Tête-à-Tête-Tête » Unitarian Universalist

That Which Binds

smijer — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:40:28 +0000

Doug Muder in UU World magazine… I read this over and mulled it over several times before deciding that, while it is a thought provoking discussion, I’m afraid it misses the point.

Religious liberals may (or may not!) be better than either hard-core atheists or fundamentalist believers at gauging the proper importance of a “belief system” in the larger perspective of a life. Certainly religious liberalism finds virtue in tolerating and in certain cases even encouraging diverse beliefs and their corresponding systems, so that speaks to a viewpoint that downplays the importance of strictness in beliefs. I think we are right to do so in most cases (though I think we should and do agitate against destructive beliefs!).

And rigidity can be a problem. As the author says:

Carse’s description of belief systems echoes much of the atheist critique of religion: Belief systems are closed and strident, pretending to knowledge that they do not have. Lacking mystery, they do not invoke a creative response in their followers, and that makes them brittle. Belief systems—he gives Nazism and Soviet Communism as examples—seldom last a century after they rise to prominence.

Well, Nazism & Soviet Communism were not purely belief systems – they were collective behavior patterns as much as anything else – but the point has a deeper weakness than that: belief systems need not be closed or strident, and need not pretend to knowledge that they do not have. And, as to his further assertion that “there is a deeper vitality in the Christian faith, as in all the great religions, that no single belief system can fully represent,” this is neither an entirely compelling explanation for their endurance, nor an entirely admirable trait in a religion. If you don’t understand what I mean by this, then ask about it in the comments.

Overall, I think that the dichotomy between “belief system” and “religion” is a false one. Even the creedless Unitarian Universalism carries a basic ethical belief system with it, and makes room for the people to carry their own private belief systems about what is real. Every religion carries belief systems with it, and some are undeniably more ethical sound than others, and some are undeniably based on better epistemological reasoning than others.

As a result of the flaw in this dichotomy, we find some language that sounds good on the surface, but on a deeper level needs improvement to truly carry the kernel that makes it good. For instance:

The greatest threat to the believer, then, is not the unbeliever, but the religious: the person whose appreciation of mystery causes him or her to see a world larger than the one that the believer has cleaved neatly in half.

No – the greatest threat to the believer in what is false or destructive is the falsity or destructiveness of their own belief. The person who remembers the importance of a larger perspective is more likely to avoid committing themselves to a false or destructive belief, yet they are still capable of committing themselves to beliefs.

An appreciation of mystery is one important facet of life, and one contributor to a broad perspective. But it carries no guarantees with it that the perspective will be broad enough or that the beliefs formed under it will be correct.

It’s a tangled subject, and there’s more work to do untangling it than I’m up to. But I’ll quickly give my alternative on this, from a liberal religious perspective:

1) There is room for the hermeneutic of “revealed” truth alongside empirically discovered truth. However, there is no onus on any person to conform to “revealed” truth outside their own, personal convictions.
2) There are good rules for understanding reality empirically. We shouldn’t brush them aside lightly in favor of “revealed” truth.
3) The advantages of liberal religion stem from its ability to bring together in fellowship diverse people with diverse backgrounds and diverse attitudes toward the sacred. Religare, to bind together, is probably not the correct etymology of the word, but it is a very good attitude toward it.

The sense of the mysterious, the larger perspective, the flexibility in areas that allow it (and the inflexibility in areas that don’t) arise from and are nurtured by that diversity of fellowship.

The center holds, but it doesn’t necessarily hold in a center arbitrarily defined by the fashions of the extremes.

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Universalism and the Problem of Evil

smijer — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:04:51 +0000

This quote sums up one ideal. Universalism sums up the Heavenly optimism possible under Christianity. The doctrine of eternal damnation sums up its hellish underbelly. Since the southerners amongst you are already quite familiar with the latter, I’ll include the former quote:

Universalism as hitherto expounded and applied is without doubt incomplete and faulty. It will be better understood and more consistently set forth. But it’s seed-thought–that God is the eternal Father of mankind, and that right and not wrong, good and not evil, happiness and not misery, are the sure outcome of his creation and providence–is God’s own thought, and is as sure of the whole religious field erelong as noon is to follow dawn. . . But whatever this church is to do or become as an organization, one thing, I think, is clear, it stands for the fullest and most rational gospel that the human mind has ever been invited to examine, or the human heart to enjoy.

