society and culture

continue reading "Civilization Depends Upon Trust"

From the About page:

Symbolism.Org represents the online presence of The GreatHouse Company of Santa Rosa, California. GreatHouse is involved in ongoing research, consulting and publishing centered on the symbolism of popular culture.

Symbolism has a far greater presence in contemporary culture than most realize. More than an ancient, esoteric discipline, it really serves as the centerpiece for an entirely new modern philosophy and understanding of the world.

While symbols seem to increasingly “migrate” to contemporary culture - defining such things as leading brands, products, films, events and celebrities - few understand the dynamics and cycles of their movement, their overall language and what they tell us. In effect, we are much more busy creating symbols than trying to understand them.

continue reading "Symbolism.Org"

As frightening as it is to some, freedom of speech and assembly are still the best weapons against darkness. That is, enlightenment—shining light on darkness—is the best solution. These articles by Dr. Rao are good examples.

But to use enlightenment as a tool, we must muster the courage to face our own shadows, our own closeted skeletons, our own failures and our own misdirected attempts at misinformation. That is, when I shine a light on your blemishes or dark secrets, that light will eventually illuminate some of my own. For American business and political leadership, shining a much needed light upon the dark intentions of our self-declared enemies, means the eventual unveiling of some dark deeds carried out by themselves in their own interest over the past century or so. Because they (perhaps we) refuse to own their own shame, they cannot credibly shine the much needed, unfiltered light on the intentions of our aggressors. In other words, the US government (also British, French, etc.) and the business interests to which some major players within in it are beholden, are severely limited in the use of enlightenment to dislodge the darkness from our shores and the Middle Eastern nations in which this deadly strain has been cultivated and nourished over the past century, by the fear and dread of exposing their own past dark dealings.

continue reading "Truth is a Two Edged Sword"

continue reading "Why Islam Lags Behind The West?"

The Valentinian Gnostic idea of a counterfeit world or religion developed by the minions of an arrogant, ignorant creator god is just too useful to cast aside.

While reading the threads started by Chip and Brian and the comments, I was reminded again of how humankind tends to turn faith into religion, and the real thing into the counterfeit. Faith morphs into burdensome religion from liberating truth.

continue reading "Counterfeit Faith"

Yesterday I received email from the webmaster of a legal services advertising group asking that faithCommons link to his website. He had picked out just the right page—among several thousand currently published here—and proposed putting a link to his site on that page. The page he thought best suited to advertise his client's legal services is a chapter in Reido's Church Without Walls. Why he found that page suitable, I have no clue. But cluelessness didn't start with me in this matter.

Below is an edited version of the email—edited to avoid giving search engine page rank—I received and below that is my reply.

continue reading "Web Link Spamming and Sharing the Commons"

What exactly is art? Is it pretty, or just an expensive rarity? Is it merely the output of someone who claims to be an artist? Or is art only art when the art authorities declare it to be so? Similar questions could be asked about spiritual truth. Do we need “experts” to tell us what is truth? Is truth spoken only by those with the proper training? Can truth only be recognized by those with special training or titles? The answer to all is NO. And I hope to convince you that you not only have the ability to recognize truth and true creativity, but that Christianity started off as a heresy that claimed just this.

continue reading "What is Art? What is Truth? And Who Desides?"

Here are some quotes from Spencer Burke's and Barry Taylor's just released book, A Heretics Guide to Eternity.

[William Ventimiglia] goes on to quote Jesus' analogy of the Holy Spirit as a wind that blows where it chooses and writes that this element of God's action in the world has “always been a problem for organized religion with its well-established categories of understanding.” (Heretic's Guide, p8)

This reminds me of Reido's use of this same quote. Let's look at it.

continue reading "A Very Quick Look At "A Heretic's Guide To Eternity""

Terry Hornbuckle was found guilty on three counts of rape yesterday. Bishop(?) Hornbuckle is (was?) the founder and pastor of Agape Christian Fellowship church of Arlington, Texas. (Their website takes the cake as the most over-the-top, hurt-your-eyeballs flashy, church site that I've ever suffered) Internet searches for news about his trial and its verdict brought almost 1,500 visitors (so far) to this site over the past couple of weeks.

continue reading "The Hornbuckle Effect"

The future of Christian (and religious) thought and practice is rapidly moving from orthodoxy to heterodoxy. In the same way that markets for everything from books, to music and movies, to news and opinion (blogging), erupts from mainstream to broad-stream, religious thought and practice will continue to grow increasingly diverse. From hierarchical to network to complexity, our social structures—including those of markets as well as spirituality—are breaking free of their moorings to scatter, emerge, cluster and re-form more to the real world and less to the arbitrary structures designed and defined by the experts and brokers of mass marketing and orthodoxy. Reido's Church Without Walls has a lot in common with Chris Anderson's The Long Tail.

continue reading "Heterodoxy and The Long Tail"