Idols and icons
Theophanes the Greek, icon of the Transfiguration (1408). When Jesus was transfigured, Peter wanted to take the moment and hold onto it by building dwellings on the mountaintop. But Jesus, who knew the difference between idols and icons, said no. Image source: Wikimedia Commons Paula Kirby used to be a Christian but now she’s not. [...]
Door by door
Doorway in Galileo’s villa. I took this photo in 2003 when I visited Arcetri, a small Italian village just to the south of Florence. This is the interior of the house in which Galileo lived under house arrest from 1633 until he died in 1643. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art [...]
The absence
Edward Hopper, Sun in an Empty Room (1963). Image source: archi-ethan.blogspot.com The Absence It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has [...]
Negative theology and the foolishness of progressive postmodern Christians
The Tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew, which today is often written YHWH or Yahweh. Its origin is thought by many to be Exodus 3, in which Moses is instructed to tell the people that “I Am” sent him. In Christian scripture it is translated “The Lord,” written in small caps. Observant Jews write but do not speak [...]
XI. Thou shalt not speak before thinking
Fra Angelico, Peter Martyr Enjoins Silence, c.1441. Peter Martyr, known also as St. Peter of Verona, was an Italian Dominican friar whose preaching was responsible for returning many heretics, most notably Cathari, to orthodoxy. Catharism was a religious movement with dualist tendencies; that is, it held that there was a God of Good and a [...]
On prayer: Simone Weil and the excluded God
Simone Weil‘s 1935 factory identification photo. In that year she began working as a power press operator at the Alstom Company in Paris. She was highly educated and had many options but chose to work alongside those who had no power. She later wrote, “A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody [...]
The end of faith? Bring it
And he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Anonymous, Jesus and the Rich Man, 11th century. Image source: Index of Armenian Art By all appearances, the end is near. That’s what the scientists are telling us, anyway. It seems that a group of specialists in the (really cool) field of nonlinear dynamics have [...]
That piece of halibut was good enough for J—–h!
Everybody must get stoned. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian What a fine old clip from the Python boys. We considered delivering ourselves of another lecture on negative theology at this point, about how the Hebrews really had a good thing going with their restriction on the divine name, and how Meister Eckhart found a [...]
Hovercraft Jesus and the problem of love
There are rules here at psnt.net. One of them is: There shall be no posts even remotely related to Justin Bieber or his mom. Another one is: Never post images that flash, make noise, or move. But when we saw this sweet animated gif, our resistance proved futile. Image source: lol god As many of [...]
Why evolution should be taught in church
Aryan Jesus loves himself a little velociraptor. Image source: Monty Propps at b3ta.com This article first appeared at Religion Dispatches These are busy times for those who fight the teaching of creationism in public schools. It’s like playing a giant game of Whack-a-Mole: In January alone, anti-evolution forces first raised their heads in North Carolina. [...]
