A Thinking Reed

  • Eagleton on Jesus and “sprituality”

    I haven’t read literary critic Terry Eagleton’s new book on the “new atheists,” and I’m frankly not that interested in the whole new atheist phenomenon period (I haven’t seen much to indicate that one wouldn’t be much better off reading, say, David Hume for razor-sharp critiques of religion). But Kim at “Connexions” has some provocative…

  • Distinctivism in practice

    I spent the weekend in Boston attending the wedding of some good friends. The ceremony itself was a Hindu-Christian fusion, certainly a first for me–Hindu and Christian prayers, blessings, readings, and rituals were interspersed throughout. There was also a joyfulness in parts of the service that seems all too absent from much mainstream Christian worship,…

  • Friday metal – shippin’ up to Boston edition

    Heading to Boston for a wedding this weekend. To get in the spirit, here’s one of Beantown’s finest:

  • The lizard people cometh

    This could be incredibly cool, or incredibly lame, but ABC is re-making the 80s science fiction series V, which, if you’re of a certain age, you probably remember as being awesome/terrifying. As a bonus, it will star Morena Baccarin, who played Inara on Firefly/Serenity and Elizabeth Mitchell (a.k.a. Juliet) from Lost. I’m sure I’ll be…

  • This is your brain on God

    Marvin hits the nail on the head here: just because an experience can be artificially reproduced doesn’t mean it isn’t genuine or veridical when it occurs under other circumstances. Why would we expect that religious or mystical experiences, if genuine, would bypass the brain anyway? In fact, why would we even think that’s possible?

  • Sometimes a beer is just a beer

    I agree that Christians should drink beer (I mean, if they want to). But I’m not sure they need to put this much thought into it. Surely what the world needs now is not legions of hipster Christian beer snobs.

  • Republican demagoguery and Democratic pusillanimity

    Well, what else is new? The American Conservative‘s indispensable Kelley Vlahos on the Gitmo mess.

  • Alternate universes

    Michael Lind: Suppose that in an alternate Rod Serling universe our other-dimensional twins paid for Pentagon spending on the basis of a dedicated national consumption tax, while they paid for Social Security and Medicare out of general taxation. In that case, opponents of Pentagon spending might have a field day denouncing the gap between the…

  • Eating with civility

    I imagine this will be of interest to some readers: “Civil Eats,” a site dedicated to “critical thought about sustainable agriculture and food systems as part of building economically and socially just communities.” This post, by Paul Shapiro on big ag’s counterattack against animal welfare measures is worth checking out.

  • Religious distinctivism?

    In talking about the claims made by the world’s religions, this is the familiar typology used to map the possible positions: Exclusivism: the view that only one religion is true and/or salvific. Inclusivism: the view that one religion is maximally true and/or salvific, but that adherents of other religions (or none) can potentially be saved.…