tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291289912024-03-13T07:34:20.330-07:00Find and Ye Shall SeekA blog of mystical searches.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comBlogger611125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-18156471760355346492011-02-13T22:59:00.001-08:002011-02-13T23:08:24.088-08:00Why is it worth it to be in a larger denominationA front page <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/12/MNCB1HM088.DTL">article</a> in the San Francisco Chronicle tells the story of two Lutheran churches that were kicked out of the ELCA several years ago because of decisions to ordain gay pastors. Now the ECLA has changed its tune, is allowing gay pastors, and is asking these free thinking congregations to rejoin them. One of the two churches has decided to return to the ELCA fold. But the other one is not so sure. The pastor, Susan Strouse, explains one reason why:<br /><blockquote>There's also the question of what the next Great Debate will be, Strouse said. What progressive position will First United take, and will it bring expulsion?<br /></blockquote><div style="overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">If a congregation has gone its own way for over a decade, having explored progressive values without having to subject itself to the authoritarian control of a denominational theology police, why should they now put their own independence once again at risk by rejoining the denomination? The church in question has seen itself as a place where people who have felt excluded from organized religion could find a home. Would re-joining the ELCA be consistent with that mission?<br /></div>Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-26178993140605346912011-02-13T22:42:00.000-08:002011-02-13T22:57:24.529-08:00The Bible without certainty<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--J8pdaptZZc/TVjQ7jV_c6I/AAAAAAAAARg/nRTtemZHZEg/s1600/bealbook.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 278px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--J8pdaptZZc/TVjQ7jV_c6I/AAAAAAAAARg/nRTtemZHZEg/s400/bealbook.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573434260389327778" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I ran across a <a href="http://www.salon.com/books/what_to_read/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2011/02/13/rise_and_fall_of_bible">review</a> of a boot titled <span style="font-style: italic;">The Rise and Fall of the Bible</span> that might be worth checking out. The author of the book points out that lots of Americans buy the Bible without actually bothering to read it. In so doing, they confer the status of holy icon to the Bible, something to be revered rather than actually read. Of course, if many of those Americans were to actually read the Bible that they revere so much, the actual details of what the Bible is really like would contradict the image that they have of it as an infallible instruction book. In the midst of its sublime beauty and moral passion one would also encounter its flaws, its contradictions, and its moral failings. For a lot of people, it is better to remain blissfully ignorant.<br /><br />I am not familiar with the author of the book, Timothy Beale, but he is a Christian who<br /><blockquote>would rather see his co-religionists embrace the fact that the Bible is full of contradictions and inconsistencies and come to regard it not as 'the book of answers, but as a library of questions,' many of which can never be conclusively resolved.</blockquote>He also makes the point that the Bible is "poetry, not pool rules."<br /><br />This is, of course, a point I have tried to make many times myself in this blog. I might have to take a look at this book.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-55821770616406847272011-02-01T13:01:00.000-08:002011-02-02T09:40:22.823-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3xGH1mHiLac/TUh3tZ7m4mI/AAAAAAAAARU/xGT6KrmrbRY/s1600/belief.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 252px; height: 383px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3xGH1mHiLac/TUh3tZ7m4mI/AAAAAAAAARU/xGT6KrmrbRY/s400/belief.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568832561182335586" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />An <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2283372/pagenum/all/#p2">excerpt</a> from a soon-to-be-published book suggests that humans may construct the concept of God out of an innate human tendency to ascribe intentionality or consciousness to whatever we interact with in the world, even when there is clearly no consciousness behind it.<br /><br />I'm not sure that this is necessarily a novel idea. It is hardly news that religions have often anthropomorphized nature or otherwise assigned divinity to it (remember the Egyptian sun god Ra?) There has been a lot of speculation about a "God gene", and of course the existence of such a gene (or some inborn tendency for humans to believe in a deity) is itself no proof that God doesn't exist; after all, the existence of our inborn ability to conceive of space and time does not mean that those are merely mental constructs, or the fact that our brains are wired to conceive of light doesn't mean that photons don't exist. Nevertheless, it is an interesting thought to ponder--that humans are inclined to believe in some kind of greater spiritual reality.<br /><br />There is also a flip side to this, though. Just as the atheist might dismiss belief in God as merely the human tendency to assign consciousness to that which is unconscious, I can imagine the Tillichian theologian offering the same criticism, but from the opposite angle. If we think (a la Tillich) that God is not <span style="font-style: italic;">a</span> being, but rather <span style="font-style: italic;">being itself</span>, then giving God the traits of human--like consciousness and a human-style personality might be seen as a huge theological mistake, as a kind of idolatry. This is not because God doesn't exist, but because one is conceiving of God in a limited sense as a being rather than as the ground and depth of being itself.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-650505925934361892011-01-31T19:54:00.000-08:002011-01-31T20:04:49.266-08:00"Religious genes"I ran across <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-religiosity-gene-dominate-society.html">an article</a> that an attempt to formulate a scientific model around the evolution of "religious genes".<br /><br />The article seems to take for granted the existence of these alleged genes--and perhaps such genes do exist, but I am not certain that anyone knows this for sure. In any case, what amused me about this article was this statement:<br /><blockquote>Even if some of the people who are born to religious parents defect from religion and become secular, the religious genes they carry (which encompass other personality traits, such as obedience and conservativism) will still spread throughout society, according to the model’s numerical simulations.