This is the trailer for a new movie, a Jihad for Love. I thought it was apropos given Prop 8′s drawing ever nearer. It is a story about the struggle of gay Muslims. I have added it to my Netflix queue, but if it comes out in the greater LA area, I’ll prolly get a [...]

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During Obama’s recent visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, according to tradition, he wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and left it there. However, since he is under media scrutiny right now, it was stolen by a young seminary student (who should have known better!). While I disagree completely with its theft, [...]

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I’m sorry for all the sparks recently, but I couldn’t resist this one. Enjoy!

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So…the Church of England has voted to allow female bishops. Which sounded awesome to me, despite the fact that those opposed to it have called those in favor of it “mean spirited” for disallowing “super bishops” (read: male bishops) for congregants that object to the authority of a female bishop. I’ll come back to that. [...]

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I checked out this survey on a prompt from Pharyngula. I recommend that you do the same. We may indeed be giving the creator of the survey food for thought, but what I found was that it was a good, concrete way to think about my own beliefs, hang-ups, and tendencies. I think it’s a [...]

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[wp_youtube]jg8lCLumByw&[/wp_youtube] via.

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When I was in high school, if I wanted to do anything on a Sunday (missing church), I’d have to go to Saturday evening mass. Since the English Community only had one service a week, and since it was 50k away, I’d walk down to the local Catholic Church and sit in the way back (eventually it did occur to me that I didn’t have to go there, just be gone for the right general amount of time, but I still usually hung out around there). I found it much easier to tune out mass in German, so I often spent the hour or so thinking Deep Thoughts. One of the major Deep Thoughts was of chaos & order.

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This post is a convergence of concerns elicited by Johnny’s guest post on atheism’s negative PR and my reading of this month’s Mind on Fire book selection, Bury the Chains. I may be conflating too much history here, but this was a time of revolution and radical egalitarianism. It’s interesting to me that during a [...]

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I skipped Quaker meeting to worship at Mind on Fire today. We took the family to watch Amazing Grace Friday evening. The movie follows one British MP’s efforts to outlaw the British slave trade around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. I highly recommend it to MoF regulars. In fact, I’d love to [...]

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We are enveloped by arbitrary rules that dictate our perceptions and interactions with the world. For example, what determines that in the United States pigs, cows and chickens are food and that hamsters, dogs, and parakeets are pets? (I remember learning in Japan that the main ingredient in the cheap canned corned beef we bought [...]

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