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my con report

It was the bestest convention ever. Or at least, since the last 4th Street.

Many useful links to pics and reports here: Fourth Street Fantasy

All deserve to be singled out, but I’ll just pick one, the sound files for most of the panels: 4th St. Fantasy 2008 Panels

Also, we went to a climbing gym and had beaucoup fun afterward.

Fourth Street Fantasy Convention: still the best convention on the block–any block.

the cross, then and now

TheStar.com | News | It’s still a cross to bear. Some bits:

It first appears in the historical record in 519 BC, with “Darius I, king of Persia, crucified 3,000 political opponents in Babylon.”

And:

an Iraqi named Manadel al-Jamadi was tortured to death in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison. A CIA interrogator ordered that he be stripped, hooded and hung from bars above his shoulders in a manner known as “Palestinian hanging,” a form of crucifixion allegedly used by the Israelis.

In this case, it was apparently intended as a torture technique rather than a deliberate execution. A distinction without a difference. Over 45 agonizing minutes, Al-Jamadi suffocated to death.

Americans are universalists–or lean that way, anyway

ABC News: Survey: Americans ‘Non-Dogmatic’ About Religion

The findings show that 83 percent of mainline Protestants, 79 percent of Catholics, 82 percent of Jews, and 56 percent of Muslims concur that eternal life is not exclusive to their faith.

“I didn’t think it would be that high,” Green remarked, “and I didn’t think that the figures would extend to so many different religious communities.”

Fifty-seven percent of Evangelicals, a group which often speaks the loudest in faith-fueled debates, also takes a non-dogmatic stance.

I’m surprised that the ratings for Muslims are so low. It may have to do with the way the survey was worded. All “people of the book” are okay by Allah, according to the Qur’an.

later: I was speaking very casually when I wrote what’s above: traditionally, universalists believe a loving God will save everyone. From that premise, “universalist” has come to suggest that all religions are good or have some good in them.

As for the people of the book, there’s a decent Wikipedia article here. The quick version is that the Qur’an basically says people of the book are okay:

Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last Day and do righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

The Qur’an warns muslims against people of the book who distort their traditions. From this, some muslims have come to believe that those books were rewritten to include lies. But that’s not in the Qur’an.

before Christianity became a death cult

uuworld.org : early christians emphasized paradise, not crucifixion

seriously, nap!

How to nap - Boston.com

via boingboing.net

Happy trails!

We’re roadtripping to Fourth Street Fantasy Convention, so I may blog every day, or I may not blog for a couple of weeks. Should it be a while before I return here, a few things:

An online friend in a position that makes discretion seem the better part of valor said I could quote this without giving credit: “I am not pro the Cuban regime–it’s a dictatorship by any definition and not my brand of Socialism–but I saw a poor people with excellent education, in excellent health with excellent teeth. Makes you wonder, huh? If they can get it right, despite of an embargo that has cost them over 50 billion dollars since it was implemented… well.”

If you want to argue about my principles and haven’t gone yet, you can argue with the people I’ve quoted at the median way.

If you want to keep up with marrow donor news: Heal Emru: Updates.

And a fine way to end anything, an old fave, Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be”:

* Thanks for the reminder, Walaka!

on metatheism and the metatheist

My score on the philosophy test two posts back includes a “0%” for belief in “divine command.” You might conclude that means I’m an atheist, but I’m not. I’ve been a theist, an atheist, and an agnostic. As an agnostic, I struggled for a better term, because I was more comfortable with the language of religion than many agnostics. I understood what people meant when they said, “I’m spiritual, not religious.”

But was I a pantheist? A panentheist? A metaphorist?

I’m a metatheist. Literally, metatheism is “beyond theism.” It’s beyond atheism and agnosticism, too, not in a superior sense, but in the sense that the metatheist is spiritually utilitarian: what matters is what your belief inspires you to do. Call the desire for goodness and justice “God” or “morality” or “something ultimately unknowable” if you wish. To the metatheist, all of those positions are fine. We’ll talk about goodness in your terms—that’s just being polite. What helps you do good is good to us. We’ll only object if part of your belief makes you hurt others, and then we’ll only object to the hurtful part. What’s good is good, no matter its context.

The name is new, but the concept is old. Thomas Paine and Albert Einstein have both been claimed by atheists, but they had a profoundly spiritual and moral concept of the world:

“The creation is the Bible of the true believer in God. Everything in this vast volume inspires him with sublime ideas of the Creator.” —Thomas Paine

“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” —Albert Einstein

later: Trimmed “spiritual and moral concept” to “spiritual concept.”

social universalism

A friend recently said that in a fair world, everyone who deserved to be punished would be punished. I disagreed, and realized that I’m a universalist in the most profound sense: No one deserves to be punished. Everyone deserves to live in a fair world.