A Short Comment on Senator Craig
It is interesting that Senator Craig, after admitting to signaling a police officer in an attempt to initiate sex in an airplane bathroom, is now saying over and over again that he is not gay. My first reaction to this was to think: "Oh he's gay, he just doesn't know it."
But maybe part of what it means to be gay, or to say it about yourself, is having the strength of character to be honest about who you are, what your attractions are, and to be able to live with being different. In that sense, Senator Craig is, in fact, not gay.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Enough of the Electoral College Already!
Hey - check out this website: National Popular Vote. Basically, it's a way that state governments can work together to make the electoral college system of electing the president irrelevant. In other words, if enough states pass this legislation, the president would be elected by the majority of the US population, instead of the weird 270 electoral vote system that we have now. Go write your state reps and senators! (Unless you live in Maryland - we've ALREADY passed this legislation.)
Hey - check out this website: National Popular Vote. Basically, it's a way that state governments can work together to make the electoral college system of electing the president irrelevant. In other words, if enough states pass this legislation, the president would be elected by the majority of the US population, instead of the weird 270 electoral vote system that we have now. Go write your state reps and senators! (Unless you live in Maryland - we've ALREADY passed this legislation.)
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Religion & Violence
So I was reading this interesting article on religion and violence in my Harvard Divinity School magazine. The basic gist of the writer's argument was this:
1. People like to say that religion/religious conflict is the cause of many, many deaths.
2. These same people have a very hard time defining what exactly religion is. For example, if it's a set of beliefs about God or gods, then Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism would have to be left out.
3. In fact, "religious violence" is something of a false category used by Westerners to separate "religious" violence - i.e. irrational, uncivilized and therefore wrong - from "secular" violence - i.e. unfortunate but rational and necessary violence.
Does this mean that no-one has religious motivations for asserting their violence? Or that religious beliefs and practices do not sometimes lead to violent actions? No, of course not. What I am saying, though, is that practically speaking there are a lot more people in the United States willing to kill for their country than they are for their God.
In other words, nationalism is at least as deadly as any other form of belief, and separating "secular" violence from "religious" violence is really a strategy for letting Western countries off the hook for their violence.
This is the article, by the way: I've linked to the issue & the cover - the article itself isn't online.
Does Religion Cause Violence? by William T. Cavanaugh
So I was reading this interesting article on religion and violence in my Harvard Divinity School magazine. The basic gist of the writer's argument was this:
1. People like to say that religion/religious conflict is the cause of many, many deaths.
2. These same people have a very hard time defining what exactly religion is. For example, if it's a set of beliefs about God or gods, then Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism would have to be left out.
3. In fact, "religious violence" is something of a false category used by Westerners to separate "religious" violence - i.e. irrational, uncivilized and therefore wrong - from "secular" violence - i.e. unfortunate but rational and necessary violence.
Does this mean that no-one has religious motivations for asserting their violence? Or that religious beliefs and practices do not sometimes lead to violent actions? No, of course not. What I am saying, though, is that practically speaking there are a lot more people in the United States willing to kill for their country than they are for their God.
In other words, nationalism is at least as deadly as any other form of belief, and separating "secular" violence from "religious" violence is really a strategy for letting Western countries off the hook for their violence.
This is the article, by the way: I've linked to the issue & the cover - the article itself isn't online.
Does Religion Cause Violence? by William T. Cavanaugh
Monday, August 06, 2007
I HAVE BROADBAND
Hey everybody! I don't actually have broadband, but I do have DSL now, which makes it much easier and more pleasurable for me to go online when I am not at work. I am hoping that this will mean more posts for you. Aren't you happy? And then one day I am going to figure out how to put an mp3 file up on my sermon blog, because I have four of them recorded by now. One day. The main problem is probably that they're about 4 times as long as the average song, and therefore take a long time to upload. Any advice from my computer-savvy readers?
Anywho, I saw the Bourne Ultimatum yesterday afternoon. Loved it! It's one of those movies I might actually go see again in the theater, which I never do. (I think ET might have been the last time I did that, except of course for those times when you've seen the movie already but none of your friends have, so you figure you might as well go along).
I think if you've seen the other ones you'll already know this theme, but I really enjoy the idea of someone trying to fight a corrupted system (not just a single bad guy) from the inside. Which, when I write it here sounds cliche'd, but the movie lays it out with a sense of the ambiguities involved. One thing that's crazy to me is that it's rated PG-13, considering all the violence. It's definitely a movie for grown-ups. But actually, it's kind of nice not to have a bunch of swearing & sex get in the way of the story. One warning: they did the hand-held camera thing again, which can be a nice headache-inducer.
All right, that's my latest thoughts, for now.
Hey everybody! I don't actually have broadband, but I do have DSL now, which makes it much easier and more pleasurable for me to go online when I am not at work. I am hoping that this will mean more posts for you. Aren't you happy? And then one day I am going to figure out how to put an mp3 file up on my sermon blog, because I have four of them recorded by now. One day. The main problem is probably that they're about 4 times as long as the average song, and therefore take a long time to upload. Any advice from my computer-savvy readers?
Anywho, I saw the Bourne Ultimatum yesterday afternoon. Loved it! It's one of those movies I might actually go see again in the theater, which I never do. (I think ET might have been the last time I did that, except of course for those times when you've seen the movie already but none of your friends have, so you figure you might as well go along).
I think if you've seen the other ones you'll already know this theme, but I really enjoy the idea of someone trying to fight a corrupted system (not just a single bad guy) from the inside. Which, when I write it here sounds cliche'd, but the movie lays it out with a sense of the ambiguities involved. One thing that's crazy to me is that it's rated PG-13, considering all the violence. It's definitely a movie for grown-ups. But actually, it's kind of nice not to have a bunch of swearing & sex get in the way of the story. One warning: they did the hand-held camera thing again, which can be a nice headache-inducer.
All right, that's my latest thoughts, for now.
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