This is nice, but the problem is that while the human heart may enjoy the fullness of such a Gospel, the human mind must injure reason to accept it. Wrong, evil, and misery are already known outcomes of creation, just as assuredly as are right, good, and happiness are. We have no recourse but to acknowledge that both sets of outcomes have already come to pass and will continue to as far as we can foresee. Perhaps God is capable of and planning to banish one set of these outcomes for the world generally, or on a case by case for individuals, but it if so we must still admit that reason is incapable of producing a compelling reason to believe that this is the case. Especially in light of the fact that he is not doing it in the present, reason compels us to conclude that it is less likely to be true than to be untrue.

So, I think a religious universalism – indeed any responsible religious response to the world of experience – must be more careful than what Rev. Atwood suggests. The truth of universalism is that God is not malicious. But the truth is also that God doesn’t constrain the world to goodness. Our theology, if we are to have one, must unashamedly profess that the world does not conform to any known human or Divine notion of goodness. We must greet it on its own terms, and bring with us not only our notions of goodness, but the will to live them independently of creation.

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Universalism – the Orthodoxy that Wasn’t

smijer — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:00:51 +0000

“It has been remarked that Christians, of whatever creed, have hope in the death of their children. However tenacious they may be of a narrow and rigid creed which consign an uncoverted child to the regions of hopeless despair, yet when that unconverted though dearly loved one, without leaving any evidence of a saving change, is snatched away by death, and the fond parent is called to follow his lifeless remains to the silent grave, he has in the midst of his grief a hope that ‘it is well with the child.’ What gives him consolation, and speaks peace to his troubled spirit? I answer, without the fear of contradiction, It is a confidence in the inherent, unchanging goodness and impartial mercy of the Lord our God.”

–Rev. George Bates (- source)

I am a Unitarian Universalist. But, I am not a Unitarian in any sense apart from the very trivial one that I do not believe in a divine Trinity. That much I share with believing Unitarians, but I do not share their belief in a Unitary deity. I am also not a Universalist in the same sense as Rev. Bates, quoted above. But I believe that what I hold in common with him, and I believe that what I share with him and with many others is deeper than it might appear at first glance.

I acknowledge that the world is not biased in favor of what humans experience as “good”. I acknowledge that there is much evil in it – resulting both from human choice, and from natural accident. But I do believe that there is a sense in which the world is “good” – that we can rejoice and enjoin one another to rejoice in being alive in it. And, that implies that whatever rule – be it natural or supernatural – that exerts itself over this world is not malicious.

Let me repeat myself. It is good to be alive in this world. And that means that there is no malice in nature or in God.

This is where put myself in line with Rev. Bates and with many, many others consciously or otherwise, viewed as heretical by the pridefully orthodox: It is incontrovertible and self-evident that this view of the world is incompatible with the doctrine of eternal damnation.

It is unfortunate in the extreme that Christian Scripture, faithfully adhered to, seems to render this question very difficult. I understand that the proof-texts upon which the doctrine of damnation rest are stronger, clearer, and more numerous than any explicitly universalist or annhilationist texts. It is not my job, nor is it within my ability to defend any doctrine Biblically. But let it be said that the puzzle is not an easy one. Certainly there are proof-texts even stronger and more numerous than those for damnation that show the character of God as good. And, difficult as it may be to reconcile the proof-texts for damnation with this notion, it is nevertheless impossible to construe God as good if you ascribe to him a plan that includes eternal damnation. To say that both are true is no more than to assert that it is both square and circular.

Apologists’ notions of a “just” and “infinitely holy” God who cannot tolerate sin do not explain or give space to accommodate eternal damnation with God’s goodness. These are poor efforts, only accepted even by their proponents out of desperate and unrealistic hope of preserving the orthodox exegesis of scripture that yields eternal damnation and the goodness of God together. It is a testament to the ability for the human mind to compartmentalize and to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Eternal damnation cannot be explained or accepted apart from the imputation of malice to the almighty.

It is not because, as Albert Mohler suggests, of “superficial preaching in church pulpits” that most American Christians believe that Christianity isn’t the only way to heaven – it is because their belief in the goodness of God is more real to them than the details of doctrine. This is as it should be!

I feel for anyone whose commitment to scripture, or to a certain view of scripture, makes this a difficult issue for them. Although I don’t share that commitment, I am rooting for those folks to come to terms in a way that is consistent with an uplifting view of life and a healthy view of death. I’ll be glad to provide universalist or annihilationist proof texts to anyone who thinks those may help.

I plan to return to this subject now and again in the future. I specifically have a topic in mind that I hope to get to later this week that will reflect back on this important point.

In the meantime, all of this is to explain that I am not, technically, a Unitarian or Universalist, but I am in a very profound sense allied with Universalism. I think that, if the UU church is to have a witness in the world, it is the second ‘U’ which we must preach, and we must do it vocally. We must tell the cohabitants of this planet we share that life is good and worth living, and that there is no malice in any true God.

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Death Penalty, in Three Parts

smijer — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:00:38 +0000

Part I:
Watch the video if you care to. Short version – 7 of 9 witnesses have recanted their stories. Evidence ties one of the remaining two witnesses to the crime. No physical evidence ties Troy Davis to it.

Then, if you do nothing else, at least send a letter to Sonny Perdue using AI’s astroturf tool. Especially you Georgians out there.

Part II:
A letter to my murderer is a powerful sermon by Nate Walker. It deals directly with the shootings in the UU church of Knoxville last year. It’s a long listen, but it is worth it. Maybe it’s worth it to compose our own such letter.

Part III:

Via Big L at Mindful Mission, it appears there may be a trend away from retributive thinking within our government institutions.

Coincidence put these three parts into my path on Thursday.

Update: Rev. Nate in the comments posts a link to Declaration of Life, which can be downloaded as pdf, printed, signed & dated. I don’t know if one of these has ever been tested in court, and I’m not sure how much difference it could make. Certainly prosecutors would seek to exclude it from consideration. But it may be worth the effort.

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Relation versus Belief

smijer — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:30:48 +0000

I suppose it will be a recurring theme of any Unitarian Universalist’s blog, just as it is a recurring theme of any Unitarian Universalists conversations, to discuss what “Unitarians believe”, “why go to church if you don’t believe in God”, and other such questions that make perfect sense if your only experience of church and religion is in the context of American Christianity.

Linked are the comments of Reverend Thomas Perchlik on his blog. Quoted below is the portion of interest that express this conundrum another way:

Thus theological depth in UU religious life requires that we understand the difference between faith as ‘trust’ and faith as ‘belief.’ It requires that we understand that belief is central to Christian and Muslim belief, but not to every religion. Depth requires that we think about the difficulties caused by rejecting belief as a cornerstone of a religion, and to understand the ways that covenants are mis-used and mis-understood. It means that we think through the difference between covenant and contract, covenant and non-sacred promises, etc.

Most people in American and Eropean Culture begin their studies of religions in terms of belief. “What do Jews believe?” they ask for example, or “What do Hindus believe?” not realizing that these are Christian questions that may not lead to an adequate understanding of Hinduism or Judaism. To some extent the whole idea of “Hinduism” was created by British Christians who wanted to understand the religious culture of India, never realizing that there was not really “One” Hindu faith until they began asking, over and over again, what is Hinduism, and what do Hindus believe. The same thing happens with UUism. In order to break from this yoke we must be able to speak clearly to the theological justification of Covenant as the way that the true and good comes into human lives.

In other words, among other things, we have to explain to people who aren’t geared to get it that not all religion must center around belief. It’s likely that more people worldwide have religious practices that don’t center on belief than that do. I personally think that belief is important in some ways, but is a poor primary focus for spirituality. That’s mainly because belief isn’t voluntary, and developing an epistemological system sufficient to establish correct beliefs of such import as to make them central is too hard for many people.

Also published yesterday, the comments of Rev. Michael Tino on the matter of “spiritual spam”. Truly thought provoking, and in some ways an answer to Perchlik’s call – here I particularly mean items #3 & 4:

Third, any spiritual teaching worth paying attention to seeks to build relationships between and among beings. Between people, with the other beings of Earth, or even with something you might choose to call God—it doesn’t matter. But relationships need to be strengthened by spiritual teachings.
[...]
Finally, a good spiritual pathway needs to connect you to something greater than yourself. That need not, of course, be a supreme being of any sort. It can be the community of humanity, the creative power within us, the life force pulsing through all of nature, or the infinite expanse of the universe.

Of course, you have to have a bit of experience with a matter before you can learn to filter it well. And, of course, one can set a “spiritual filter” based on poor criteria – effectively locking onesself into a less-than optimal spirituality.

Now, it would be shallow to speak of Western Christianity as being exclusively credocentric. In fact, many “born again” Christians characterize their religion as a relationship with Christ, despite their heavy dependence on the notion of “belief” for salvation. So, that’s a start. It remains to flesh out what the nature of that relationship is, and how it affirms the important things in life, but it’s worth noting that there is a facet of evangelical Christianity that isn’t (necessarily) tied up directly with “belief”. Maybe a good element of our explanation to our Baptist neighbor of what we do in the UU church, then, is that we have relationships with one another and with something greater than any of our individual selves.

As to what my “spiritual spam filter” would look like? Well, I’ve learned that everything that comes under the heading of “belief” belongs in the spam folder. Anything that doesn’t enhance relationship – with people and/or with nature – is junk mail. And, of course, it’s never “all about you”. I think that is the number one most important thing that any religion helps us understand – that there is more to life than just “I”.

I guess that’s about it.

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Job

smijer — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:00:21 +0000

Sunday – 9:30 – Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga

The book is Job, and I’ve gotta say I’m terribly excited about it. I hope anyone from the area who can make it to this session of Rediscovering the Bible, will make it. Those who can’t, religious or no, I hope you’ll take a while and re-read this amazing book. Then, maybe spend a little while reading about it. Or, the other way around.

Next month, the discussion will be the New Testament Canon. That should be fun, too – as there are misconceptions and myths on all sides of that discussion. But personally, I’m looking forward to Job a lot more.

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Bible class etc.,

smijer — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:16:44 +0000

I’ve been way out of the loop the last week or two. Last week was a vacation from work, but with two dentist visits, a trip to the DMV and a host of other little errands, it didn’t seem much like a vacation at all. We did round everybody up for a trip to the Ocoee for some whitewater rafting (Buck, we were probably 80 miles north of ya’), so that was nice. Other than that – nada.

I realized how out of the loop I have been when I saw Buck’s latest about the Alison Krauss deal (rude people aside, I know that show kicked ass & I hope you had a good time), and realized that I was reading it four days behind. I don’t think I’ve ever been even a full day behind reading t-t-t. Same with my other regular reads. I’m behind actual months with some.

So, anyway, I managed to cobble together a second session of the Bible class for Sunday, by staying up all night Saturday night – after the rafting trip. This week was on the Apocalyptic Writings. The class covered definitions (apocalypse=revelation; eschatology=foretelling of an/the End), style & characteristics (poetic, employing allegory & symbolism, portraying violence/catastrophe, relaying extraordinary visions), and themes (“last call” to repentance, final judgment). We mentioned, in passing, the vast collection of non-canonical apocalyptic literature, and hit the high points of Isaiah, Ezekial, Daniel and Revelation. There was an extremely brief speculation about what needs the apocalyptic literature might have met in its original audiences. There was a brief discussion of why people are perennially fascinated by apocalyptic notions and literature – or rather of the fact that they are and why it was outside the scope of the class to speculate about such things. We closed it all out with an overview of interpretive schemes: Preterist vs. futurist and all the -millenialisms. You know, it came together kind of on a shoestring, but I think it was just about as good as it could have been, even if I had spent months on it. Ummm…. If I do say so myself.

Now I have to be ready to hold the next session next Sunday morning. This will be the least interesting by dint of subject matter so far, so wish me luck. Maybe I’ll just run through it Joe Pesci style (thanks RW). Anyway – that’s just one more thing to do instead of keeping up with the projects I started a year or two ago.

Peace out.

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Weekend Update

smijer — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:06:28 +0000

As promised, here I am, back again this Monday. I’m afraid this will mostly be all about me, and my weekend, and I honestly can’t blame you if you don’t care. I mainly only care about my own. I will say, before I insist my feelings won’t be hurt if you navigate away to something more fun, or interesting, or whatever, that one of the highlights was Sunday Morning, giving the first session in a Bible study course at my church. There were only four people in attendance besides myself, but I thought it went very well. My hope is to make this a workshop that will respectfully challenge and inform most people who come to it, whether they come from a liberal or conservative religious background, or from none at all. The idea is not to settle all the big questions, but to settle what little questions can be settled, and be aware of the rest of them, aware of a diversity of perspectives (fairly presented) of thinking on them, and to be able to responsibly approach these questions and have dialogue with people who may have different answers to them.

Ok, the rest is purely personal, so I fully expect that I’m writing to myself at this point. Saturday morning, I went atop Edler Mountain for a ride along the reservoir road. I got stuck. A car came by – usually this isn’t a big deal, but this time I guess I just panicked – and off I came. There aren’t any climbing on points once you leave the parking lot (in the parking lot, I can back up against a curb to steady the wheel and can get by without a vertical support!) Sometimes, with a determined effort, I can get back on without assistance, but not Saturday. I worked myself to death. Finally a slow bicyclist (the kind who has a small child with her) came by and let me us her bicycle for support and I was off again. I’ll tell ya – a 2 mile ride on rough black-top compares with a 6 mile ride on smooth concrete.

The rest of Saturday was spent mowing grass and working on the Sunday morning project. Sunday morning Sunday School was not what it should have been. Only two students (during the sci-fi cons around town, the church strangely empties), and nothing prepared for them (I cheated them in favor of the Bible class really). Then some other stuff I won’t relate, more mowing – and by the way – is it just my weakness or unwillingness to bleed that makes me unable to put the belt on a self-propelled drive of a lawn mower? Anyway, I pushed it. And last night at the Local to watch the Mollies, with a mostly convalesced shoulder on Michael, my friend, the mandolinist. This was great fun as always, and the last number I stayed for was one I haven’t heard them do before, but that I enjoy when I hear it on Sunday afternoon Celtic music on the radio: Queen of Argyll… great stuff.

Anyway – pretty good weekend. Hope yours was too, as will be all of our weeks ahead.

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CQ on Flynt on Falwell (politics v. humanity)

smijer — Mon, 21 May 2007 11:00:50 +0000

Ed M. at Captain’s Quarters uses the personal relationship between Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell as a jumping off point for a brief note about seeing the humanity in your political enemies and behaving in a manner consistent with that practice.

A brief note: I added Captain’s Quarters to my RSS feeds just so I could take an occassional look at what the right wing bloggers were saying without relying entirely on Redstate.com, the more moderate local guys that I enjoy, or links from critical lefty sites. Without that feed, I wouldn’t have happened upon this post. Side Note: Oddly, today, even the daybyday cartoon currently featured at the top of his page is critical of the president and Tony Snow (who is portrayed as Pinnochio). It’s a criticism from the right – the only kind the right seems willing to dispense – but a criticism nontheless.

Let me say that I am pleasantly surprised by Ed’s post on this. He doesn’t take an easy opportunity to condemn Larry Flynt (someone for which I have no profound respect myself). He doesn’t pretend that Falwell was innocent of the de-humanization that he objects to – rather he points out specific instances of it. Instead, he holds up the relationship between Falwell & Flynt as a laudable example of understanding and even loving one’s enemies.

I’ve read lot’s of remarks from lefty bloggers – including Christian and/or Unitarian Universalist bloggers that hinted – or even pronounced – that Falwell was unworthy of dignity and respect because he denied it to others. It’s true that he denied it to others. As did those to whom Jesus referred when he said “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Or in more secularist, UU terms,

“They drew a circle which kept me out,
A heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle which drew them in.”

– Edwin Markham

Congratulations to CQ and Ed M. for seeing the truth in this. May I also become better able to live by it.

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Religion ≠ Belief

smijer — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:00:56 +0000

Dan Harper briefly addresses what I think is among the more pivotal points about religion in the context of debate about its value, here… namely, that religion doesn’t necessarily mean “belief” (about God, the supernatural, etc… or about objective reality at all, per se).

In fact, I think that one of the tasks religion is most poorly suited to is forming a system of beliefs about objective reality.

Dan points out historical cases where religions exist with very little in the way of unified beliefs, but implies that Western religion might be irreversibly married to such. I’m not so sure. There are liberal and moderate Christians for whom this is not necessarily the case, for whom a particular humanitarian impulse is more important than a creed. Likely this is the case with other Western religions.

