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The proposition that God is goodness works, but only if one dispenses with the notion that God is interventionist/omnipotent. If God is indeed the latter, then too much horror happens on Earth to sustain the notion that God is goodness. So if one ends up ditching instead the notion that God is...

"I know you never think about earning an honest living. So you've made it into college. Big deal. Do you know how many people go to college and never get a job? What makes you so special? ............ All right, so you graduated with Honors and a Law degree. You think you're the only...

I'm puzzled. I've now seen two different versions of a key passage in Mohammed's farewell sermon. One version reads -- "All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black...

[I have submitted this posting on another board, and if "seconds" are not allowed here, my apologies in advance] I wonder if there is ever going to be some really ambitious novelist/epic-poet/film-TV-director/opera-composer -- whatever -- who might be up to constructing an entire multiple-part...

For some the origins of the caste system are found in the poem, Purusha Sukta, in the 10th book of the Rig-Veda, whose ten books are generally judged as dating back to the second half of the second millennium b.c.e. In the Purusha Sukta, the four chief castes -- the Brahmin (essentially, the...

Is this really meant as a joke?! Or not? And if it is a joke, then ....... just what kind of joke is this supposed to be? rationalia.com • View topic - So... the First Great Atheist Holy War, who's up for it? Thoughts? Operacast

I'm curious: What might be your takeaway from this paragraph? What kinds of implications do you find in what the writer says, and can you give a detailed paraphrase of what's written here, please? "There are earlier references, but they aren't any good. They either just repeat what...

HELP!! Something's terribly wrong. I've lost all access to my private INBOX!! I click on the Notifications link, and there's no sign of the usual drop-down menu at all. The whole page just flickers a bit -- and nothing!! I go onto my profile page, and all I see is a profile of recent...

My own take is that there is some degree of evidence for any number of things that may be unlikely. But the question in each case is, Is it strong evidence or poor evidence? Not all evidence is automatically strong. At the same time, even if evidence is poor, it can still be counted as...

Part I I used to be guilty of charging whatever research I could attempt with considerably hefty sleights of convenience. What do I mean by that? Well, I used to be guilty of making rash assumptions based on content alone (whether it was looking at variant editions of Shak[e]speare or variant...

The oldest text that is venerated by more than one faith would be the Torah or Pentateuch (comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), which is venerated by Jews, Christians and Moslems alike. So one might, for the sake of argument, subject it to the most modern scholarly...

I was quite startled to find a point/counterpoint argument online on why religion has evolved the way it has, in which the chief points to and fro took up many of the questions that I've mulled over here concerning religion and its development's possible relationship to the intricacies of...

Having studied the Gospels in editions ranging from Funk & Miller to Harper/Collins to the New Revised, etc., all I've gleaned has been strictly from translations and from modern analysis from the likes of Crossan, Funk, Kloppenborg, Borg, Mack, etc. For years, I would have essentially agreed...

Having studied the Gospels in editions ranging from Funk & Miller to Harper/Collins to the New Revised, etc., all I've gleaned has been strictly from translations and from modern analysis from the likes of Crossan, Funk, Kloppenborg, Borg, Mack, etc. For years, I would have essentially agreed...

I have started plunging into a detailed analysis of Indian and Greek rationalism in THE UNTOLD STORY ABOUT GREEK RATIONAL THOUGHT, at http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-07312008-31295015156333/unrestricted/31295015156333.pdf . It is a boon finding such a detailed exposition of this...

I found it very interesting to read bananabrain's remark in a related thread -- -- in referring to the way he arrived at his belief. Since I also am under the ........... illusion ........... (?) :-) that I arrived at my belief in the same way, I'd be most interested in knowing if bananabrain...

Quite a while back, I came across an MP3 that some posters here may already know, but I admit I only had time to hear it all the way through -- finally! -- today. A fair number here may be familiar with Bart Ehrman? Well, in this interview in this MP3, Ehrman addresses -- among many other...

This seems to me a worthwhile query, and I'd be curious as to any response. It occurred to me this might occasion a useful discussion if I start with a distinction that I read on another board from another writer: "For humanity to know about its creation, its reality as spiritual beings...

To those conversant with current Jesus Seminar studies -- Something that's tantalized me for a while has been the number of casual references, in past retrospectives, at varied specialty levels, to detailed studies of the changing styles and idioms in written Greek during the first century C.E...

A question for the board: We may have touched on this more than occasionally, but I'm wondering -- regardless of whether or not we view the ultimate truth of things as indeed summed up in a god as traditionally understood or in something more intangible instead -- if there are any texts...