Recently, I had the fortune—or if you prefer, misfortune—to stumble upon a list of both legitimate grievances and petty gripes atheists have against religious people, circulating on Facebook as “The Bitter Atheist Wish List”, by one Deborah Markus.  Ms. Markus gives an entertaining if at times myopic view of how atheists are treated by religious people in our society.  Turnabout may or may not be … Continue reading The Bitter Theist Wish List

Religion deals with the eternal: what happens to us after we die? What does it mean to worship a God who is conceived of as eternal?  And the academic study of religion raises its own questions that go on interminably.  One of the perennial favorites is the question of how reliable polls about people’s faith are.  Most recently, Princeton scholar Robert Wuthnow has reignited that … Continue reading In Polls We Trust–But Why?

Over the past year, the seemingly intractable problem of racism in America has exploded into the national consciousness with a force not seen since the 1960s.  The events in Ferguson, Missouri last summer as well as the more recent Eric Garner case in New York have focused attention on how African-Americans are treated by the police.  In this context, John McWhorter’s recent piece in the … Continue reading Race, Religion, and Reason among the Nacimerans

For a Jew, Friday night, when the Sabbath begins, is supposed to be a time of calm and repose.  But when I was in college, Friday night often became a time of angst. Every Friday, I participated in a Reform Jewish service on my campus.  We met in a small room in the building devoted to religious life on my campus, and on a good … Continue reading Is This Liberal Religion’s Moment?

I was rather late in developing it, but like many members of my generation, I have come to have an unhealthy level of obsession with hand-held mobile devices ostensibly used to make telephone calls, but in fact used for almost everything but.  In the past year, I have purchased three.  From that fact alone, one could surmise that I am shallow and gadget-obsessed, but my … Continue reading The Religion of Redmond

Politics is not generally my thing.  In part this is because I have become cynical in the face of much of what passes for politics in America today–the right- and left-wing echo chambers of cable broadcasting, the near-constant hyperbole, and the attendant ability of both political parties to manufacture artificial crises for the sake of mobilizing the base.  That said, it is hard not to … Continue reading Rum, Romanism, and Today’s Republican Party

Gentle (and not-so-gentle) Readers, Welcome to my Faith and Literacy Blog.  Previously, I attempted to start up a blog at Blogger, but having caught what I can only call the Religion of Redmond over the past few months–a faith that has not only made me switch from Gmail to Outlook but even from Google to Bing–I abandoned it.  After some searching, I have decided to re-launch … Continue reading The Supreme Court, the Supreme Being, and Sheila