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McCain's Glass House: Hagee
.: posted Wednesday, April 30, 2008 :::
By Valerie Tarico
At a news conference in Florida this week, John McCain couldn't resist the opportunity to bring up remarks by Jeremiah Wright, calling them "beyond belief." This, despite the fact that Bill Moyers, in an hour long interview last Friday showed the world the broader context in which the remarks were made. McCain, who seeks to position himself above dirty politics, has instead positioned himself as a hypocrite.
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tag: Christianity, atheism, skeptic, John McCain, Speparation of church and state, politics and religion, John Hagee,
Labels: Valerie Tarico
Ben Stein: Front Man for Creationism's Manufactroversy
.: posted Friday, April 11, 2008 :::
By Valerie Tarico
Biblical creationism, repositioned as creation science and most recently intelligent design has lost the contest of ideas on all counts: the rules, the criteria and the judging. It doesn't follow the scientific method; it doesn't allow us to explain, predict, and control better; and the jury of relevant experts (aka biologists) keeps returning the same verdict.
Now the creationists have taken a new approach that they hope will help them achieve their goal of teaching religious beliefs in our schools as science. That approach can be summed up in one simple word: whining.
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Labels: Valerie Tarico
How Can We Protect Our Children from Religious Recruiting and Heartache?
.: posted Monday, March 17, 2008 :::
By Valerie Tarico
As I speak publically about fundamentalism, one theme I encounter is the pain of parents who have lost children to religious recruiters. My friends, Elise and Thomas, have a wonderful smart daughter who was recruited into Jehovah’s Witnesses by a college boyfriend and now spends much of her time doorbelling. A colleague has little contact with his grown son, who isolates himself in a fundamentalist Evangelical community. Yet another woman, a professor, is cut off from her grandchildren because her scientific world view is perceived as a threat. One couple stood by helpless as their daughter struggled with her marriage to an abusive Muslim who demanded absolute obedience to himself and his religion. All of these parents feel helpless and often heartbroken.
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Labels: Valerie Tarico
Mythic Origins of the Easter Story
.: posted Wednesday, March 05, 2008 :::
By Valerie Tarico
In this post about the mythic origins of Easter, Valerie Tarico , author of The Dark Side, interviews Dr. Tony Nugent, scholar of world religions and mythology. Dr. Nugent is a symbologist, an expert in ancient symbols. He has taught at Seattle University for the past fifteen years in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and is a Presbyterian minister.
Tarico: Easter is coming. Some people are saying that the crucifixion and resurrection narratives simply retell the cycle of seasons, the death and return of the Sun. Others say that these stories are literal histories. But you say the reality is more complicated than either of these. You argue that the Easter stories – the death and resurrection of Jesus have very specific mythic origins.
Nugent: I view the story of Christ in the Gospels of the New Testament as a powerful and spiritually wise sacred story. While the story is told as if it happened, it is a theologically and mythically constructed history...
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Labels: Valerie Tarico
For Those Who are Pained by My Changes
.: posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008 :::
By Valerie Tarico
Recently a fellow traveler asked me how he could explain to his children the changes that he is going through. I realized, as I wrote out some thoughts for him, that I had never shared these same thoughts with my own family members who have grieved and feared for my soul. If they could understand the following, perhaps they might worry less:
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Labels: Valerie Tarico
Two Liars for Jesus and an Aging Philosopher?
.: posted Monday, November 12, 2007 :::
By Valerie Tarico
In the name of God all manner of moral boundary crossings become conceivable. In the service of a biblical god or the Bible-as-God, they all too often become real.
For Evangelical Christians, the greatest good in the world is winning converts. A Christian who wins a convert saves a soul that would otherwise be condemned to eternal torture. According to traditional Roman Catholic theologies in which modern Evangelicalism has its roots, only true believers are exempt from this fate.
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Technorati tags: ex-Christian | exchristian | ex-tian | skeptic
Labels: Valerie Tarico
What's with all the Whining about Truth?
.: posted Friday, November 02, 2007 :::
By Valerie Tarico
My book, The Dark Side, has an in-your-face subtitle: “How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth.” It’s in your face and so, not surprisingly it triggers push-back. One of the questions I get is a wearisome post-modern “What is truth, anyways? What is all this whining about Christian dogmas violating truth like you have some higher standard? (Implied: As if any perspective could lay any more valid claim to truth than any other.)”
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Technorati tags: ex-Christian | exchristian | ex-tian | skeptic
Labels: Valerie Tarico
How to Make the "Neo-Atheist Cabal" Move On
.: posted Monday, July 02, 2007 :::
Posted by Valerie Tarico
Can we find a way to move beyond tribalism and superstition in our quest for meaning? Can we build spiritual communities that are morally and intellectually accountable, rooted in what we know about ourselves and the world around us? Even moderate people of faith seem to defend their religious texts and traditions as packages. And interfaith work that seeks to transcend tribal boundaries says blythely that "it's all good." Nick, a commenter at Radio Open Source suggests a first step toward something truly different. It's definitely what I want!
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Technorati tags: ex-Christian | exchristian | ex-tian | skeptic
Labels: Valerie Tarico
Frosty's Brain on Ice
.: posted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 :::
By Valerie Tarico
"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore." So said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven children, one of whom recently was threatened with exposure to An Inconvenient Truth, in her suburban Seattle science class. Frosty also stated, for the record, ""The information that's being presented [in the movie] is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD." The world, according to Frosty, is about 14,000 years old. Maybe it's been around long enough?
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Technorati tags: ex-Christian | exchristian | ex-tian | skeptic
Labels: Valerie Tarico
The Problem of Pain
.: posted Sunday, January 21, 2007 :::
By Valerie Tarico
This post is excerpted from The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth.
Thou to Whom the sick and dying Ever came, nor came in vain, Still with healing word replying, To the wearied cry of pain —Godfrey Thring1
ONE OF THE MOST POTENT CHALLENGES THAT NATURE RAISES AGAINST THOSE who want to believe in a just, loving, and omnipotent God is human suffering. We may diminish or even dismiss the suffering of “dumb beasts,” but we know that our own pain hurts. Worse, empathy makes it difficult to ignore the many forms of trauma suffered by our fellow humans.
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Technorati tags: ex-Christian | exchristian | ex-tian | skeptic
Labels: Valerie Tarico
Females, Gays, and Other Samaritans
.: posted Tuesday, September 19, 2006 :::
This post is excerpted from The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth. (www.lulu.com/content/220355.)
There is nothing respecting which a man may be so long unconscious of as
the extent and strength of his prejudices.
—Francis Jeffrey1
Several of the writers of the Bible didn't care much for females. More than one thought homosexuals were vile. Some considered foreigners to be slightly less human than God’s Chosen People.
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Technorati tags: ex-Christian | exchristian | ex-tian | skeptic
Labels: Valerie Tarico
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