Posts Tagged

religion

Theology After the Birth of God: Is Atheism the Next Step in Human Psycho-Social Evolution?

May 11, 2015 Christianity, Philosophy, Theology, Theory

“What bio-cultural sciences show us is that exactly this in-group anxiety and out-group antagonism is intensified by religion, i.e., shared imaginative engagement with supernatural agents. Priming people to think about invisible agents that may be watching them, and participating in emotionally-arousing, synchronically organized, causally opaque rituals, reinforces superstitious beliefs and segregative behaviors. This has been…

The Political is Necessarily Theological: Psychoanalysis and Theology

April 23, 2015 Christianity, Design, Philosophy, Psychology, Theology, Theory

Psychoanalysis is a peculiar protest against the casual dismissal [of] religion as an archaic anomaly that shall soon pass. It concordantly rejects the liberal dream of a politics without theology and claims instead the political is necessarily theological. The conscious rationale manifesting as justification for any religious belief or policy position can be addressed, mitigated,…

The Cultural Dimension of Radical Islam

March 5, 2015 Art, Current Events, Philosophy, Steve McIntosh, Theory

While there are many ways that the growing ideology of radical Islamism can be countered and resisted, my focus here is on the cultural dimension of the problem. Although Muslims have been keen to adopt the technologies of modernity, they have yet to adopt the cultural values of modernity. However, it is the liberal values…

Imagination is the Soul’s Temple: Reflections on Play and Ritual

February 18, 2015 Art, Christianity, integral theory, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology

“Ritual for me is a kind of like serious play. It’s play that you take seriously. As play, though, it doesn’t have an end outside of itself. It’s not like work or labor then in that sense, where you might be doing something now that may be grueling and difficult in order to produce a…

What’s Wrong With This Headline? “Children Exposed To Religion Have Difficulty Distinguishing Fact From Fiction, Study Finds”

December 18, 2014 Christianity, Science, Thoughts

I just read an article in HuffPo about a recent study which explores the perceived “negative effects” of children being exposed to religion at an early age. The article really frustrated me because of the negative spin and blind, erroneous presuppositions contained within it. When I come across stuff like this I just want to…

For a deep understanding of reality, mix equal parts: science, philosophy and religion.

May 14, 2014 Philosophy, Science, Theology, Thoughts

Critical to my approach is the need to maintain the ethic that keeps integral philosophy free from religious bias. Although integral philosophy has a strong spiritual component, its spirituality is broad enough to include a wide diversity of spiritual beliefs because it is careful to minimize its reliance on metaphysics. Like the three legs of…

Patriarchy and the Alphabet: Goddess Worship, Marshall McLuhan, and The Conflict Between Word and Image

March 19, 2014 Art, Literature, media, Philosophy, Theory

“The Old Testament was the first alphabetic written work to influence future ages. Attesting to its gravitas, multitudes still read it three thousand years later. The words on its pages anchor three powerful religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each is an exemplar of patriarchy. Each monotheistic religion features an imageless Father deity whose authority shines…

Who Took The Purpose Out of Science? (Nagel, Cobb, Whitehead & Teleology)

December 15, 2012 Art, Christianity, Drawing, Philosophy, Theology, Thoughts

“The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is…

CONFESSION: Mormonism Creeps Me Out a Little

November 2, 2012 Christianity, Current Events, Thoughts

I watched the above video recently, and I have to be honest, It creeps me out a little bit. OK, a lot. The religious rituals, the secrecy, the knocking, the passwords, the spacey outfits, totally bizarre to me. And this is coming from someone who is not unfamiliar to Amish and Mennonite culture! A couple…

A photograph: Original Poem by Jeramy Mohler

August 23, 2011 Art, Christianity, Photography, Poetry

A photograph I am lonely in my portrait. For I am exposed to the light of a dim god. Her light illuminates my darkness; The cracks and the creases left by disappointment and regret. his shutter silent, like that of the distant tide at the moment it receeds. In my moment of capture Nothing is…