Be Heretics

Heretic

The word “heretic,” like so many other words in the English language, has a rich etymology that is often discarded to make room for whatever popular and immediately available cultural idioms or connotations exist. It’s a sad phenomenon, because some words, like “heretic,” lose all of their positive historical definitions and become purely negative rhetorical weapons wielded by those who never gave things like words much thought anyway. It’s sad, as are the individuals and groups who consciously perpetuate such nonsense. Read more…

Military chaplain fights Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Violation

gays in the military

Seriously? The following story confuses and frustrates me on so many levels. Why are we still wrestling with this issue? Why is it still a question? Why are people, like Aris Fokas, who have shown that they are extremely competent and called, dismissed from their duties because of their sexual orientation? “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is wrong. Period. It should be repealed. Read more…

My Uncharitable Spirit of Unwelcome

I am, in effort to bring some clarity to a bit of online confusion, publishing the following concerning Robin Edgar’s latest post regarding a comment left here under the thread “Classical Unitarian Christianity.” I don’t personally know Robin, but he seems like a nice fellow who simply desires to be heard and understood. I will say he is the most determined bloke I’ve never met. He is still pushing his online crusade against personally perceived injustices at a surprisingly consistent clip. He’s dedicated to his cause, for sure. Read more…

The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

A digital edition of the Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Centenary Edition, edited and with notes by Edward Waldo Emerson is available online. So, if you are a Ralph Waldo Emerson aficionado and are looking for an online cache of Emerson’s complete works, look no further. This online collection contains everything from his Nature addresses and lectures to his work on the Natural history of intellect, and other papers and snippets. Emerson’s diary entries are most interesting.

A Faith Stage Checklist

religion

Tufts University Chaplain Scotty McLennan, in a book titled Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning, offers his readers a sort of faith stage checklist. My own evolving religious experience tells me that while lists of this sort are neither exhaustive, nor universal, they are fairly accurate, and at the very least they are good guides that challenge us to practice deeper self-awareness, if nothing else. Practicing more self-awareness is always a good thing. Read more…

Zen Master Hui Re’s Truth

The truth you seek is your own true mind, an awakened mind is a one without confines. The truth is not the knowledge you now possess, nor the religious doctrines that you profess. It’s not that rigid religious culture, or some shallow mystical experience. Your awakened mind – the true nature – does not seem to exist. There is no way to see the real truth, though it has never left you for an instant. – A Zen Master Hui Re, quote re: Truth.

A Voluntary Euthanasian Ethic

euthanasia

I just found an old essay living an an even older hard drive that has been buried under a dusty pile of books in the attic. I wrote this essay way back in January of 2004. The topic: Voluntary Euthanasia. I’m not even sure I still hold the same views and opinions that I held concerning Euthanasia, but it is interesting to re-read old personal expressions and gauge just how much one’s expression has changed over time.

Note: My style has improved over the years too. I have neither the energy, nor the desire to edit the following essay properly, so it appears just as I wrote in 2004. Do forgive my past addiction to ellipses, mechanical verbiage, making up words and general wordiness. I exhaust myself reading myself in my former style. I apologize in advance. Read more…

Classical Unitarian Christianity

unitarian

I recently had to explain the title “Unitarian Universalist Christian.” It was an interesting conversation, to be sure, and I found myself explaining both classical expressions of Unitarianism (think early American, New England expressions of the faith) and more contemporary developments within the Unitarian Universalist Association (think 1961 merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America). Personally, I identify with aspects of both these days. I deeply appreciate elements of the classical expression, and I resonate with much that is advanced by the contemporary iteration as a result of my growing understanding of postmodernism, human religiousness, sacred lit, culture, and the importance of myth. Then again, I’m always curious and changing and growing and evolving too, and perhaps that’s the main source of the aforementioned resonance. Read more…

Jackass Starves Between Two Haystacks

jackass

You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor, right? It’s a philosophical concept that when used judiciously is supposed to facilitate rational decision making in situations wherein two or more choices or theories or whatever present themselves as competing alternatives. Basically, Occam’s Razor advances the idea that the less complicated explanation or action is the best one. There is no need, according to this principle, to seek a more complicated answer if a simpler one indeed exists. Sounds pretty solid, right? Well, it’s supposed to be simple, but some seem incessant on making a lot of things more complicated than they need be. Why? Who really knows?!? Read more…

The Better Man

So, which is the better man? The religious man who fulfills ethical duties to ward off fears planted within him by a sidewalk preacher’s threats of eternal damnation, in effort to save himself, or the non-religious man who fulfills ethical duties under the power of his own free will and thought-laden conscience because he is compelled to satisfy what he perceives to be his personal responsibilities? Which of the two is truly the better man?

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