Family Values
From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:
To make such human, historical phenomena as Christian “Family Values,” “Islam,” or “the Holy Land” the focus of religious devotion is a new form of idolatry. This type of belligerent righteousness has been a constant temptation to monotheists throughout the long history of God. It must be rejected as inauthentic. The God of Jews, Christians and Muslims got off to an unfortunate start, since the tribal deity Yahweh was murderously partial to his own people. Latter-day crusaders who return to this primitive ethos are elevating the values of the tribe to an unacceptably high status and substituting man-made ideals for the transcendent reality which should challenge our prejudices. They are also denying a crucial monotheistic theme. Ever since the prophets of Israel reformed the old pagan cult of Yahweh, the God of monotheists has promoted the ideal of compassion.
What I’ve Been Listening To
Tree rings solve another mystery
A few weeks ago I wrote about how cool it is to be able to read the stories tree rings record, but I didn’t tell you any of those stories. However, Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science describes a very old story that’s recently been translated: the fall of Angkor. Scientists discovered two very serious droughts and some unfortunately timed flooding that likely did the powerful city in.
Protected: Portrait
PEDOS IN THE LITTLE GIRLS’ ROOM
When my supposedly progressive town tried to pass a non-discrimination ordinance that would have prevented people from being denied housing or employment because of their sexual orientation or gender identification, the religious crazies came out in force. They were perfectly comfortable calling me and the other queer people at public hearings pedophiles and accusing us of bestiality. When it came close to passing, our mayor shot it down because of her “Christian beliefs.” Now that even Salt Lake City has passed a similar ordinance, I wonder if it’ll have more of a chance here.
Imagining God
From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:
Today many people in the West would be dismayed if a leading theologian suggested that God was in some profound sense a product of the imagination. Yet it should be obvious that the imagination is the chief religious faculty. It has been defined by Jean-Paul Sartre as the ability to think of what is not. … The idea of God, however it is defined is perhaps the prime example of an absent reality which, despite its inbuilt problems, has continued to inspire men and women for thousands of years. The only we we can conceive of God, who remains imperceptible to the senses and to logical proof, is by means of symbol, which it is the chief function of the imaginative mind to interpret.