Yesterday was a busy day. First back to SFSU, then to Peets (saw former student working as a barista – Hi Hunter!), then to Stanford, then home, then physical therapy (I’m doing much better, thanks!).

A calypso band was playing. I didn’t quite catch their name. They did a smokin’ rendition of How High the Moon.  I did manage to get a clip of this tune. Have no idea what it was. Anybody know?

I took several classes from Fr. Winance while I was studying at Claremont Graduate University. He was a fascinating man. There’s a six degrees story that I’ll post later. But I want to get these You Tube videos up now.

OK. I had to click on it. Gross, but in a sweet kind of way.

I wonder how large a phenomenon this is? Ministers giving up the ministry and perhaps their faith.

And no, the reason I’m not in church is not because seminary, or rather the academic study of religion, somehow “took my Jesus away.” Actually it was the other way around. I gave up Jesus (or rather, my traditional, Baptist-bred beliefs about him) before I went off to seminary. It was seminary that kept me from giving him up altogether.

From Scientific American:

Souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens, intelligent designers, government conspirators, and all manner of invisible agents with power and intention are believed to haunt our world and control our lives. Why?

How did I miss this WordPress theme? It was already an option on my site. Cool. Need to tweak it a bit. But love that coffee aroma!

I just finished watching this on the NY Times. The travails of leaving a religious community. I’m still kind of speechless. Bravery writ large.

At 21, the age at which she was expected to marry, Ms. Karasik left the Lubavitch community of Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

On Twitter: (quoting *the* Daniel Dennett)

“The secret of happiness: find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.” Dan Dennett

A new category for “out of the closet”.

I was thinking that Kierkegaard’s objectivity/subjectivity distinction could help me articulate my views about evil and the “problem of evil”. I gave a first try in class on Thursday. I think one inescapable difficulty is the “public” nature of evil (at least on some typical views of what evil is). Read the rest of this entry