Category: Religion

My family feels like a cult

My family feels like a cult.
When I visit, I feel like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, entering a building whose inhabitants are all members of the same cult just watching and waiting for her to join them. Seriously: When I walk in, conversations stop, everyone just turns and stairs. The stairs are followed by forced smiles and forced conversation, fake laughter, exaggerated hospitality.

Sexist creation, feminist salvation

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the denial of women as equal members of the religious body, as well as of their very humanity, is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in the first book of the Bible. Genesis 2:21-23: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took […]

Good Christian, good Muslim, good person?

In day-to-day conversations, both virtual and face-to-face, I frequently hear people refer to the concept of the “good Christian” or “good Jew” or “good Muslim” or whathaveyou. They are usually referring to themselves and the person with whom they are speaking. Sometimes they use terms like “christlike” or “godly” or some variant of those. And […]

Religious spam: Yes, religion is bullshit, and its purveyors are assholes

I like to write about religion. I like to read about religion. I even sometimes enjoy conversing with religious folk. But I am not religious. Religion is bullshit and its purveyors often unabashed assholes. Religious spam is a case in point. As the administrator of a blog, I get a lot of spam. I even […]

The Show Show: The Satanic Perspective

Several years ago, a friend and I came up with the idea for a show called The Show Show. The idea was to create a fictional talk show about other nonexistent shows. Whether the idea was meta or stupid doesn’t much matter since it never got off the ground. But I did write one script for […]

Oppositional narrative, myth-shaping and ideological idiopathy

Definitions Idiopathy is generally a medical term, but its usage here harkens back to its Greek roots. “Idio-” is from the Greek ídios (ἴδιος), meaning something private or entirely one’s own. “-Pathy” is from the Greek pátheia (πάθεια) meaning “feeling” or “suffering” which in turn derives from pathos (πάθος), meaning a condition or state (generally of suffering).

On the question of the femininity of the holy spirit and the divine

For Christian feminist theologians fighting patriarchy within the church and within the larger Christian religious tradition, the patriarchal image of God is an issue of primacy. As many battles as feminists and egalitarian reformers may win, whether it be the ordination of women or a simple revocation of the one-sided dictate for wives to submit […]