A Thinking Reed

  • So great a cloud of witnesses

    Chris, the Lutheran Zephyr, is wrestling with the question of asking the saints to pray for us. For me this falls under the category of “all may, none must.” I can see why some are uncomfortable with it, and I wouldn’t presume to judge someone else’s piety. The argument that it’s permissible is, I think,…

  • Superiority complex

    Time blogger Joe Klein has produced a couple of posts purporting to identify the characteristics of “right-wing extremists” and “left-wing extremists.” LWEs hate America, capitalism, mom and apple pie, while RWEs think America and capitalism are never in the wrong, that universal health care equals socialism, etc. Determining to what extent these stereotypes match up…

  • Lent for nerds or The desire to possess as alienation from God

    Part of my Lenten fast is that I’m not going to buy any books. This may sound silly, but I’ve found that I often crave books in the way that other people might crave a new pair of shoes or something for their house. Although I (eventually!) read most of the books I buy, I…

  • Preventive war is “inherently pernicious”

    Andrew Bacevich urges Congress to renounce the Bush Doctrine: The fifth anniversary of President Bush’s West Point speech [where he promulgated the “Bush Doctrine] approaches. Prior to that date, Democratic leaders should offer a binding resolution that makes the following three points: First, the United States categorically renounces preventive war. Second, the United States will…

  • Psalm-blogging

    David Plotz, a self-described “proud Jew, but never a terribly observant one” has been “blogging the Bible” at Slate. He’s just gotten to the Psalms and has some interesting observations. I like his description of David as a pickup artist.

  • Into Great Silence

    This documentary, about the life of a group of Carthusian monks living in the French Alps sounds really fascinating.

  • Up from atheism

    Warning: lengthy post ahead! I first became a professed atheist at about age 15; I decided that I had seen through all the illusions of those around me, those unthinking, dogmatic, hypocritical, narrow-minded small-town types I had grown up with. I literally announced to my parents that I would no longer be attending church (I…

  • Plantinga on Dawkins and Calvinism and (vs?) philosophy

    Alvin Plantinga, probably the most important contemporary Christian philosopher working in the analytic tradition, has a lengthy review of Dawkins’ God Delusion. I have to say that I have almost no appetite for these back-and-forth polemics; I was an atheist for a considerable period of time and don’t feel much need to revisit it. But…

  • They’ve got personality

    Jon Katz writes the series Rural Life for Slate.com; he’s a writer who started his own farm with his wife and now writes about it. One of his recurring themes is the intelligence and personality of farm animals and how human interaction can affect them. Today’s entry is about a sassy hen named Henrietta and…

  • Eat less meat, save the planet

    The Christian Science Monitor reports on yet another report linking the raising of livestock on an industrial scale to climate change: As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines. Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse…