My friend Nat Case, from my own Twin Cities Friends Meeting, has a blog I hadn’t paid much attention to until a month or two ago. I don’t know how much of my inattention is because I hadn’t noticed how smartly provocative his writing is, and how much is because, as a cartographer, he’s been writing less for a mapmaking audience lately, and more for Quakers and other people who question the meaning of religion. People like me.
This post expands on a brief comment I made on his post Fragments of a Religion That Never Existed, where Nat writes in part:
“What I’m interested in here is the idea of scripture not defined by its innate qualities (e.g. dictated by God), but by its functional qualities. What does scripture do? I find scripture-as-community-glue interesting, but my sympathies lie with scriptures-taken-to-heart. I do have a series of books, passages from books, poems, some formal religious texts, ballads, and films that form what I believe is similar to the sort of scripture-taken-to-heart that orthodox folk might have. Except I do not have a community that draws from the same set of texts.”
“If you think Richard Dawkins is too easy on religion, go down to that end of the room,” I said, indicating the steps up to the bookstore. “And if you…”
“Careful…” someone said.
And I was. There were several believers-in-God present – the exact number depending on your definition – and I didn’t want to make a joke that might be taken the wrong way.
“If you’re, uh… very theistic, go down to the other end,” I finished, indicating the fireplace. “And if you’re somewhere in between, go somewhere in between.”
A Friend on the nontheist Friends e-mail discussion list at some point challenged us to seriously study early Quaker history, and not just dip into it, “to develop our knowledge of and insights into the origins and development of the tradition or movement we have committed to.” Good advice, no question. And yet I felt … Read more
1. Circle 1 = God
2. Circle 2 = the natural world
3. Circle 1 minus Circle 2 = the supernatural world
A Friend on the nontheist Friends email list asked what the basis for membership might be, or more specifically, what a basis might be for turning someone down for membership. The question was not specifically about belief/disbelief in God, so I did not particularly address that. I suppose, by not addressing such belief/disbelief, I am … Read more
It would be nice to know who else uses our dove logo. Happily, it appears on a page about a peace fair at Buckingham Friends School (http://home.comcast.net/~buckinghamfriends/peacefair.htm). The dove was found in the public domain in 2004 by Crystal Hashmet when she created the first NTF website at www.quaker.org. Let’s see where else this little … Read more
Both within and outside the informal association of Friends who call themselves nontheists, there is little common understanding of what the word nontheist means. There is also little common understanding of related words such as atheist, agnostic, humanist, and materialist, but believers and unbelievers alike have at least a sense of what they mean by … Read more
If I am to speak of God at all, even metaphorically, I find I must speak of two gods. This may be the reason I tend not to speak of God. Both gods speak to me as metaphors, but I have difficulty calling them by the same name. It is not the world that my … Read more
I’ve gotten into an interesting exchange HERE on Chris M’s mysteriously titled blog “Tables, Chairs and Oaken Chests.” I’ll have to look closer to see how he came to that title. Anyway, Chris’s article holds up Samuel Caldwell’s well-known 1998 address at Pendle Hill, and I take a couple of jabs at it. Below is … Read more
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I know who you are. I have read the innermost secrets of your heart.