Saturday, May 21, 2005
untitled
Cedar Point is awesome.
Here are some .mp3s of the Pop Project (well, 3/4 of it) doing an acoustic performance for a radio show.
That is all.
Here are some .mp3s of the Pop Project (well, 3/4 of it) doing an acoustic performance for a radio show.
That is all.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Great Idea
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times opines about a new book by a former Episcopal bishop. This bishop, John Shelby Spong, has apparently written a book that attempts to examine "why the Bible - for all its message of love and charity - has often been used through history to oppose democracy and women's rights, to justify slavery and even mass murder." Kristof says the book is "long overdue" and treats this idea of Spong's- that the bible maybe doesn't support a lot of positions typically held by the Christian Right- as a revelation of the highest order. Apparently Kristof had never compared scripture to modern Christian hate-rhetoric before.
Kristof tells us, "In fact, when conservatives quote from the Bible to make moral points, they tend to quote very selectively." Eureka! Those sneaky Evangelicals aren't being square with us! Kristof seems to think that this will come as news to most of us who oppose the supposedly scripture-based agenda of the Christian Right, but it seems fairly obvious and self-evident to me. Christians have always been selective in their approach to scripture. They were selective in the very process of collecting it. The early church did not just sit down and take dictation from God, bind it up, and call in the New Testament. Instead they picked and chose the gospels they would accept, decrying and even destroying rejected ones as heresies. Today, Christians with agendas play the same game. They find support for their beliefs in the Bible, but conveniently ignore portions of it that fail to match their worldview. Kristof brings up an excellent example: Leviticus, which outlaws homosexuality, also forbids touching anything made of pig skin. I wonder how the Evangelical homophobe Reggie White reconciled his making a living by playing football with that particular verse.
I don't disagree with Kristof's assertion that the Christian Right can be opposed to some extent on their own terms. I just resent his assumption that no one has thought of that before.
In less pretentious news, the flickr tag "inmybag" yields some fascinating stuff.
Kristof tells us, "In fact, when conservatives quote from the Bible to make moral points, they tend to quote very selectively." Eureka! Those sneaky Evangelicals aren't being square with us! Kristof seems to think that this will come as news to most of us who oppose the supposedly scripture-based agenda of the Christian Right, but it seems fairly obvious and self-evident to me. Christians have always been selective in their approach to scripture. They were selective in the very process of collecting it. The early church did not just sit down and take dictation from God, bind it up, and call in the New Testament. Instead they picked and chose the gospels they would accept, decrying and even destroying rejected ones as heresies. Today, Christians with agendas play the same game. They find support for their beliefs in the Bible, but conveniently ignore portions of it that fail to match their worldview. Kristof brings up an excellent example: Leviticus, which outlaws homosexuality, also forbids touching anything made of pig skin. I wonder how the Evangelical homophobe Reggie White reconciled his making a living by playing football with that particular verse.
I don't disagree with Kristof's assertion that the Christian Right can be opposed to some extent on their own terms. I just resent his assumption that no one has thought of that before.
In less pretentious news, the flickr tag "inmybag" yields some fascinating stuff.
