Category: philosophy, etc.

Unitarian Universalism

This morning my father and I attended service at the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg led by Reverand Howard Dana. I’d been there many years ago on the recommendation of a high school English teacher, and toyed with the idea of returning, but didn’t until I got an email from my dad asking if I’d like to go with him to check it out. When we sat down he whispered, “If they start talking about Jesus, we can leave.”

But Jesus was mentioned only once, and then it was in reference to him as a teacher, rather than him as God. This was balanced by the pastor’s use of words like “mazeltov” and “oy vey”. Instead, most of today’s sermon — entitled “The President of the United States” — focused on the election, dealing with disappointment, not being discouraged into inaction, and remembering that “this too shall pass”. It was a little startling to hear a pastor so strongly anti-Bush, and so unapologetic about it, but the sermon was well done. While Dana was clearly coming from a place of disappointment, his words were gentle and sometimes funny, recognizing the general feeling of despair in the congregation, and offering encouragement and hope. He seemed to be a man talking about what he felt, what he believed. But what surprised me most was that I wasn’t bored.

I’ve made fun of the Unitarian Church because they have no one creed, no core tenets, but I do admire their ideals, and it was heartwarming to hear the pastor lovingly call his congregation “godless intellectuals”. Waking up early enough on Sundays to make it to even the 11 AM service is not something that’s likely to happen with any regularity, it was a good experience and if I ever happen to be up early and have nothing to do…I might just go to church.

Peace Train

Ex-Pop Star Cat Stevens Deported from U.S.

Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, was denied entry to the US on the basis that he has ties to terrorism.

Of course I don’t have all the intelligence the FBI does, but this strikes me as ludicrous. Maybe they’re right, but my understanding is that most true terrorists believe that they are engaged in a justified jihad. They are most likely not writing articles like this.

On a mostly unrelated note, googling ‘jihad’ brings up some sad and scary results on both sides of the spectrum.

Wrath of God?

Florida’s Desperation Growing After Storm (washingtonpost.com)

Things like this make me understand the South a little bit better.

In Amarillo, TX, I saw a storm that came on so suddenly and with such fury that I thought I’d probably believe in a vengeful God if I lived there, too — there was nothing to do but pray as hail pelted the car and the water level in the streets rose to six inches in five minutes.

If I were in Florida now, as it gets slammed over and over, to the point that Dunkin’ Donuts trucks are being commandeered, I’d probably feel a need to believe there was a reason for that, too.

It’s all well and good to explain the scientific reasons storms develop, but science doesn’t do any good while it’s happening. Even if praying doesn’t actually do any physical good, well, you know what they say — any shelter in a storm.

Bush & the Church

The Bush campaign has issued a “guide” to churches around the country asking them to support him and enumerating 22 “duties” each should complete. This, of course, raises a number of problems, not the least of which are separation of church & state and the requirement that non-profits not endorse political candidates.

Newspapers around the country all seem to have their own take on the issue, but the most comprehensive article I found in my brief search was this one from the NY Times.

This article from The Express Times, a Lehigh Valley/New Jersey newspaper, has some interesting information about Bush’s religion and the approach he’s taking.

And here are all of the related articles Google has indexed.

On a related note, this is a roughly transcribed interview with Huston Smith with a focus on the relationship between Bush politics and religion.

Ouch

Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy

They’ve made a Mormon version of ‘Pride & Prejudice’. I was excited when I first saw that there was a new adaptation coming out, though from the trailer it looks like it might be an adaptation of ‘Bridget Jones’ more than of the actual Jane Austen book, but then I read the IMDB reviews of it and they’re serious in the tagline when they say “A Latter-Day Comedy.” You’d think I’d have suspected there was a correlation between the tagline and the fact that nearly all of the actors are from Utah, but it never occurred to me as a possibility. Of course I’ll go see it, but now it will be with a sense of dread instead of excitement…