I think a case could be made that the emergence of digital communication and online social media has made religious hypocrisy a more dangerous temptation today than we often recognize. Lee Siegel in his book Against the Machine, discusses how we hide behind false, “phantom” identities on the internet. It’s a medium we think fosters…
Category
Thoughts
A New Year & Time Keeps on Ticking; But Does It Have To? | Art by Jenny Brown
Modern society is unimaginable without clock time. With the rise of the chronometer came a vast increase in discipline, efficiency and social speed, transforming every institution and human endeavor. The factory, the office, transportation, business, the flow of information, indeed almost everything we do and relate to is to a greater or lesser extent controlled…
To Own The Truth Is To Lose It | Art by Tony Martin
“The Johannine narrative betrays traces of a way beyond the mirror-play of absolutism and relativism. It wells up from within, it flows between, it blows from without. But this truth is not to be had. To own the truth is to lose it. The flow of truth is in this text the movement of the…
Christians Are Atheists and Anarchists
“What is interesting here in Daniel (Daniel 3: 13-18)…is the conflation of anarchism and atheism. You’ll recall that the word “atheist” was coined by the Romans to describe the early Christians. This was because Christians rejected the gods of the Romans, denied their legitimacy, ultimacy and existence. In short, there is a conflation between the…
Why technology may be killing your soul and ability to think freely. | Art by Robert The
In her 1993 book New Maladies of the Soul, philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva wrote about how the psychological ailments she found in her patients differed from those uncovered by Freud a hundred years previously. In particular she noted: “Today’s men and women – who are stress-ridden and eager to achieve, to spend money, have…
Open Hands & Closed Fists: Mitch Albom, Rabbis & Truth
I remember sitting with my wise old Rabbi once and hearing a baby scream. He looked at me and said, “Did you ever notice how babies come into the world with their tiny fists clenched?” “Yes,” I said. “Do you know how our sages explain that? They say that babies, not knowing any better, clench…
When Good People Do Nothing: Thoughts On Penn State, Personal and Systemic Sin
Some people simply can’t process the horror in front of them. Some people suffer from what the psychologists call Normalcy Bias. When they find themselves in some unsettling circumstance, they shut down and pretend everything is normal. … People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones…
Why You Should Not Use Two Spaces After A Period
Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left. Above is…
Original Poem: As Viewed By Descendant
What is seen with baby eyes? Perhaps it’s sprouting sights unknown, Dressed in mops and donned with suits. Then forgotten fragrance upon which spilled Gets bumped whenever starry sky’s are held, Fraught until the end we sort; gathered, As if tortured tinder doused in rain, Shivering by night, but held so close (Those baby hands…
An Epistle About Parenting
Just a follow-up to our discussion on parenting, which I really liked; needless to say, it’s a subject that I’m consumed with at the moment. I wanted to send along a link to a blog post I wrote on authoritarianism in parenting, and a link to the book I was telling you all about, Parent…