Dr Paul Allen

English: Richard Dawkins giving a lecture based on his book, The God Delusion, in Reykjavik (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) 20% of Americans who describe their religion as “none.” It isn’t that the “ Nones ” (not to be confused with “nuns”) don’t believe in God , necessarily. 64% of them do. They just don’t want to affiliate with any “organized religion.” The statistics about “Nones” probably don’t include the number of self-described Christians who feel the same way. I know of some who haven’t found a church they can agree with or that is up to their high standards. So they don’t go to church at all. After all, with their “me-and-Jesus” theology, why do they need a church? But they do. The good news is that 40% of those raised as “Nones” drop out of their non-religion to join an actual religious institution. Hey, isn’t that about the same drop out rate, according to one measure, for young people raised in churches ? From Michael Gerson: An America that is losing faith with r

The word  Jesus  stuck in my throat like an elephant tusk; no matter how hard I choked, I couldn't hack it out. Those who professed the name commanded my pity and wrath. As a university professor, I tired of students who seemed to believe that "knowing Jesus" meant knowing little else.  Christians  in particular were bad readers, always seizing opportunities to insert a  Bible verse  into a conversation with the same point as a punctuation mark: to end it rather than deepen it. Stupid. Pointless. Menacing. That's what I thought of Christians and their god Jesus, who in paintings looked as powerful as a  Breck Shampoo  commercial model. As a professor of English and women's studies, on the track to becoming a tenured radical, I cared about morality, justice, and compassion. Fervent for the worldviews of Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Darwin, I strove to stand with the disempowered. I valued morality. And I probably could have stomached Jesus and his band of warrior

Ed Stezter has  the best post I have read on a recent controversy over Pat Robertson’s statement  that a husband could divorce his wife because of her Alzheimer’s disease . Stetzer brings a relatively recent example to bear on the subject. It is easy for someone who has never experienced such a thing to glibly reject such thinking. Far better to hear the example of someone like Robertson McQuilkin who has experienced it and determined to keep to his vows made before God out of the joy of laying down his life for someone else. These two videos represent two very different philosophies. It is all too easy in our decision making to focus on our own ‘rights’ and needs, rather than to selflessly give ourselves to someone else. I hope you watch both of them and determine by God’s grace, as he enables you, to follow the second: Related Posts Related articles Pat Robertson: Alzheimers is grounds for divorce (thesecularity.com) Pat Robertson And Alzheimer's. (hooglyboogly.co) Alzheim

Image via Wikipedia Here's a riddle: A young man walks into a building. From the outside, it looks like a nondescript, run-down, abandoned warehouse. Inside he finds mood lighting, music with throbbing bass, and young people wearing skinny jeans and superfluous scarves.  A bar off to the side offers drinks of some sort, and a frenetically lit stage is shrouded in fog. Jumbo screens display what appear to be music videos. Everywhere people text on their iPhones. A young woman with a nose ring and a vaguely Middle Eastern tattoo comes up andintroduces herself. She makes awkward (but refreshingly earnest) small talk about her passion for community gardens and food co-ops.  She asks him if he has heard Arcade Fire's new album, and compliments him on his bushy beard and lumberjack look. Beards like that are cool, she says. Eventually she asks him for his contact information. Question: Is the man in a bar? Or is he in a church? It could go either way. Welcome to the wor