Katz distinguishes two types of illness: One where seemingly normal people arrive in the city and undergo a sort of religious conversion, whereby they actually become a biblical figure. Most of these persons are Pentecostals from rural regions in the USA and Scandinavia [??]. One one occasion, Katz says, he had three Virgins Mary at once sharing a single room.

That must have made for some interesting conversation.

God has asked me to gather the Rainbow Tribe. God the Creator of this place we live on wants all his children to know that religion is fine but what is really important is every single persons individual connection to Spirit, the Universe, the one who created our whole existence. [...]

Any person can access the Spirit of God. God is in all of us, we only have to open ourselves up and say “hi God it’s me”, then say your name LOL! and then say what you want to say.

—Yosemite Bear, aka Double Rainbow Dude

From a New York Times story about the lengths that the Boy Scouts are going to in order to attract new members:

An inflatable mosque provides a place for Muslim scouts to worship.

There’s just something about the concept of an inflatable mosque…

And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government. It’s this taking away of that freedom. The freedom — the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation. And to find Christ, for me and you.

So there you have it:

1. Growth in government leads to less freedom.
2. The ultimate freedom is to find Jesus.
3. Therefore, growth in government is bad!

So if we only had less government, everyone could have the freedom to find Jesus!

(via)

Over at Religion in American history, Michael Altman has some reaction to an interview with Bear Grylls, star of the Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild. When Grylls claims to be non-religious, but gets effusive about Jesus, Altman reflects:

This split between Jesus and religion fascinates me. In the early 19th century American Christians tended to think of “religion” in terms of “true Religion” (Christianity) and the rest–usually four groups (Muslims, Jews, and Pagans/Heathens). By the early 20th century “religion” was a category within which Christianity fell alongside another ten to half-dozen religions (suddenly we have Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto etc.) Now, in the early 21st century I hear more and more (usually evangelical) Christians claiming that Jesus wasn’t religious at all–in fact true Christianity isn’t about religion–it’s about a relationship with Jesus. I’m not spiritual, or religious, I’m with Jesus.

I think he’s on to something there: the “spiritual but no religious” movement is, in part, an attempt to distinguish an individual’s Christianity from the growing mass of other religions – and the growing mass of Christian denominations. It’s a way to stand out and appear exceptional, now that Christianity is starting to look like just one of many religions.

The whole Gryll’s article is a stream with flows from Transcendentalism, Evangelicalism, Promise Keepers, muscular Christianity, and Graham’s “Make a decision for Christ today” revivalism.
[...]
This is a confluence that isn’t necessarily fully thought out or self-selected. I don’t think Grylls went out and thought about becoming this sort of masculine Christian, nor do I think Relevant sought to portray him this way. This isn’t Sheila-ism. It’s something more organic and more accidental. It’s like religious run-off making its way into a creek of spirituality and carrying all sorts of cultural flotsam with it. What to call it, though? Perhaps Bear-ism?

I like the metaphor of the stream. You can imagine the religion as the stream, and the culture as the stream bed. Both shape each other, and you can’t really understand until you look at both.

(via lolgod)

Ian over at Irreducible Complexity gives a great summary of half the plots from Science Fiction shows:

“Oh no, there’s a blurflurgh!”
“What’s a blurflurgh?”
“A blurflurgh is the only thing that can destroy the universe, we can’t let the blurflurgh flemmoxate.”
“It’s flemmoxating.”
“Its okay, I have a praxindoodle, which prevents the flemmoxate of the blurflurgh destroying the universe.”
“But the praxindoodle only works in the presents of gamma-umithrons.”
“We can desedrify the ship’s jimgraxle to generate a stream of gamma umithrons to power the praxindoodle that will prevent the flemmoxate of the blurflurgh from destroying the universe. But only if I hold down the button from inside the jimgraxle room.”
“But that will kill you.”
“Yes, but its a sacrifice I must make. Goodbye everyone”

…5 minute FX shot…

“Wait, you’re alive? How?”
“I realised that the only way to survive the desedrification field is to finally understand the meaning of love.”
“Cool – what’s next?”

Arbitrary peril, arbitrary solution, all tied to some saccharine sentimentality. But it’s the underlying structure behind a great many of our televised stories and, as Ian points out, behind Christian cross theology as well.

