Tag: religion
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The Spirituality of Softening
The only religions I find worth anything are those that soften people. This is a thing I’d felt for a while, and something I’m sure someone else has put into words before, but when it finally occurred to me it was something of a revelation. The Christianities I’ve seen in America that turn me off […]
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OPW: Charter for Compassion
I’ve recently decided that I’m gonna play it a little looser around here, which means I can bring back an old feature: Other People’s Words. The document doesn’t list an author, but it’s pretty deeply related to everything I’ve been trying to say when I’ve used the Life category in the last year. Built from […]
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OPW: ‘Radical Love Gets A Holiday’
This last Monday, this country celebrated–to the extent that it celebrates any federal holiday–Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. In honor of the occasion, the New York Times ran an interesting essay by Sarah Vowell that I couldn’t help but agree with. Here’s what Dr. King got out of the Sermon on the Mount. On Nov. […]
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The Triviality of Difference
Everywhere you look, especially as a teenager, the world is full of others. Of people “not like me.” And though teenagers feel this most intensely, few do not feel it regularly. Just look at the latent antipathy that exists in this country toward Iranians. Or Arabs. Or Mexicans. Or even the French. Surely these people […]
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Of Teddy Bears and Ignorance
By now you’ve probably heard something about a teddy bear in the news. But it seems to me that the way people understood the story had a lot to do with where they heard about it. So in the tradition of this piece, I’ve created two very different interpretations pared down from different news sources. […]
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The Two Greatest Commandments
While trolling the internet, I came upon a rather pedestrian claim that in the coming election the liberals will try to “get God” as a way to convince Americans that there are issues more important than ending abortion and stopping gay marriage. The claim is profoundly absurd, not least of all because by now most […]
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Random Reincarnation
I’ve often felt that people are too quick to deny that others’ lives in other parts of the country or world affect their own. They find it easy to vote, think, and act in ways that are largely self-serving. I can’t fault anyone for this, after all, I often do it myself. It’s exceptionally easy […]
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On Missionaries, Religion, and the Police
This Saturday, two white men in white shirts with holy books in their hands rang my doorbell. I didn’t answer. I assumed, for lack of a better explanation, that they were missionaries. I wasn’t expecting anyone to ring, and these certainly weren’t men I knew. At first I thought nothing of not answering. Then I […]
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Bob Thurman on Compassion
Bob Thurman is an American Buddhist. At TED2006, he gave a great introduction to the ideas of interconnectedness and compassion. It’s a really good summary of the concepts; he has fun with them rather than dwelling on their nature and substance. I found this though of personal value, who gives a great synopsis thusly: It […]
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Review: Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp is a documentary that examines the Evangelical movement in the United States. It does this by following a few Evangelicals (I believe they’re mostly Pentecostal) for a time. And on the whole, it does a fairly even-handed job of this, not seeming to judge its subjects, merely to present them. This may be […]