</blockquote>The article almost had me until I got to that statement. If the author of this model, Robert Rowthorn, thinks that religious people necessarily have the personality traits of obedience and conservatism, then all I can say is that he needs to get out more.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-90104629765129861012011-01-09T14:11:00.000-08:002011-01-09T14:36:08.491-08:00Women Have Overtaken ChristianityI ran across another <a href="http://www.dr.dk/P1/Religionsrapport/udsendelser/2010/12/23161435.htm">Danish language article</a> from the Danish national radio network that discusses an interesting phenomenon in Christianity, or at least one taking place in Denmark.<br /><br />The article, with the title "Women Have Taken Over Christianity", notes that<br /><blockquote>In a few years, 2 out of 3 priests in Denmark will be women. Women already fill much of the religious life, in some contexts there are only 20% of men left...<br /><br />Sixty percent of churchgoers in the Western world are women, while women make up 80% when one considers the more spiritual situations like stays at retreats and pilgrimages. This is true for example in the case of pilgrimage priest Elisabeth Lidell's events, where participants in her latest retreat consisted of ten women and a single man.<br /></blockquote>What is interesting about this is not just the suggestion that women have become more prominent, but rather the implication that somehow there is a softer female spirituality that contrasts with the strong virtues of masculinity, and that this somehow drives men away from church:<br /><blockquote>Female dominance is changing both the the contents in church and the role it plays in the community. But at the same time men risk becoming homeless in their belief.<br /><br />"All the old triumphal psalms have gone out of style. Instead we sing saccharine songs where we ask Jesus to "take my little hand in yours." . This is just not something for men," according to the Christian blogger Peter Beliath. He is tired of the way that love, concern, and other feminine virtues fill the churches. He thus wants that there was something more for men to come for.<br /><br />"Men like something that is solemn and ceremonial. But rituals and the almighty God fill less and less in the churches today," he claims.</blockquote>That strikes me as sort of an odd complaint. I had this quaint idea that love and compassion were human virtues, not just feminine ones, and that those were virtues that a certain man named Jesus promoted in his own preachings. I also can't help but think that triumphalism is an expression of a kind of tribalism that perhaps we could do with a little less of.<br /><br />So what conclusions are we to draw from this? Why are women more drawn to churches than men? Do men and women have different spiritual needs?Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-85786992396546238782011-01-03T11:16:00.000-08:002011-01-03T11:43:34.938-08:00Conceptions of the BibleRev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, a UCC pastor and author of the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians</span>, has written <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-candace-chellewhodge/why-gays-and-lesbians-sho_b_801399.html">an article</a> for <span style="font-style: italic;">the Huffington Post</span> that suggests that it is pointless to argue about what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, one way or the other. I have felt this way for a long time myself, and not just about what the Bible says on homosexuality, but about any attempt at drawing an authoritative answer from the Bible as if it were a Holy Answer Book. I think that such efforts really miss the point of what the Bible is or should be about.<br /><br />For one thing, she points out (correctly) that the Bible was written in a particular time and place in history and correspondingly reflects an often mistaken pre-scientific cosmological worldview:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The most important reason, however, that gays and lesbians should never, ever argue about scripture is because the Bible has nothing much to say about homosexuality. We have to remember that this is an ancient book. It was written at a time when people believed the world was flat and that the earth was in the middle of a three-tiered world with heaven above and hell below. It was written at a time when people believed that the whole of human reproduction was held in the sperm of a man and a woman was merely an incubator. Speaking of women, this was a time when they were seen as chattel -- property to be passed along from father to husband, from husband to brother and so on. It was written at a time when slavery was seen as God-ordained and animal sacrifice was the way to cleanse sins. </p> <p>In short, we cannot extract modern ideas from an ancient book. The writers of the Bible no more understood homosexuality than they understood that a spherical Earth orbited the sun. At most, we have a commentary on same-sex sexual behavior involving lust and abuse, but nothing -- pro or con -- about the modern concept of sexual orientation. We don't take the Bible's word for it that the earth is flat and women only incubate babies and contribute nothing else to the process. Why on earth would we take it as an authority on sexual orientation? </p></blockquote><p>What I particularly like about what she wrote is how she views the Bible:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The Bible remains a holy book because it maps humanity's journey with God, and not the other way around. Because it maps <em>our</em> journey with God, it maps our evolving understanding of how the Holy works in this world. Humanity has moved from seeing God as a harsh judge and lawmaker to a seeing God as full of grace, mercy and love. </p> <p>We don't learn about God by pulling out tiny details of the book and proclaiming them as true for all time. Instead, the Bible puts us in touch with God when we recognize its overarching message, which can be summarized by 1 John 4:7-8: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."</p></blockquote>If the Bible charts a particular cultural and theological stream of human attempts at understanding God, then sometimes in the details it is going to be just plain wrong . But the value is to be found in the questions and the journeys that the Bible documents, not the answers that it allegedly provides.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-11793271686464299072011-01-01T15:28:00.000-08:002011-01-01T15:37:24.210-08:00Faith and DoubtJames McGrath points out that "it is important to recognize that honest uncertainty is better for you, for one's faith tradition and for the world than unassailable conviction in spite of evidence to the contrary." This is part of <a href="http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2010/12/agnostic-christianity-faith-for-new.html#comments">an excellent summary</a> he has written of the issues surrounding faith and doubt.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-22488190414243986902011-01-01T13:17:00.000-08:002011-01-01T13:33:37.003-08:00The Invention of ReligionSadly, today's <a href="http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/">Non Sequitor</a> comic strip says something that is all too often true about religion, although that need not be the case:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3xGH1mHiLac/TR-di5L4JXI/AAAAAAAAARM/MlTdy1t9gHA/s1600/nonsequitor-religion.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 131px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3xGH1mHiLac/TR-di5L4JXI/AAAAAAAAARM/MlTdy1t9gHA/s400/nonsequitor-religion.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557333687990232434" border="0" /></a>Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-9196596611691392952010-12-26T21:09:00.000-08:002010-12-26T21:36:09.506-08:00God is naughtier than sexAs a followup to my recent post about how Americans feel a need to exaggerate their religiousness while Europeans are ashamed of their religiousness, I ran across<a href="http://www.dr.dk/P1/rosenkjaer/SigurdBarrett/udsendelser/20101124134808.htm"> this article</a> from the Danish national broadcast network's website. The original article is in Danish, although you can run it through Google Translate to get<a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=da&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dr.dk%2FP1%2Frosenkjaer%2FSigurdBarrett%2Fudsendelser%2F20101124134808.htm"> an English translation</a>, albeit with some awkward constructions here and there. The title of the article is "God is naughtier than sex", and it describes a Danish man who wrote a children's Bible. Here a cleaned up text of the Google Translate version of the article:<br /><blockquote>"If I had said something about my marriage or my sex life to the reporter from a newspaper, then it would almost be less taboo than my disclosure that I believed in God." Such is what Sigurd Barrett experienced, when once during an interview he answered "yes" that he believed in God. The day after he could read in a double spread in the newspaper : "Sigurd believes in God!"<br /><br />Sigurd Barrett finds that Danes are reluctant, almost afraid of the Christian faith, even though 80.9 percent of us are still members of the Church. This is partly why he agreed to make a children's bible. Not because he wants to proselytize or moralize, but because he wants it to be possible to talk about God without people responding nonsensically.<br /><br />Not least, the kids need to be able to talk about God. Sigurd Barrett believes that it is our duty to speak with them about what faith is. And they should not be scared about wanting to talk with and about God:<br /><br />"If we as parents put a lid on this impulse of fear to indoctrinate or brainwash our children, I mean really, we deprive them of the opportunity to found a spiritual dimension to their understanding of themselves. Praying a prayer is not an extreme or fanatical action. It is a natural desire to communicate with a higher power," he says. </blockquote>I think that this once again illustrates the point that just as there is a kind of cultural stigma in the US against not being religious, there is an opposite stigma against being religious in many parts of Europe. By calling attention to this, I am not implying anything about whether being religious is good or bad--but I do think the cultural difference is interesting, and it says less about whether the people in a country as a whole are actually more or less religious than it does about how people in a given country <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> to present themselves. This also once again raises the question--why do Americans frequently want to make themselves out to be more religious than they are, and why Europeans frequently want to make themselves out to be less religious than they are?Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-49221232463961197752010-12-26T20:53:00.000-08:002010-12-26T21:07:45.499-08:00Prayer for victory in warI ran across<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1226-then-20101226,0,6693557.story"> this article</a> in the LA Times about a prayer that General Patton asked his chaplain to come up with. The prayer asked God to help give Patton favorable weather during the waning months of World War II, just prior to the Battle of the Bulge. The prayer that the chaplain came up with was this:<br /><blockquote>Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.</blockquote>The article points out,<br /><blockquote>Throughout history, soldiers have called upon their gods for protection and victory over their enemies. But Patton's now legendary prayer was extraordinary in its presumption and audacity, said Hymel. "There were four other American commanders in the European Theater during that time, and none of them were asking God to fix the weather."</blockquote>I am reminded of Mark Twain's <a href="http://warprayer.org/">famous "War Prayer" story</a>, a brilliant anti-war spoof of the very idea of praying for God to help "our" side win. (If anyone is not familiar with this short work of Twain's, I highly recommend it.)<br /><br />If one assumes that God can control the weather to enable one's own side to win in battle, then the inevitable question is why God is limited to working his magic in that way. After all, why was the horror of World War II, with its millions of senseless deaths, even necessary in first place if a simple prayer to God could have fixed it. If God can determine the fate of battles by clearing up the skies, then surely God could have prevented Hitler from ever taking power, and surely God could have prevented massive horror of the Holocaust.<br /><br />It is interesting how divine intervention, supposedly a manifestation of God's omnipotence, is actually conceived in rather limited terms. Why appeal to God to help fix the mess that an omnipotent God could have prevented in the first place?Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-65733232299705936522010-12-25T21:33:00.000-08:002010-12-25T21:43:40.595-08:00Americans, Europeans, and claiming to be religiousThree years ago, I <a href="http://mysticalseeker.blogspot.com/2007/04/europe-and-failure-of-orthodox.html">posted an entry</a> to my blog titled "Europe and the Failure of Orthodox Christianity" in which, among other things, I quoted from a researcher from a <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> article who pointed out that Americans claim to be more religious than they actually are, while Europeans claim to be less religious than they actually are. The researcher, a Spanish sociologist named José Casanova, said<br /><blockquote>The interesting fact is that people responding to questions about religion lie in both directions. In America, people exaggerate how religious they are, and in Europe, it’s the other way around. That has to do with the situation of religion in both places. Americans think religion is a good thing and tend to feel guilty that they aren’t religious enough. In Europe, they think being religious is bad, and they actually feel guilty about being too religious.</blockquote>This is borne out <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2278923/">a recent study that was highlighted in an article</a> in <span style="font-style: italic;">Slate</span> magazine, which poses the question: Why do Americans claim to be more religious than they are?" It seems that Americans report going to church much more often than they actually do. Which then leads to this question:<br /><blockquote>Why do Americans and Canadians feel the need to overreport their religious attendance? You could say that religiosity for Americans is tied to their identity in a way that it is not for the Germans, the French, and the British. But that only restates the mystery. Why is religiosity tied to American identity?</blockquote>The author of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Slate</span> article, Shankar Vedantam, offers no definitive answer to that question. It does reinforce the notion that Americans are not really as different from Europeans on the subject of religion as people often assume.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-34576543470031608752010-12-23T20:29:00.001-08:002010-12-23T20:35:23.786-08:00Taking the Christmas story seriously, but not literally.Susan Strouse, a blogger who is the pastor of a small, progressive Lutheran church in San Francisco, <a href="https://progressivechurch.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/taking-the-christmas-story-seriously-%E2%80%93-but-not-literally/">writes</a> about her personal odyssey in learning to take the Christmas story seriously, but not literally. Her entry begins:<br /><blockquote>About ten years ago, at a December gathering of a women’s clergy support group, someone brought a beautiful Nativity story book. As we passed it around, I found myself growing more and more uncomfortable. Finally I dared to say the unthinkable: “But I don’t believe that this ever really happened.” <p>They all laughed and said, “Well, neither do we. It’s a story; it’s not literal history.”</p></blockquote><p></p><p>She wonders how many people, not just clergy, but those in the pews, also feel the same way. I like this comment:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I had the wonderful experience of an 80-something woman in my previous congregation, after reading <em>Why Christianity Must Change or Die </em>by John Shelby Spong, exclaiming to me, “I wish I’d read this 70 years ago!”</p></blockquote>Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-46661604964452354222010-12-16T14:03:00.001-08:002010-12-16T14:09:49.617-08:00The fatal implications of religious dogmaThe leadership of the Catholic Church in the US was very upset when a Catholic Hospital in Arizona performed an emergency abortion to save a mother's life. Now it is being <a href="http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/12/15/catholic-bishop-arizona-hospital-stop-providing-lifesaving-abortions">reported</a> that Bishop Thomas Olmstead<br /><blockquote>is not only castigating Catholic Healthcare West, the group that runs St. Joseph's Hospital, for saving her life but <em>threatening</em> them in order to force them to promise that doctors will never save a woman's life if it requires an emergency abortion ever again...Bishop Olmstead calls the life-saving procedure "morally wrong" even though he doesn't deny that it almost certainly saved her life. </blockquote>The irony is, of course, that the Catholic Church defines itself as a "pro-life" church and considers its position on abortion to be a "pro-life" stance. I guess saving the life of a mother is less important than letting her (and her fetus) die, all for the sake of a rigid and morally incomprehensible religious dogma.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-26437940662047476062010-12-13T09:00:00.001-08:002010-12-13T09:20:50.794-08:00A mature faith and an immature faithI found <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/08/why-elizabeth-edwards-left-god-out-of-her-last-goodbye/">this interesting article</a> about the religious faith of Elizabeth Edwards. In her farewell statement, she said, "You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces -- my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope." Because she made no mention of God in that statement, people of a certain sensibility were offended. For example, blogger Donald Douglas attacked her for having the temerity of not holding Douglas's own theological views, and then went off half cocked with the ridiculous statement, "Being anti-religion is cool, so Edwards' non-theological theology gets props from the neo-communists."<br /><br />How one can draw sweeping conclusions about another person's theology based on what they didn't say in a single sentence is a little odd, but based on other information in the above cited article, it is clear that what she believed about God was anything but simplistic. Any deviation from conservative orthodoxy is not, of course, a "non-theological theology", and the "neo-communists" remark by Douglas is laughable. But what particularly caught my eye in this article about Edwards was the following view that Edwards once expressed on divine intervention:<br /><blockquote>"I have, I think, somewhat of an odd version of God," Edwards explained to an audience of women bloggers when asked how her beliefs inform her politics. "I do not have an intervening God. I don't think I can pray to him -- or her -- to cure me of cancer."<br /><br />Edwards, according to Stan, laughed after describing God as "her" -- hardly a heresy and certainly understandable given her audience -- and continued on:<br /><br />"I appreciate other people's prayers for that [a cure for her cancer], but I believe that we are given a set of guidelines, and that we are obligated to live our lives with a view to those guidelines. And I don't believe that we should live our lives that way for some promise of eternal life, but because that's what's right. We should do those things because that's what's right."</blockquote>Wise words indeed. In fact, I would argue that there is nothing odd at all about not believing that God will cure her of cancer if she prays for it. This, to me, is the hallmark of a more mature faith.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-42361916071231957502010-11-28T12:34:00.000-08:002010-11-28T13:00:53.092-08:00Charitable motives and ulterior motivesI recently returned from a trip to Nicaragua where I was involved in a project to help build latrines in a remote and extremely impoverished community. Spending time with people who are so poor and yet so warm and welcoming can be a life changing experience.<br /><br />On the plane trip to Managua, a fair number of the passengers were all wearing the same t-shirt that indicated that they were part of some sort of American based religious based mission trip. Similarly, on the return trip, a different group of people were all wearing a different t-shirt that indicated that they were also participants on a religious mission trip.<br /><br />There is no question that helping the poor is often a religious imperative. Certainly the Bible talks about this. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable that states, "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." But they question I had was whether the people on these mission trips had ulterior motives in whatever it was they were doing. Were they building schools for its own sake, or were they also "saving souls" on the side?<br /><br />In talking with some other people who were on the same project that I was, and who had some familiarity with these sorts of religious based mission trip, the answer appears to be in most cases that that these service trips have a component of proselytization. <br /><br />If this is true, then I find this particularly offensive. I think that proselytizing is bad enough under any circumstances, but to do so as part of a mission directed at helping those who are disadvantaged, I it is doubly offensive. If one is going to help the poor, by all means I think they should. But if there is an ulterior motive, if proselytizing is part of the same mission as well, then it seems to me that one is essentially holding those one helps hostage to one's good graces. "Sure, I'll help build your school, but only if you'll listen to me tell you why my religion is better than whatever you currently believe."<br /><br />I have this silly idea that helping others in need should serve as its own reward, should be done for its own sake. I have no problem with demonstrating that acts of charity and social justice are performed as an expression of one's religious faith. But there is a difference between saying, "I help you because my faith says I should," and saying, "I am going to use this opportunity to help you in your time of need as a means of trying to convert you to my faith."<br /><br />Even the wearing of identical t-shirts on the plane seemed like a way of advertising their religious faith. I am reminded of what Jesus said about prayer in Matthew 6: "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Perhaps I am being too harsh, but I can't help but wonder if a group of people all wearing a t-shirt on the airplane boldly advertising their religious mission trip is a little bit like praying in public to make a show of what you are doing.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-20053392901123661142010-09-09T21:02:00.000-07:002010-09-09T21:44:01.548-07:00Knowing everything you need to knowThis <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/">satirical article</a> from the Onion, titled "Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims", is so successful as a work of satire precisely because there is so much truth in what it says. It could easily describe people like Terry Jones, the Koran-burning pastor, or about lots of other people who would rather not let little things like knowledge get in the way of their prejudices.<br /><br /><img src="http://o.onionstatic.com/images/articles/article/17990/Man-Already-large.jpg" /><br /><br />Of course, the same thing could be said about many others sorts of prejudices as well. For example (and I have written about this before), when noted atheist blogger PZ Myers says that he already knows everything he needs to know about religion (and even coined an argument known as "The Courtier's Reply" to justify willful ignorance), he is illustrating this "I already know everything I need to so don't confuse me with the facts" phenomenon very well. Certainly, this sort of ignorance has resided at the heart of many sorts of prejudices. However, it does seem lately that the prejudice that has become so prevalent, at least in American society, is that which is directed at Muslims. That is probably why I have been writing about Muslims a lot lately in my blog. I think I feel like we who care about inclusion have a responsibility to stand up for those who are marginalized in society, and it does seem like the prejudice du jour seems to be directed at Muslims.<br /><br />Nicholas Kristof wrote an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/opinion/05kristof.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=coughlin&st=nyt">excellent column</a> in the <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> recently about the history of prejudice against marginalized groups in American society. He chronicles the various groups in American history who have been subjected to intolerance, over the years, including Catholics and Jews. So there is nothing new in this. Although Kristof ultimately expresses some optimism about the ability of Americans to overcome prejudice, he makes at one point an interesting comment: "Suspicion of outsiders, of people who behave or worship differently, may be an ingrained element of the human condition, a survival instinct from our cave-man days."<br /><br />Perhaps it goes back even further than cave-man days. I can't help but wonder if our primate genes do lie behind our tribalism. I recently read a book by Vanessa Woods, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bonobo Handshake</span>, that contrasted the personalities of our species' two closest relative: chimps and bonobos. Chimps seem to be plagued by a terribly violent tribalistic impulse. They are not fond of chimps who aren't from their group to say the least. They (or at least the males) will often attack chimps from outside their own group in horrible and bloodthirsty ways that mirror humanity's own warrior brutality. According to the author, this violent chimp tribalism can even take place if you take a group of chimps and divide them up into two separate groupings; after six months or so, the former group kinship will be forgotten and chimps from one of the recently separated groups may attack chimps from the other, even though they all used to belong to the same group.