Quiz: Why do people have trouble believing in God?
Michelangelo‘s Creation of Adam with a significant 21st-century alteration. Can you find it? Source: www.fotodiario2.it That’s the question I’m asking after reading physicist Marcelo Gleiser’s post published last week at 13.7. Pointing to the problems with creationism and the fact that that belief in evolution decreases as church attendance increases, he asks, “Why do so [...]
No place to call home: on Richard Dawkins’ academy, atheists in church, and the emptiness of scientism
Edward Hopper, Dauphinee House, 1932. It’s good to have a home, physical and otherwise. Image source: Museum Syndicate Back in September, I wrote an article for Religion Dispatches about Richard Dawkins’ refusal to teach atheism — his own view — to kids. Of all the things out there with my name on it, it is [...]
Repost: Door by door
Dear Alert Readers, This was first published, in a slightly longer form, several months ago. I am reposting it because it really fits my mood these days. Hope all is well with you and yours. Paul Doorway in Galileo’s villa. I took this photo in 2003 when I visited Arcetri, a small village just to [...]
Lying on a bed of nails: more on Johnny Cash, the prodigal son, and the truth of stories
Andrei Rabodzeenko, Prodigal Son, 2006 I have received a number of emails and Facebook messages and comments about my latest article at RD. I hope to reply to all of them in time. But I am still on the job hunt. Therefore these must suffice: This post and an expression of thanks to my interlocutors. [...]
Believing in Johnny Cash: An open letter to atheists
I’ve a new piece up at Religion Dispatches. Here’s a taster: Several days ago I was in the car, listening to songs shuffled at random. Just as I pulled into the parking lot I heard the opening lines of “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer,” recorded at one of Cash’s famous 1968 Folsom Prison shows. [...]
What we have lost
Michael Bailey, Looking Back From Image via I Think I Believe: We are god-obsessed because we have lost God or we are running from God or we are hopelessly seeking Him, and maybe all of these at once. We are god-obsessed the way a child snatched from his mother will always have his heart and [...]
The only way out is through
Madelene Purdie, Stations of the Cross. Purdie, an Australian aboriginal artist, follows the minority convention of placing a resurrected Christ in a 15th panel When in seminary I had a New Testament professor who said something I will always remember. He said that of all the world’s religions he preferred Buddhism and Christianity because these [...]
Kim Frabicius on the literal and the literary
William Hogarth, The Distress’d Poet, 1737. Why is the poet distress’d? Perhaps the answer can be found in the following from Walker Percy: “Science works better, this is the age of science, scientists are the princes of the age, while artists and writers are the frantic Lazaruses at the feast, hungering for crumbs like the [...]
More on the 9/11 cross
Photo by Mario Tama As we all know, American Atheists have filed a lawsuit against those who plan to display a cross-shaped piece of wreckage at the 9/11 memorial. This is an artifact that brought comfort to many Americans, most particularly New Yorkers and those who were involved in the cleanup of Lower Manhattan. And [...]
From the Dept of Too Funny to Not Share: Jon Stewart on atheists’ Ground Zero suit
It’s a few days old, but still plenty funny. We can’t believe that Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, said that atheists might want to install a symbol of an atom at Ground Zero “because we’re all made of atoms.” Susan Jacoby, an atheist of a less publicity-seeking kind, wonders if he’s being deliberately obtuse. [...]
