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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
"The trouble is that we define our God too closely. In my book "A History of God," I pointed out that the most eminent Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians all said you couldn't think about God as a simple personality, an external being. It was better to say that God did not exist because our notion of existence was far too limited to apply to God."
Yes, you read that right -- Armstrong concedes that many atheists and agnostics are more enlightened than many believers in their refusal to grant a concrete "existence" to God. Please contemplate that insight before using her interview to reshash all the trite old Western arguments for and against God's "existence" for the trillionth ignorant time.
Disbelievers, hold firm in your holy skepticism. Only, don't stop there. Keep pushing that skepticism even further, into mystery and humility. Aim it on your own dogmatism and anger. Use it to unearth the hidden assumptions you've inherited from our age. Recognize that much valuable human knowledge and practice lies outside of what can be proven by math and the five senses, in the same way that much of what you value in YOUR OWN LIVES transcends what can be proven or controlled.
Believers, cling to your faith. It's a rock, and a gift. Only, don't let your belief calcify into concepts, phrases, schtick, smugness, exclusion. Allow your faith to give you the courage to laugh at every concrete certainty. Recognize that, in an ambiguous and relativistic created world such as this one, there's some good in almost every bad and some bad in almost every good. Treat your flaws as fertile opportunities and your virtues as potential traps.
The Divine is big enough for all of us, no matter what any of our relatively puny conscious minds have to say about it at any point in time; It really is.
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
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