It occurs to me that I could ask anyone interested in the question – religious or irreligious – liberal or conservative – to consider a set of premeses about where religion performs poorly and where it performs well (judged not by efficiency at a task, but by desirability of the outcome), and perhaps have their considerations less skewed by religious or irreligious prejudices than might otherwise be the case.

So, that is what I will do now. It being beyond the scope of a blog post to formulate an absolute metric for religious performance, I will instead present my suggested premeses in relative terms. First, I will relate each area of performance relative to the others by ranking them in order from least effective to most effective. Next, I will relate each area of performance relative to the performance of non-religious methods for similar or equivalent purpose using the signs -, +, & =. Those tasks for which religion is less well-suited (at least at the present) than non-religous methods will receive a ‘-’. Those for which it is better suited will receve a ‘+’. Where there is no appreciable difference, I will indicate this with an “=”.

Remember, I am asking you to conisder this with an eye toward gaining your assent for my evaluation. It is, of course, your perogative to disagree. I hope you will do so no more so than you are compelled to by your own experience with the matter. But, to whatever extent you agree or disagree, I would love to see what relative strengths and weaknesses you ultimately identify. Please feel free to leave a comment here. Ideally, this would make a nice blog ‘meme’, with at least some of the respondents linking and pinging back to this post.

A final note. I use the term ‘religion’ broadly and generally. That means I am taking into account not only how well Southern Baptists do a thing, but how well Unitarian Universalists, Buddhists & Mormons do it. I hope you will do the same.

Without further ado – and in order from “worst” to “best” – my subjective opinion is that religion serves the following tasks relatively thus, from poorest to best:

Understanding objective reality (-)
Honestly representing its own perspectives (-)
Governing the State (-)
Preserving the social status quo (-)*
Avoiding excess, particularly of self-certainty (-)
Resolving conflict between persons of culturally disparate perspectives (-)
Understanding philosophical truth (-)
Providing comfort or aid to those afflicted with mental illnesses (-)
Establishing a system of ethics (-)
Understanding human nature (-)
Providing comfort or aid to those afflicted with mild personality disorders (=)
Resolving conflict between persons of culturally similar perspecives (=)
Providing emotional comfort/aid to those otherwise healthy, but experiencing grief (=)
Enriching the general culture through art & literaure (=)
Creating an impetus for social change (+) *
Providing physical comfort/aid to those in need of it (+)**
Serving as a cornerstone for stable communities and families (+)***

* Again, I am discussing not the efficiency with which the task is carried out, but the desirability of the results. I find that religion, when it is involved in preserving a social status quo, creates an undesirable result compared to other tasks it carries out and compared to how other methods might carry this task out, because the religious, unfortunately, have a tendency to be attached to undesirable aspects of the status quo. On the other hand, when religion provides an impetus for social change, the reuslts tend to be more favorable. Here I have in mind the end of the British slave trade, abolition in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., and others. I do recognize that the Temperance/Prohibition movement was also a product of religion and that the results in this category are mixed.
**This includes providing access to standard medical treatment for physical ailments, but does not include directly healing or treating those ailments
*** James Dobson’s advice on family matters notwithstanding… Update: Or Phyllis Schlafly’s

Ok… One more item. Of this list, I think that religion is irredeemably bad at understanding objective reality, governing the state. The rest of the items that I listed early in the list and with the ‘-’ sign, are ones where I believe religion has enough room for improvement that it may one day be at least as successful in those tasks as other methods. Of course, even where I think religion already does the best job of a thing, I have no doubt that there is room for improvement. The biggest obstacle, to my mind, that might prevent religions from improving on these scores is fundamentalism. Fundamentalist thinking (found within and outside the fundamentalist church, but not ubiquitous in either place) denies the need for improvement in any area of its own religion (while being quick to find the log in the eye of the neighbor’s religion). It is precisely this characteristic, above and beyond all others, of fundamentalist religion, which causes it to be more susceptible to dangerous tendencies than moderate religon.

Again, I plead with those reading this post not to let it go unanswered. I would dearly love to see a larger conversation about the merits and drawbacks of religion that don’t start with the flawed notion that religion is as small as a person’s mythological “beliefs”.

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