Pages Tagged “Religion”
Reviews
- Calculating God
★★★★☆
Robert J. Sawyer
What if there is scientific evidence out there for a supreme being, but to find it you have to correlate knowledge from multiple inhabited worlds across the galaxy? - Parable of the Sower
★★★★★
Octavia Butler
Hard to put down. And hard to pick up again. It’s certainly not a fun book, but it’s extremely engaging, despite the bleakness of the slow-apocalypse setting and story. - Paradises Lost
★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin
An intricate novella about the middle generations of a multi-generational spaceship, and the religion they’ve developed that believes nothing outside the ship is real, and both Earth and their destination are myths.
Les Misérables
- Part 2…4601 My re-read continues, as the Bishop learns a lesson about nobility, and an ex-con named Jean Valjean has a life-changing experience. 118 pages and counting.
- Getting Un-Convent-ional Hugo separates exposition & action, spending pages on character & setting before telling you what they did. Ex: The convent where Valjean & Cosette shelter.
- Buried Alive! Valjean must leave the grounds without being seen. Fauchelevent must get an empty coffin out without suspicion. How can they possibly solve these problems?
- Bones Reading up on the Paris Catacombs. How did Hugo not include them in Les Mis???
Blog Posts
- What Religious Freedom Isn’t
One more time, religious freedom means you get to practice your religion, not force other people to follow yours. This isn’t complicated. Imagine for a moment that [insert religion you don’t like] lobbies the government to force you to follow their rules on behavior, dress, etc. You see where this is going, right? Because you […]
- Raising the Dead
An unconventional church marquee spotted shortly before Easter.
- Gods and Comics
I was thinking about a discussion on last month’s Flash #226 and got to thinking about the way religion figures into mainstream comic books. Not the way religious characters are portrayed, but the way the fictional world works. I’m not familiar enough with Marvel (though I can make some guesses based on the presence of […]
- Spamming for God (multicultural edition)
Various outlets have reported on the recent appearance of evangelical spam—unsolicited bulk email which promotes religious messages instead of advertising products. It’s been pointed out that since CAN-SPAM refers to commercial mail it can’t be used to stop people who bombard you with other types of messages. I’ve seen 419 scams with religious trappings for […]
- Church to 8-year-old: Drink the Kool-aid
Time to add an “outrage” category. This is just insane: A church panel has invalidated a girl’s communion because she can’t eat wheat (original article here). The girl has celiac disease, which means any amount of wheat can cause her serious health problems. A local priest was willing to let her use a rice-based wafer, […]
- BSA: No Atheists Allowed
What does someone’s religious belief have to do with “teaching boys moral and ethical values through an outdoor program that challenges them and teaches them respect for nature, one another, and themselves?” Everything, according to the Boy Scouts of America, who have just kicked out an Eagle Scout with 37 merit badges for being an […]