<br /><br /><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kErgrrnoL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /><br /><br />Knowing this, part of me does despair that we have a little bit of the violent chimp within us. Vanessa Woods writes in her book about chimps and bonobos while also providing background stories about the horrific genocidal wars taking place in the areas near where she researched the bonobos, in Rwanda and Congo. And yet, we humans, violent as we often are, are also more than that. Bonobos, who choose a peaceful, highly sexualized, and matriarchal social arrangement, are also close to us genetically. And what about human altruism? Where does it fit into the evolutionary story, and if tribalism and violence is a part of what we are, can it not also be said that altruism is also part of what defines us? We are often proud of our altruism and even consider it part of what makes us unique. Apparently many scientists had thought that humans were essentially the only species capable of altruism, but Vanessa Woods <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/02/are-bonobos-altruistic/">argues</a> that she has witnessed examples of altruism among bonobos. For that matter, she cites a researcher who claims that chimps, violent though they so often are, are capable of altruism as well. So maybe altruism is also rooted in our primate past.<br /><br />The upshot of all of this is that it does seem that humans are capable of being inclusive as well as intolerant and bigoted. When prejudices are justified by people insisting that they already know everything that they need to know about those they stigmatize, they are expressing something other than the best that humans can be. That is not to their credit. And yet, while humans have shown themselves repeatedly to be tribalistic and to turn their bigotry against those they consider outsiders from their group, humans have also shown time and again that they are capable of reaching out with compassion and a moral sense of inclusion to those who are different.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-73089306513100894642010-09-06T00:34:00.000-07:002010-09-06T00:43:36.872-07:00What is essential to religion?Tim Crane (who is an atheist but not militantly anti-religion) <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/mystery-and-evidence/?hp">writes</a> in the New York Times that "it is absolutely essential to religions that they make certain factual or historical claims,"<br /><br />Really? Is this true? What are the historical claims that are essential to Buddhism, for example? (If Buddha had not existed, would not the same eightfold path of Buddhism still hold true?) What are the historical claims that progressive Christians who do not believe that Jesus was literally raised from the dead are making? Sure, they do assert that someone named Jesus lived a long time ago, but a lot of non-Christians also believe that.<br /><br />Isn't Crane offering a narrow definition of religion that is informed by Christian orthodoxy?Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-11629347209260549752010-08-23T14:10:00.000-07:002010-08-23T14:23:37.717-07:00The poor widow's offeringThe <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22FOB-wwln-t.html">reported</a> on a Berkeley <a href="http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_poor_give_more/">study</a> that showed that rich people are less altruistic than the poor are. The study found that<br /><blockquote>lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth. They were more attuned to the needs of others and more committed generally to the values of egalitarianism. </blockquote>The article goes on to say that<br /><blockquote>Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum. </blockquote>When reading about this phenomenon, I am reminded of the story of the poor widow in Luke 21:1-4:<br /><blockquote>He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on."</blockquote>Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-76247000543662860742010-08-17T13:29:00.000-07:002010-08-17T13:37:46.617-07:00America needs more MuslimsI thought this <a href="http://www.alternet.org/world/147864/why_america_needs_more_muslims/">article</a>, titled "Why America Needs More Muslims", makes a very good point, namely that part of what feeds the anti-Islamic prejudice going on right now is that a lot of Americans don't know any Muslims and thus hold views about Islam based on stereotypes rather than reality. I often wonder how many of those who are so vehemently anti-Muslim, who oppose the building of mosques throughout the US as well as the building of a Muslim cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero, are actually acquainted with even a single Muslim in their personal lives. Familiarity doesn't always erase prejudice, of course, but I can't help but think that it might help to humanize people who are so easily demonized as "the Other".Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-41491410338868722232010-08-15T21:48:00.000-07:002010-08-15T22:03:22.932-07:00Reza Aslan on atheist fundamentalismReza Aslan (who wrote an excellent history of Islam titled "No god but God") has penned a very nice <a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/07/harris_hitchens_dawkins_dennett_evangelical_atheists.html">article</a> for the <span style="font-style: italic;">Washington Post</span>/<span style="font-style: italic;">Newsweek</span> "On Faith" website about the relationship between the New Atheists and religious fundamentalists. He points out that many of the New Atheists are so zealous in their intolerance of religion (thus resembling religious fundamentalists) that in their zeal they have shown themselves to have little in common prior strain of serious philosophical atheism:<br /><blockquote>It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism--an atheist fundamentalism. The parallels with religious fundamentalism are obvious and startling: the conviction that they are in sole possession of truth (scientific or otherwise), the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers), the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists), the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon, and, perhaps most bizarrely, their overwhelming sense of siege: the belief that they have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies and are just not going to take it anymore.This is not the philosophical atheism of Feuerbach or Marx, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche (I am not the first to think that the new atheists give atheism a bad name). Neither is it the scientific agnosticism of Thomas Huxley or Herbert Spencer. This is, rather, a caricature of atheism: shallow scholarship mixed with evangelical fervor.