Yom Kippur just passed, that Jewish day of atonement and of human-granted and God-granted forgiveness. But what about God’s atonement for God’s sins of omission and of commission? After all, many of us hold God responsible for the tragedies that plague our world. “Look God,” we might say, “Take a good look around will You? [...]
Archive for the ‘Religious Philosophy’ Category
#35 The art of forgiving God
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theology, tagged atonement, forgiveness, sins of commission, sins of omission, Yom Kippur on October 4, 2009 | 2 Comments »
#34 Blah blah blah: help or hindrance?
Posted in Philosophy of Religions, Religious Philosophy, Theology, tagged commonalities, dialogue, differences, Martin Buber, monologue on September 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It’s common wisdom that religion is NEVER, EVER a topic of polite conversation. Talking about religious views supposedly leads to arguments, so if one wishes to avoid the risk of a friendship-ending conflict, one should keep mum. We are trained at near Pavlovian levels; if our interlocutor has the bad grace to bring up religion, [...]
#32 The wait for God is over
Posted in God, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged existence, history of God, Karen Armstrong, reality on September 9, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Like many of us, the religion-scholar and popular author, Karen Armstrong, spent decades waiting for God. Raised a Roman Catholic, God remained a shadowy figure even as she sat through countless sermons and countless catechism classes. God, described to her in abstract terms, meant little to her. God existed—of this, Armstrong was certain, at least [...]
#25 Spiritual (But Not Religious)
Posted in God, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spirituality, Theology, tagged psychology of religion on June 8, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Have you ever noticed how some opinions say more about the opiniators themselves than the thing they’re opiniating about? God would be one such example. The opinions people have about God often say more about who they are than they do about who God is. But, uncharacteristically, God is not the topic of this post. [...]
#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 [...]
#17 Out with the old God, in with the new
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Arthur A. Cohen, Holocaust, Passover, Silence of God on April 6, 2009 | 2 Comments »
For Jews, Passover is supposed to be historically real. The Haggadah (the text that sets the order of the Passover meal) commands Jews to consider themselves to have gone forth in exodus from Egypt. The Haggadah emphasizes this absolute demand lest Jews be tempted to reduce it to the level of a metaphor. “The authority [...]
#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 [...]
#13 Giving up Me-Centrism for Lent
Posted in Ethics, God, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spiritual Exercises, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Lent, Levinas, Me-Centrism on March 5, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Think you’re number one? Who doesn’t? Are you a narcissist? Hey, who isn’t? After all, our interior world is most vivid to ourselves. Who could possibly know and care for our well-being and happiness better than ourselves? A tidy amount of Me-Centrism is desirable (we Americans prefer to call it self-esteem), but in sloppy-sized doses, it turns [...]
#12 God without clothes: what would s/he look like?
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religions, Prayer, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theology on February 26, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Is God unknowable, beyond the possibility of the human mind to comprehend? There are plenty of good reasons to be intentional about keeping God abstract. To preserve the one God as a word of appeal for every person, regardless of whether that person is male or female, is most easily achieved by denying that God has [...]
The Naked Theologian
is a Unitarian Universalist minister working on a Ph.D. in Theology
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