Bored in Vernal has just posted her official summary and review of chapter four of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. I know that this means that we’re mixing the order for the chapter reviews, but I think that this is preferable to loss of momentum. Thanks, BiV, for an excellent review, and I hop you will [...]

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Jana has written her reflections on her chapter of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. Go there to discuss the introduction. Discussion links will also be kept under the “Book Group Selection” at the bottom of the left sidebar. For all of you who volunteered to blog about a chapter: email me (fierymind at gmail, etc.) when [...]

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I’d like to propose a different approach to the discussion of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus (this came up in a conversation with Elise and John White last night–thanks y’all!). There are seven chapters (nine if you include the intro and conclusion). I suggest that we divvy these up between anyone willing to blog about them. [...]

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Apologies for the delay. The Remy family was booked yesterday, from 9am to 9pm. ‘Tis the season! Once again, here are the candidates: Excellent books, all, if the reviews are to be believed. One of the benefits of the nominating process is that it exposes us to intriguing potential reads. But you don’t want to [...]

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All of the candidates for the second book group are now posted: Religion Gets Civil. Or Not. Roads Less Traveled. Interfaith, Interdoubt. It was very difficult to narrow down the nominated titles to a manageable number. Wonderful titles were eliminated from the list to make room for a range of solid options. Your selections were [...]

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Introducing the final trio of nominees for the second official Mind on Fire Bookgroup: Interfaith, Interdoubt: The first set of three: Religion Gets Civil. Or Not. The second set is Roads Less Traveled. Please use the comments to pitch your favorites.

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It’s the end of a long day, so I’m going to keep this short and non-witty (but I’ll stop short of witless). Today’s trio of titles all deal with aspects of spirituality. Each one looks very appealing, and I’m looking forward to reading them, in or out of the reading group.¬† I’m calling this set [...]

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Realizing that it would take some time to carefully narrow your many excellent nominations down to a manageable number, I locked myself in a room armed only with a laptop, a broadband connection, and a large caffeinated beverage. I emerged hours later, YouTubed out, but no closer to a viable field of candidates. It was [...]

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Because Elise is chomping at the bit (thanks Elise, for the impetus!), I am opening up nominations for the second Mind on Fire Reading Group. The first one was a great success. We debated Sam Harris’ The End of Faith across multiple blogs, and about ten of us met in person at an undisclosed (but [...]

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Let us assume that dogmatic belief (not limited to religious, though this is the most common manifestation in our world) is a danger to the survival of civilization/humanity, and needs to be tempered, minimized or eliminated. This is a question that we touched on in the End of Faith reading group, and I want to [...]

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