Category Archives: Religion
This is the thing …
I often remark, in contrast to one persistent cliché, that I am religious but not spiritual. By this, I don’t mean that I’m a heartless churchgoer. Who do I mean? First, let’s look at the word “spiritual.” What I mean by “not spiritual” is that, so far as I can tell, the world doesn’t appear [...]
Holy Land
In 1963, a full hundred solar years after Husayn declared himself to be the Promised One of all Promises, and a quarter century after I had joined the Flock, I attended the inauguration of the next great epoch of the End of Days, as the Flock was transformed into the Letter Day Recipients of the [...]
Abbas and Sons
“my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” —Thomas Paine, 1791 C.E. 1795. The sun burned above the high Iranian plateau, and its heat rolled over the land. It gave heat and only heat. It was a dark sun, for there were no eyes to see it. It burned upon the [...]
Music of the Spheres
One day while Armen was loitering in a local independent bookstore, his peace was disturbed by a scheduled event. An author was to read from one of his books and meet some store patrons. Bookstore staff were busy setting up chairs while an elderly man, presumably the guest of honor, busied himself with the task [...]
The Burning Bush
When God spoke to Moses, God took the form of a burning bush. Why did an ancient Israelite think that God would take the form of a self-immolating bush? It might be natural enough to think that fire consumes a bush, but there’s another way to see it—the way that many ancients saw it: the [...]
River at the Edge of the World
It may presently be one of the most God-forsaken places on our planet. The Kokcha River region of Afghanistan is good for little more than opium farming and arms smuggling today, though it was once one of the great corridors between the ancient worlds of India and Iran, long before Darius and the Persian Empire. [...]
The UUA's New Covenant
The latest draft of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s New Principles and Purposes starts with an interesting twist: The “Principles and Purposes” heading has been replaced by the term “Covenant.” I suppose that’s forgivable, but I feel a strong urge to admit that the word “covenant” makes my skin crawl. Maybe it’s just because I was [...]
The Original Holy Land
What place do most of us think of when we hear the term “Holy Land”? Perhaps we ought to think of Afghanistan. Let us begin by looking at that highly influential proto-western religion of the Persian Empire, Zoroastrianism. Though it is evident that Judaism originated in Mesopotamia and developed in and around Palestine, it is [...]
Honorary Faggot
I was terribly nervous the night before election day. I had volunteered to work all day for the No-on-8 campaign. The training had been rather intimidating, and I was afraid that I might misrepresent the campaign. I might get sassy with some evangelical. Being straight and perhaps naive about what prejudice I might encounter, I [...]
Bigots Need Your Dollars!
BIGOTS AGAINST LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS need your money! They are registered with the California Secretary of State as proponents of Proposition 8, but as of yet have received no funds!