Gods And Fools

A matter of perspective

Timmy shares the pic above.  What letters do the wooden blocks represent?  It depends on your perspective, of course. 

That veers toward relativism, right?  I guess objectivism, and the notion that there is one concrete, ultimate perspective, is behind most traditional religions, eg, "Although human minds are foolish and unreliable, our gods have provided us with a unique and reliable revelation, contained in X book of scriptures."

The odd thing is when they say that only those within their faith have access to such a reliable perspective, but then end up living their lives as though only members of one political perspective, inside or outside their faith, have a reliable grip on reality.  Who's really your daddy...?

In coming days, I'll muse a little bit on how reliable such revelations may really be.  

God's Only Party

Once again, the data suggests that the more often you hit church, the more Republican you are.  But this time, the most-frequent churchgoers turn out to be the only group that hasn't moved away from the GOP since 2001.

Here's a question:  Given that weekly churchgoers are the lone bedrock of the GOP, what does this mean for church leaders who need to fill up the collection plates during a recession?  Will they tailor their ministries to keep the conservative faithful fully comfortable?  Or has perhaps the leaders' own natural conservatism helped build flocks that are reliably one-note? 

Defending Atheists from the Defenders of the Faith

Here's a piece from the Daily News site that I tossed up last night, and which is getting some lively comment. I chew there on the recent Stanley Fish defense of God in the NY Times.  And Timmy C, I need to still get back to you on some recent comments of yours re an older piece of mine.  Thanks!