More Than You Think

Let’s start with an interesting scientific fact. You have 100 billion neurons in your brain, 40 thousand neurons in and around your heart, and 500 million neurons in your gut. We’re used to thinking of neurons as “brain cells,” but that’s a serious misnomer perpetuated by our brain. Neurons are not simply nerve cells, butContinue reading “More Than You Think”

In the Presence of Mystery

The biblical god lives nowhere but in the sacred stories of the Bible itself, and in the mythopoetic imagination of its audience. And while this might sound like atheism, it is far from it, for the simple reason that the fictional character of god is acknowledged as a metaphor of the present mystery of reality.Continue reading “In the Presence of Mystery”

Touching Reality (and Talking About God)

Religion is the more or less systematic way that humans express, develop, and apply spirituality to their daily life in the world. You may believe that you have no religion and that you are not “religious,” but I know better. Your particular way of connecting spirituality to daily life might not be very relevant orContinue reading “Touching Reality (and Talking About God)”

Would Jesus Join a Church?

Christianity has become a protected membership, where insiders are separated from outsiders by a wall of orthodox beliefs and moral judgments. In this post I will argue that membership is always about purity, separation, and exclusion. Purity may not be about ritual or dietary restrictions in most cases; at least this is generally true ofContinue reading “Would Jesus Join a Church?”

Homecoming

The process of becoming somebody – someone with a separate center of personal identity – is a long and complicated affair involving many others who are also undergoing their own individuation. We are busy trying to figure out the game as the game is shaping who we are. Actually, the process of becoming somebody hasContinue reading “Homecoming”

Math and the Meaning of Life

Have you ever met someone who believes they are god’s gift to the world and deserve special attention? How about someone who believes they are worst of the worst and also deserve special attention? Both individuals have essentially the same thing going on: they can’t stop thinking about themselves or get the attention they feelContinue reading “Math and the Meaning of Life”

Peaceful Soul, Creative Spirit

A friend and blog follower of mine posed an important question after reading my recent post “Where is God?” Here are his words: The traditional God was a human-created myth that is no longer needed, and any debate over God’s reality needlessly wastes time and energy, and leads to conflict. Better to just leave itContinue reading “Peaceful Soul, Creative Spirit”

Where is God?

As an advocate of post-theism I stand in an interesting space, with suspicious theists on one side and suspicious atheists on the other. As they debate the literal existence of god, I want to know what god means – not what did god mean by this commandment or that Bible story, but what the mentalContinue reading “Where is God?”

Christian Mythology Through A Post-theistic Lens

After leaving Christian ministry as a church pastor my journey has taken me deeper into the frontier of post-theism, and it’s been my new “calling” since then to clarify the meaning of this emergent form of spirituality. I have worked hard to distinguish post-theism from its progenitor (theism), as well as from its much youngerContinue reading “Christian Mythology Through A Post-theistic Lens”

Why Spirituality and Religion Need Each Other

In their effort to distance themselves from irrelevant and pathological forms of religion, many today are identifying themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” This general move across culture has also tended to brand religion itself as inherently irrelevant (outdated) and pathological (extremist and/or delusional). The so-called New Atheists have promoted this identification in their advocacyContinue reading “Why Spirituality and Religion Need Each Other”