Which, now that I think of it, ties in to a quote over at Exploring our Matrix from Philip Gulley’s If the Church Were Christian:

“Isn’t it odd? Christians created a theological scenario that placed the soul of every person at risk of eternal damnation. To counter that threat, we interpreted the life and death of Jesus in a particular way, then spent billions of dollars battling the threat we created. Wouldn’t it just be easier to stop perpetuating the scenario?

Perhaps the day might come when Christianity will reconsider its priorities, when preparing souls for an afterlife we have no proof exists fades in importance, and we can use the church’s energies to improve this life.”

All of this brings up a strange inconsistency to the opponents of same-sex marriage. Their ends — every child gets a mom and a dad — are strangely mismatched to their means — prohibit same-sex marriage. It’s sort of like banning bad moustaches to stop pornography. Perhaps there’s some vague association, but that’s about it.

Jason Kuznicki, “Means, Ends and Same-Sex Marriage”.

On the plus side, that would finally rid us of Ray Comfort.

(Kuznicki is one of the bloggers at the libertarian blog The One Best Way …. (No, Really!), the reincarnation of Positive Liberty.)

In his work Remembering Ahanagran, historian Richard White examines his mother’s stories of Ireland. It produced a favorite quote of mine:

I once thought of my mother’s stories as history. I thought memory was history. Then, I became a historian, and after many years I have come to realize that only careless historians confuse history and memory. History is the enemy of memory. The two stalk each other across the fields of the past, claiming the same terrain. History forges weapons from what memory has forgotten or suppressed.

Historian John Sparks talking about Barton Stone, grandfather of Charles Chilton Moore, who may have been suffering a brief crisis of faith:

It is not inconceivable that, at this time, [Barton] Stone could have come to that realization so unsettling to anyone who has somehow become convinced and assured that he or she possesses pure biblical truth: that no one’s system of belief can truly be straight exegesis from Scripture so much as it is, and ultimately always proves itself to be, instead more of an eisegesis, that is, an attempt to reconcile one’s own varied passions and prejudices with one’s perceptions of the Bible.

–John Sparks, Kentucky’s Most Hated Man, p. 27-28

I’d be lying if I said that this wasn’t one of the reasons I left the faith. A feeling that all Biblical interpretation was eisegesis: “I believe it, the Bible says it, that does it.”

Fred Clark over at Slacktivist is looking at a aspect of this right now. In this case, the conflict between the way that many American Evangelicals interpret the (many) passages about economic justice verses the way they interpret the (few) passages about homosexuality.

During the interview, which was then published by L’Osservatore Romano, Father Crepy made several distinctions. “First of all, it must be noted that sexuality is not limited to the genital dimension, and thus the emotional life is much vaster than the sexual life, although the latter is of obvious importance.”

– Father Luc Crepy, Celibacy does not deny priests their sexuality or freedom, asserts French seminary rector

This seems disingenuous, since the Church has frowned on very intimate emotional relationships among priests, for fear that they might enter “the genital dimension.” (great band name, BTW)

I’m guessing that Father Crepy is thinking of Abelard and Heloise.

(via The Teapot Atheist)

I’m pretty conflicted about religion. On the one hand, I’m a huge fan of abortion. I like performing them, getting them, watching them, you name it. Then again, I think Communion wafers are delicious.

—Matt Tobey

From this perspective, religion is not innate, but rather a cultural development that we might call “cognitive-emotional cheesecake”. I adapt this metaphor from Steven Pinker’s claim that music is not innate, but rather amounts to “auditory cheesecake”. A preference for cheesecake is not innate, since cheesecake did not exist during the early stages of human development. But preferences for sugar and fat are innate, and cheesecake cleverly combines them in an appealing way. Similarly, I conjecture, religion is appealing because it combines the psychological needs for explanations and emotional reassurance.

Paul Thagard, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo.

There’s just something about the phrase “cognitive-emotional cheesecake” …

When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!

—Rev. Jeremiah Wright

I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will — and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.

—Gene Roddenberry, creator of the Star Trek series

Update: The source for this has not been found, so he may not have actually said this. Anyone know the source?