</blockquote>He goes on to point out that a willful and disdainful ignorance of religion seems to be a consistent characteristic of this movement:<br /><blockquote>The principle error of the new atheists lies in their inability to understand religion outside of its simplistic, exoteric, and absolutist connotations. Indeed, the most prominent characteristic of the new atheism--and what most differentiates it from traditional atheism--is its utter lack of literacy in the subject (religion) it is so desperate to refute. After all, religion is as much a discipline to be studied as it is an expression of faith. (I do not write books about, say, biology because I am not a biologist.) Religion, however it is defined, is occupied with transcendence--by which I mean that which lies beyond the manifest world and towards which consciousness is oriented--and transcendence necessarily encompasses certain theological connotations with which one ought to be familiar to properly critique belief in a god. </blockquote>The comment about not writing books about biology without knowing something about the topic is particularly apropos. Many of the New Atheists seem to make a virtue out of not knowing anything about that which they condemn so vehemently; the so-called "Courtier's Reply" argument advanced by PZ Myers is an example of this claim that you don't need to know anything about religion to be able to dismiss it out of hand--and the interesting point is that Myers himself is a biologist who does not take kindly to people ignorant of biology making pronouncements about evolution.<br /><br />Aslan also points out the fallacy of scientism--the belief that science can step out of its own domain and make pronouncements about subjects that do not fall within the scientific purview--which is to say, the human quest for meaning through religious myth and metaphor:<br /><blockquote>What the new atheists do not do, and what makes them so much like the religious fundamentalists they abhor, is admit that all metaphysical claims--be they about the possibility of a transcendent presence in the universe or the birth of the incarnate God on earth--are ultimately unknowable and, perhaps, beyond the purview of science. That may not be a slogan easily pasted on the side of a bus. But it is the hallmark of the scientific intellect. </blockquote>Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-21552805047760959962010-07-29T19:49:00.000-07:002010-07-29T20:01:59.143-07:00What it means to be a Christian, part IIGod will punish the United States if we do not vote the way God wants us to in the 2010 elections,<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cindy-jacobs-gods-mercy-depends-how-we-vote-2010"> according to Cindy Jacobs</a>. Who is Cindy Jacobs, you might ask? Well, <a href="http://www.generals.org/about-us/mike-cindy/">according to her website</a>, she is a prophet, so I guess it must be true.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-68189591146813916542010-07-29T19:38:00.000-07:002010-07-29T19:49:20.083-07:00The voices of bigotry are getting shrillerIt appears that right wing hatemongers have <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/29/right-anti-islamic-bus/">upped the ante</a> in their smear campaign against Muslims:<br /><blockquote>Self-described “anti-jihadist” and conservative blogger Pamela Geller — the executive director of Stop Islamization of America (<a href="http://sioaonline.com/">SIOA</a>) — has joined the chorus of right-wing paranoia. Earlier this month on MSNBC, Geller suggested the Islamic center is a “<a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/201007140035">triumphal mosque</a>” on “conquered lands.” Now her organization has recently launched a series of bus ads reading, “<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0728/Anti-Islamic-bus-ads-appear-in-major-cities">Fatwa on your head?</a> Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!” in major cities, including San Francisco, Miami, and New York</blockquote>The fact that this kind of hatred is so openly prevalent is a sad testimony to the state of American society. I am reminded of the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan in the US during 1920s, or the anti-semitic radio broadcasts of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin">Charles Coughlin</a> in the 1930s. We like to think that we have moved beyond that sort of bigotry in this country, but clearly we have not.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-74579648150289732412010-07-29T13:51:00.000-07:002010-07-29T19:37:57.648-07:00What it means to be a Christian, part IAuthor Ann Rice has announced on her Facebook page that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/29/anne-rice-i-quit-being-a_n_663915.html">she has quit being a Christian</a>. Her reasoning is as follows:<br /><blockquote>I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.</blockquote>Understandable objections, although perhaps the problem may be that she is just hanging around with the wrong bunch of Christians. I personally know many Christians who are not anti-gay, anti-feminist, or anti-science. It is interesting to hear this announcement from Rice just days after the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the US, formally and publicly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26lutheran.html?_r=1">welcomed gay pastors</a> into the denomination. Of course, what it really boils down to is that "Christian" is a label, and like a lot of labels you can still be a person of faith whether you call yourself a "Christian" or not. She apparently hasn't given up on her faith, stating that she "remain[s] committed to Christ as always."<br /><br />Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal church has, meanwhile, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/26/katharine-jefferts-schori-sermon">presented a different vision</a> of what it means to be a Christian than the one that Ann Rice describes, in a sermon published in the UK newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">The Guardian</span>. Schori states that "We must challenge the human tendency to insist that dignity doesn't apply to the poor, or to immigrants, or to women, or Muslims, or gay and lesbian people."<br /><br />That's a vision of Christianity that I can live with.