran, Nematullah Shahrani, Shia Islam, Sunni Islam, violence against women on August 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »
When women have gotten the right to vote or to divorce or to inherit property or to have legal protection from rape, it’s because men have agreed to change the law of the land. A few forward-thinking women demanded those rights—some nicely, some not so nicely. Allied to their cause was some of the menfolk, [...]
#31 A “why-do-the-right-thing” quiz
Posted in Ethics, God, Theological Ethics, tagged decision-making, moral maxim on July 30, 2009 | 4 Comments »
NOTE: The Naked Theologian will be on hiatus for the month of August and will return after the Labor Day holiday. A Scenario: You stop by the convenience store to pick up a gallon of milk. On your way out, you hand the cashier a $10 bill. After she gives you your change, you realize [...]
#27 Iran and an ethics of yielding
Posted in Ethics, God, Theological Ethics, tagged Ali Khamenei, Iran, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Montaigne on June 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There is the world as-it-is, and then there is the world that-could-be. In Iran, this is the world as-it-is: the disputed legitimacy of the recent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad propelled enraged supporters of his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, into the sweltering streets of Teheran. Ahmadinejad (with the blessing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah [...]
#24 Everybody goes to heaven, right?
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged degrees of bliss, Julian of Norwich, universalism on May 31, 2009 | 9 Comments »
Most Americans agree that yes, everybody goes to heaven after they die. Not buying it? The part about most Americans agreeing that everybody goes to heaven? Here’s the empirical evidence. A few months ago, a study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (mentioned by Charles Blow in a New York Times editorial) showed that 70 [...]
#23 Generalized religiousness and the American dream
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religions, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged generalized religiousness, sexy messiah on May 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
In a recent New York Times editorial, Ross Douthat, describes religious trends in 21st century America as neither shifting towards the extreme of unbelief or the extreme of fundamentalism. Instead, religious trends are shifting toward a “generalized ‘religiousness’ detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.” While growing numbers of Americans are abandoning organized [...]
#22 How good are we without God?
Posted in Ethics, God, Religion, Theological Ethics, tagged charitable contributions, conservatives, liberals, tithing on May 12, 2009 | 6 Comments »
How good are we without God? Apparently not as good. Several studies have shown that American liberals—namely, those most likely to have little or no God, are least likely to give to charity. Hurts, doesn’t it? Where’s the proof, you say? Robert Brooks, who recently wrote a book, Who Really Cares, about charitable donors discovered [...]
#18 God and the Devil duke it out in the john
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Devil, Hosea Ballou, Martin Luther, Toilet theology, William Ellery Channing on April 14, 2009 | 3 Comments »
WC. Water Closet. Privy. Crapper. Must stripped-down theology sink to the level of the toilet? But this is precisely where the ‘father’ of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther (1483-1546), claimed he had been given his most important of realizations. Luther didn’t stop at the marketplace when talking about the presence of God (and the Devil). If God [...]
#16 Will there be anyone left to speak out?
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Easter, Lasantha Wickramatunga, Martin Niemoller on March 30, 2009 | 2 Comments »
According to the New Testament, Jesus entered Jerusalem without any illusion about what lay in store for him: arrest, torture and crucifixion. Prophesying and calling for reform have always been dangerous, but undeterred by the risks, Jesus headed to the temple with his controversial teachings. Was he afraid? In the gospel of Mark, the oldest [...]
#14 Rescued from the iron cage of guilt
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Christ, conscience, guilt, Lent, salvation, sin on March 15, 2009 | 2 Comments »
If you don’t have an ear for the music of Christianity, it may be hard to make sense of why the Lenten days tracking the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ journey from freedom to arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection are so important to Christians. The answer partly lies in the doctrine that Christ liberates, or saves, human [...]
The Naked Theologian
is a Unitarian Universalist minister working on a Ph.D. in Theology
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