August, 2007

Andrew called by the other night - partly to break a journey, partly because I wanted to talk about a publishing project, and partly to deliver a review copy of ‘Otherways’ - the book he has recently produced which consists of a selection of his own articles culled from the OST site. Also it’s just nice to get together.

continue reading "Otherways - Review"

Andrew called by the other night - partly to break a journey, partly because I wanted to talk about a publishing project, and partly to deliver a review copy of ‘Otherways’ - the book he has recently produced which consists of a selection of his own articles culled from the OST site. Also it’s just nice to get together.

continue reading "Otherways - Review"

It was my original intention to write about Black Magick for this final article of the ‘Magick is the ability to change the state of consciousness at will’ series. I was going to detail the appalling skill of the pharmaceutical companies at persuading Americans to take their obscenely expensive drugs for invented diseases like ‘depression’ using neuro linguistic programming of the public mind, and subtly changing the definition of the disease every year, until just about anyone could come under the diagnosis, and become a life long cash cow battling side effects for ever.

continue reading "Changing state with electronics…Magick IV"

My argument is that many evangelicals creatively weave the contemporary word “homosexuality” and its attendant meanings back into the Biblical text and context through the process of story telling. Specifically, they take a topic that emerged enforce during the 1980s and project it back into history as if “homosexuality” had always been a hot button issue for Christians and evangelicals. The effect of this creative storytelling is to tie the Holy Bible to the present political issue of “homosexuality” in a way that justifies the speaker’s condemnation on Biblical grounds. The result is that even though “homosexuality” is not literally or empirically in the Bible, many conservative evangelicals imagine it there anyway.

continue reading "Homosexuality: The Creative Work of Conservative Evangelicals"

My argument is that many evangelicals creatively weave the contemporary word “homosexuality” and its attendant meanings back into the Biblical text and context through the process of story telling. Specifically, they take a topic that emerged enforce during the 1980s and project it back into history as if “homosexuality” had always been a hot button issue for Christians and evangelicals. The effect of this creative storytelling is to tie the Holy Bible to the present political issue of “homosexuality” in a way that justifies the speaker’s condemnation on Biblical grounds. The result is that even though “homosexuality” is not literally or empirically in the Bible, many conservative evangelicals imagine it there anyway.

continue reading "Homosexuality: The Creative Work of Conservative Evangelicals"

In recent days under the broad topic of Thematics, several directions have crossed my mind.  Most notable was that I saw the need for Thematics to be seen as a control mechanism that more often than not places limits on behavior and faith.  For instance it is very common to first meet a person and be asked, "Where do you go to church?"  That is a loaded question -- loaded with all kinds of value judgments and connecting Themes.

continue reading "TRUTH As A Commons"

I was born and raised in La Castellana, a coffee producing town in the province of Negros Occidental, in the Philippines. Our town is well known for its special blend. In fact, a string of coffee shops in Bacolod City, the provincial capital, serves coffee grown here.

Nearly half of the residents are coffee drinkers, and there are 42 kapehan (coffee shops) in the town proper. About a third of these are located in the public market and each can accommodate 20 to 50 people at a time. The rest are in the residential areas where each block (about 3 acres) has one or two coffee stalls. Roughly, there is one kapehan for every 100 households.

Ally Ostrowski University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. Webology, Volume 3, Number 4, December, 2006.

Abstract:

As religious unrest and tension rise throughout the world, facilitating interfaith dialogue has become more important than ever. Many religious organizations have begun to include interfaith discourse into their general religious programming for members and some hold regular dialogue groups for their local population. But face to face events tend to focus only on the local community, excluding distant others who also seek to participate in interreligious discourse. The Internet, therefore, is an important medium to utilize for interfaith dialogue, and can bring isolated people together to discuss issues of difference and faith. This project finds that online interfaith information is excellent for congregations to utilize because of the relatively anonymous nature of the Internet, the disappearance of proximity limitation, the ability to become close with other participants, access to a spectrum of people who practice a particular religion, and the extra time available to ponder moderator questions and previous discussions. Using the Internet for interfaith dialogue is an important step for religious institutions and congregations. Not only are they reaching to their own members through cyberspace, but also reaching the larger population, sharing their range of religious beliefs, and participating in a global effort to improve tolerance and understanding between religious practitioners. continue reading

continue reading "Texting Tolerance: Computer-Mediated Interfaith Dialogue"

One of the many tragedies of the conventional economic mind is the grip that the “tragedy of the commons” has upon it.   Among other things, the “tragedy thesis,” as it is called, feeds the economist’s arrogance about modernity itself.  Traditional societies all were stupid and programmed for destruction, it says implicitly.  Only we moderns, with our market mechanisms and technological wonders, can save the world.  

This is, of course, total bunk.  Most traditional societies did far better jobs of managing their resources than we moderns, or post moderns, have been able to do.  An example is the remarkable water sharing organizations in the Northern Philippines called zangera. These embody a native genius in husbanding the water commons in such a way that everyone gets a just share.  They also show how to arrange a system – “incentivize” it in the econ parlance – so that leaders work to that end rather than to their own aggrandizement and gain.  

by Joseph William Perry
Just when you feel like all the fun has gone and will never come again, joy comes from an unexpected place.
For more than seven years I worked for a test-scoring company. It was seasonal work, only about four to six months per year, but it was a good place with good management and interesting work. Plus there were lots of interesting people around. I made lots of friends; I felt like I belonged—like at summer camp when I was a kid. I had extra-special men-friends and lady-friends. I had friends older than me, old enough to be a father-figure; I had friends younger than me, young enough for me to be a father-figure to them.

continue reading "Surprised by the BeenUp2 Family"

by Joseph William Perry
Just when you feel like all the fun has gone and will never come again, joy comes from an unexpected place.
For more than seven years I worked for a test-scoring company. It was seasonal work, only about four to six months per year, but it was a good place with good management and interesting work. Plus there were lots of interesting people around. I made lots of friends; I felt like I belonged—like at summer camp when I was a kid. I had extra-special men-friends and lady-friends. I had friends older than me, old enough to be a father-figure; I had friends younger than me, young enough for me to be a father-figure to them.

continue reading "Surprised by the BeenUp2 Family"

by Joseph William Perry
Just when you feel like all the fun has gone and will never come again, joy comes from an unexpected place.
For more than seven years I worked for a test-scoring company. It was seasonal work, only about four to six months per year, but it was a good place with good management and interesting work. Plus there were lots of interesting people around. I made lots of friends; I felt like I belonged—like at summer camp when I was a kid. I had extra-special men-friends and lady-friends. I had friends older than me, old enough to be a father-figure; I had friends younger than me, young enough for me to be a father-figure to them.

continue reading "Surprised by the BeenUp2 Family"

by Joseph William Perry
Just when you feel like all the fun has gone and will never come again, joy comes from an unexpected place.
For more than seven years I worked for a test-scoring company. It was seasonal work, only about four to six months per year, but it was a good place with good management and interesting work. Plus there were lots of interesting people around. I made lots of friends; I felt like I belonged—like at summer camp when I was a kid. I had extra-special men-friends and lady-friends. I had friends older than me, old enough to be a father-figure; I had friends younger than me, young enough for me to be a father-figure to them.

continue reading "Surprised by the BeenUp2 Family"

by Joseph William Perry
Just when you feel like all the fun has gone and will never come again, joy comes from an unexpected place.
For more than seven years I worked for a test-scoring company. It was seasonal work, only about four to six months per year, but it was a good place with good management and interesting work. Plus there were lots of interesting people around. I made lots of friends; I felt like I belonged—like at summer camp when I was a kid. I had extra-special men-friends and lady-friends. I had friends older than me, old enough to be a father-figure; I had friends younger than me, young enough for me to be a father-figure to them.

continue reading "Surprised by the BeenUp2 Family"

continue reading "Knowledge as Path to Truth"

continue reading "Yoga instructor brings teaching to Ontario prison - Faithwise Review of the Week"

Thus Tunisian fundamentalists get thoroughly entangled in the AlQaeda net work.The country as a State is not sponsoring terrorism. But the Islamic fundamentalists in the country are being inspired by the AlQaeda net work and thus Tunisia being close to Algeria gets involved in these activities and the Government has to spend substantial part of resources and time in battling the net work (7) (8). It is generally opined that these terrorists from Tunisia along with those from other African countries are of great threat to Europe.

continue reading "Tunisia and al Qaeda Inspired Terrorism"

continue reading "Faith Binds Society Together and Powers Civilization's Development"

continue reading "Turkey Struggles With Terrorism by Kurds"

PS. This is about the author, Mr. Christopher Hitchens. And, "Hitchens, one of our great political pugilists, delivers the best of the recent rash of atheist manifestos." Publishers Weekly, on his God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

continue reading "Atheist, Naturalist, Secular humanist, Or None-of-the-above"

John Stott’s recent retirement from public ministry was preceded about a year ago by the publishing of a special edition of what must be one of his finest contributions to popular theology - ‘The Cross of Christ’. The book highlights the centrality of the cross to the historic Christian faith, a theological explanation of the death of Jesus in the gospels and the New Testament, the need for an atonement in God’s forgiveness of sinful people, the biblical basis for such concepts as satisfaction for sin, and the self-substitution of God in the atonement.

continue reading "The Cross of Christ - John Stott"

Last April, about fifty of my classmates came to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our graduation from St. Vincent’s High School, which was founded here in La Castellana by the Columban Missionaries. .  It was a one-day affair of fun and nostalgia, the Lettermen and the Beatles.  We remembered the intramurals, the prom, the Friday night “jam sessions”-- and also, with sadness, our departed classmates.

Many of the remaining now live far away and seldom return. So some of my classmates stayed on for a few days to visit the places of our growing up – the orchards,  the river, and town plaza, among others. My classmates were sad to see the sparse “laguerta” (orchard) and the degraded state of the river where we spent so many happy days. The plaza brought out both sorrow and resentment. “What have they done to our plaza?’ they said when they saw the disordered structures on what used to be a grassy park.