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-79283362436879871622010-07-23T15:02:00.001-07:002010-07-23T15:20:12.381-07:00The seeds of justiceDavid Brooks has written a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23brooks.html">column</a> for the <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> in which he discusses the idea that morality is a product of our evolutionary past. According to this view, our ancestors developed a sense of what successfully facilitated social cooperation, and that therein lies the basis of an innate moral sense that all of us have (and which even small infants show some expression of). Interestingly enough, Brooks makes a connection in his article between morality and justice; he quotes a researcher who says that "people have a rudimentary sense of justice from a very early age."<br /><br />He also discusses the relationship between morality and empathy:<br /><blockquote>People who behave morally don’t generally do it because they have greater knowledge; they do it because they have a greater sensitivity to other people’s points of view. Hauser reported on research showing that bullies are surprisingly sophisticated at reading other people’s intentions, but they’re not good at anticipating and feeling other people’s pain. </blockquote>The very existence of bullies points to the fact that not everyone has an equally developed sense of morality--bullies seem to express less moral sense than compassionate people, at least when they bully others--which ultimately implies that not everyone has an equally developed sense of empathy. Even if there is an innate moral sense within us as humans, it is still something that needs to be cultivated to be fully manifest. And this struggle to cultivate our morality has been played out in human history. Oppressive human social structures and ideologies--the list is long, but could include such things as slavery, sexism, racism, oligarchy, torture, economic exploitation--can all be seen as examples of an institutionalized lack of empathy. It has been a historical struggle to cultivate greater empathy at a societal level in order that people might understand that, for example, sexism is a bad thing, and further that society should reflect this understanding at an institutional level. Achieving this understanding has meant appealing to people's innate moral sense, their sense of justice, to inspire them to alter societal structures to make them more just.<br /><br />When we stand up for society's victims--the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, the religious minority, the excluded--we are expanding upon that innate moral sense and that innate sense of justice. But that innate sense will be stunted unless it is nourished. The seeds of justice may lie within us, but we have to cultivate them to make them grow.Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-26180223023461685592010-07-22T13:51:00.000-07:002010-07-22T14:51:17.332-07:00More on the rising tide of intoleranceNewt Gingrich <a href="http://www.newt.org/newt-direct/newt-gingrich-statement-proposed-%E2%80%9Ccordoba-house%E2%80%9D-mosque-near-ground-zero">has weighed in</a> on the Ground Zero mosque issue, and (I'm sure this comes as no surprise) it turns out that he's against the building of that mosque. His reasoning? He argues that since there isn't freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia, we shouldn't have freedom of religion in New York City either:<br /><br /><blockquote>...There are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca...If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. </blockquote> I think it is fair to say that if you follow the convoluted logic behind that argument, you have a bright future ahead of you as an upstanding member of the conservative movement. I wish I were making all of this up, because it shows just how wacko the wacko right really has become, and it also shows to what degree hatred has become part of mainstream American politics.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Yahoo News has published <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/anti-mosque-protests-on-the-rise-say-muslim-advocates">a story</a> on the rise in protests against the erection of mosques everywhere, not just New York City. The article refers to "the site of a mosque in Columbia, Tennessee, <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/yblog_upshot/pl_yblog_upshot/storytext/anti-mosque-protests-on-the-rise-say-muslim-advocates/36973893/SIG=11kn711tg/*http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330216,00.html">that had been burned down and vandalized with painted swastikas</a> in 2008." <p> </p><blockquote>"The local tiny Muslim community was in a state of shock because most of them were born in America and had lived very happily in the small community," he says. "People say, 'Go back home,' and they say, 'Where do we go? This is our home.' "</blockquote><p></p><p>The painting of swastikas as part of the vandalism summarizes pretty well what is going on here. The headline for the Yahoo article reads, "Anti-mosque protests on the rise, say Muslim advocates." Now imagine if the headline had read, "Anti-synagogue protests on the rise, say Jewish advocates." It's funny what sounds like a horrible expression of bigotry suddenly becomes acceptable to a certain element in our society once they aim their bigotry at a different religious group.<br /></p><p>The article also reports that</p><p></p><blockquote>Of course, opponents of mosques do not consider themselves bigots, and many are genuinely concerned that mosques may help produce homegrown terrorists.</blockquote><p></p><p>Of course, few people care to label themselves as bigots--just as few apologists for torture by the US ever actually use the word "torture" to describe what they advocate. Labels are like that. But the whole "terrorist" connection is rather interesting. I have cited, in earlier blog postings, the example of Christian-based terrorism in Mexico that is derived from the teachings of an American evangelist named John Eldredge. Of course, Eldredge disavows any responsibility for how his teachings are being used, but the point is that these terrorists are using Christianity to justify their violence--just as those who commit acts of terrorism in the name of Islam use the Muslim religion to justify their own violence. Interestingly enough, you don't hear too many of the Islamophobes using the example of Eldredge to justify the prevention of churches being built.</p><p>And speaking of terrorism, a right wing terrorist just the other day <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20011219-504083.html">got into a shootout</a> with the California Highway Patrol. He is said to have been "angry with "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items, and as a result "he traveled to San Francisco and planned to attack two nonprofit groups there 'to start a revolution'".</p><p>But I somehow don't expect that Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin will have much to say about that.<br /></p>Mystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.com3