There’s never a good moment to do this kind of thing, but I’ve been needing to take a break from blogging, and I’ve decided to do it now. I’ve been writing a book proposal, and I haven’t been able to get it finished, partly because when I sit down to write I keep getting involved in the blog instead.
I need to make this a decisive break, because if I let myself get a little involved, I will get a lot involved. So for the next two weeks or until I finish the proposal, whichever comes first, I am committed to writing nothing here at all. I apologize to those of you with whom I am in a current conversation, but I have to focus on a different priority for a while.
Charlie Scott has agreed to prevent me from giving in to temptation. I’ve given him editing privileges, and I’ve asked him to delete immediately anything I write here. That will keep me honest, and it should also serve to let you know I’m serious about this break. He will also moderate comments to ensure they meet the standards in the Discussion Policies.
He and I began exchanging emails on this a week ago, by the way. The timing of this has nothing to do with any current discussions here; it’s really about the book project.
Two exceptions: when the weekly Christian Carnival is published tomorrow, I’ll post a link to it. That’s a commitment I make when I submit a post to the carnival. Also, if someone wants to write a guest post that fits what we do here, that would be most welcome, and I would be happy to read your idea and decide whether to post it. Please contact me by email. I do not intend to keep up with the discussions here, so email is the way to reach me for any purpose.
Tom,
Good luck with your book proposal. It took me five years to write 100 pages. I hope you are more prolific than me.
What is it with the broken-record self-promotion of pseudo-mystical syncretism? Why not add to the pile the repugnance of transhumanism or the false “wonder and awe” of Dawkins? Truth sacrificed to a group-hug mentality, I guess…
Every time I read Holopupenko I am reminded of Poe’s law.
Funny, Poe’s “law” often comes to mind when I read the pseudo-philosophical and unscientific rants of atheists… especially when it comes to their “fundamentalist” (if subconscious) commitment to scientism.
Here’s why secular scientists dismiss moral concerns (expect ones they find useful) — out of sight, out of mind… damn the damage to human relations (no wonder moral relativism is so rampant a viral meme among secularists):
Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.
The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency’s inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.
Note the important difference among secularists vs. people of faith: the latter KNOW they’re broken and that brokenness sometimes manifests itself as hypocrisy; the former a priori dismiss brokenness or evil (refer to Dawkins or Pinker) or moral categories because they’re either irrelevant or “unnatural limitations” or can’t be explained by their scientistic and positivistic pseudo-philosophical world views.
From which of these would you rather purchase a used automobile (err, sorry: pre-owned… we have to consider the feelings of 2000-lbs of metal and plastic and glass)?
A great article on why the syncretism is mind-debilitating anti-truth nonsense: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/25/separate_truths/?page=full.
When atheists practice it against people of faith (but especially against Christians), the term-of-art is “broad brushing selective inattention.”
Ahh, the unflattering trifecta that describes pluralistic teachings. The intention of the pluralist may be come across as tolerant, loving, compassionate, reasonable, etc. but the reality is it demonstrates quite clearly that they don’t know anything significant about the religions they are talking about.
I think there is some important space between arguing this religion and that religion are “essentially the same”, and arguing that they share some similarities, some of them considerable, while still having (very important) differences.
The problem I have with the typical syncretic moves is that they seem to often get where they want to go by treating any obvious point of disagreement as non-essential. So if Christians say humanity or even creation as a whole is in a fallen state, while muslims deny this, well… then clearly whether creation is fallen is a non-essential point. Alas, similarity can’t be had that cheap.
Of course, there’s also opposite extremes where any similarity between two faiths is also viewed as unimportant. So if Islam and Christianity (to use the same example) both are monotheistic, view God as good (or perhaps as the source of all good), omnipotent, omniscient, having a special relationship with man, etc.. somehow this becomes pushed to the side and ignored due to other differences.