SF & Fantasy Writer, Healthcare IT Consultant, Recovering Academic
Some commentators and translators of the Heart Sutra, leave the mantra at the end untranslated. So sometimes we find:
“The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is stated thus: gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā.”
and sometimes we … Read the rest
I’ve already discussed how unconvincing I find William Lane Craig’s Moral Argument for God, so it is interesting that there is a cousin to this argument that I find compelling, the Argument from Moral Knowledge:
Some arguments for theism seem to either rest on a metaphysical confusion, like the Ontological Argument. Others might furnish evidence for God, such as the Cosmological Argument and the Argument From Design. But these arguments rarely convince non-theists, … Read the rest
A friend of mine helped one of his friends recover a chapter of her graduate thesis from a corrupted flash drive. Needless to say, she was appreciative and made this clear on Facebook. Amongst the many compliments and comments to … Read the rest
In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Jorge Luis Borges playfully suggests through an unreliable narrator that Don Quixote could have been written twice, once by Miguel de Cervantes in the seventieth-century and again by a fictional French … Read the rest
When I was an undergraduate studying religion and a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School I was taught that theology is written by religious insiders, and theologians are religious insiders. Non-Christians cannot be theologians of Christianity or write Christian theology, … Read the rest
Once when I was discussing a paper topic with Frank Clooney, I told him I wanted to critique some parts of the ritual theory of a third-century Indian thinker by the name of Shabara. He asked me, “Have … Read the rest
I’m an Eagle Scout, have a Master’s in religion from a prestigious university, and I don’t shy from calling myself an atheist, so I have an uncommon perspective on Boy Scouts of America. In truth, I’m glad BSA is … Read the rest
Have you ever considered how many children you have disdainfully denied existence by not having (more) children? I expect not. The huddling masses of merely possible kiddies (MPK’s) do not often concern us.
But should they? There are many points … Read the rest