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About this web site

Newly created, updated, & planned
essays over the past few months

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Sponsored link.

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In this web site, "SSM" refers to same-sex marriage

"LGBT" refers to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender persons and transsexuals

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Updated essays:

As of 2013-APR, our dedicated server in Dallas, TX contained over 6,600 essays and menus. This includes our home page, thousands of menus and many thousands of individual essays. We have a goal of adding one new essay each day. We update many dozens of essays each week. We continually add to our interesting quotes section, We attempt to cover emerging stories related to religion, spirituality, and ethics.

There are lots of other religious web sites on the Internet that cover these same topics. However, they are generally written from a very conservative or very liberal point of view. They often reflect the beliefs of their webmaster or sponsoring agency. Objectivity and balance are often missing. Our web site is different. We try to explain all sides to each topic while remaining as free of bias as we can. When we do state our personal opinions, we keep them separate from the main text of our essays and identify them carefully.

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Essays planned for the near future:

We estimate that we need to write many thousands of essays before our web site will be reasonably complete. Even then, there will probably be new "hot" topics emerge among the main moral/ethical topics with a religious content -- like gun control, polygamous marriages, equal rights for transsexuals, etc. These will necessitate the writing of new articles.

We maintain a list of new topics about which we are currently working on or plan to write "someday."  We have a larger list for internal use that, sadly, numbers in the many thousands of topics.

In recent months, the conflict between religious conservatives and sexual minorities -- defined both by their sexual orientation and gender identity -- have monopolized much of the news. Back in 2011-FEB, when the Obama Administration decided to no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), some commentators predicted that this would form a tipping point on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual (LGBT) rights. This seems to have happened, because subsequent months saw an accelerating rate of change towards LGBT equality. The change has been so rapid that it has formed the bulk of our web site's new essays from 2011 to the present time. With over 40 states denying their same-sex couples access to marriage, activity on a state-by-state basis will probably be the main religious/civil rights topic for the foreseeable future, eclipsing even abortion access. However, it is always possible that the U.S. Supreme Court could eventually legalize same-sex marriage (SSM) across the U.S. as it did during 1967 with interracial marriage in the ironically named case: Loving v. Virginia.

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During 2013-MAY:

During this month, we recommend the book:

book cover image Susan J. Stabile, "Growing in Love & Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist sources for Christian Meditation." Available in hardcover at $15.22 plus shipping or in Kindle versions for $9.83. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Amazon.com's book description:

"Although raised Roman Catholic, Susan Stabile was ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun and devoted 20 years of her life to practicing Buddhism before returning to Catholicism in 2001. In Growing in Love and Wisdom, she draws on this unique dual perspective to explore the value of interreligious dialogue, the spiritual dynamics that operate across faith traditions, and how Buddhist meditation practices can deepen Christian prayer. She begins by examining the values and principles shared by the two faiths and shows that both traditions seek to effect a fundamental transformation in the lives of believers. Both stress the need for experiences with deep emotional resonance that goes beyond the level of concepts to touch the heart. The center of the book offers 15 Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practices, adapted for Christian use. Stabile provides clear instructions on how to do these meditations and helpful commentary on each, explaining its purpose and the relation between the Buddhist original and her Christian adaptation of it. Throughout, she highlights the many remarkably close parallels between the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha. The meditations offered in this unusual book will be extremely useful to thoughtful Christians, to those responsible for giving spiritual direction, and also to Buddhist sympathizers who will be intrigued and pleased to see familiar contemplations handled so skillfully by a former Buddhist practitioner who has gratefully learned so much from her former religion and now introduces the riches of that tradition to her fellow Christians."

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New and updated essays during 2013-May:

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During 2013-APR:

During this month, we recommend the book:

book cover image Karen Armstrong, "The Battle For God, A History of Fundamentalism" Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Amazon.com book description:

In our supposedly secular age governed by reason and technology, fundamentalism has emerged as an overwhelming force in every major world religion. Why? This is the fascinating, disturbing question that bestselling author Karen Armstrong addresses in her brilliant new book The Battle for God. Writing with the broad perspective and deep understanding of human spirituality that won huge audiences for A History of God, Armstrong illuminates the spread of militant piety as a phenomenon peculiar to our moment in history.

Contrary to popular belief, fundamentalism is not a throwback to some ancient form of religion but rather a response to the spiritual crisis of the modern world. As Armstrong argues, the collapse of a piety rooted in myth and cult during the Renaissance forced people of faith to grasp for new ways of being religious--and fundamentalism was born. Armstrong focuses here on three fundamentalist movements: Protestant fundamentalism in America, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, and Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran--exploring how each has developed its own unique way of combating the assaults of modernity.

Blending history, sociology, and spirituality, The Battle for God is a compelling and compassionate study of a radical form of religious expression that is critically shaping the course of world history.

Karen Armstrong, "The Battle For God, A History of Fundamentalism", Ballentine Books, (2011). Available in paperback at $10.85 plus shipping or in Kindle versions for $22.04. Used copies are often available at much lower prices plus shipping. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

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New and updated essays during 2013-April: (30 essays):

Since April is income tax month, we don't expect to be able to reach our usual quota of one essay/day.

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During 2013-MAR:

During this month, we recommend the book:

Book cover image  "Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity" by Gregory J. Riley. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Amazon's book description:

Amazon's editors selected this title as one of the Best Books of the Month for 2012-NOV."Anyone who’s ever said (or heard or thought) the adage 'chip off the old block' might burrow into Andrew Solomon’s tome about the ways in which children are different from their parents--and what such differences do to our conventional ideas about family. Ruminative, personal, and reportorial all at once, Solomon--who won a National Book Award for his treatise on depression, "The Noonday Demon" -- begins by describing his own experience as the gay son of heterosexual parents, then goes on to investigate the worlds of deaf children of hearing parents, dwarves born into 'normal' families, and so on. His observations and conclusions are complex and not easily summarized, with one exception: The chapter on children of law-abiding parents who become criminals. Solomon rightly points out that this is a very different situation indeed:

"to be or produce a schizophrenic...is generally deemed a misfortune,' he writes. 'To...produce a criminal is often deemed a failure."

Still, parents must cope with or not, accept or not, the deeds or behaviors or syndromes of their offspring. How they do or do not do that makes for fascinating and disturbing reading." --Sara Nelson

Available from Amazon.com in hardcover for $22.20 plus shipping. It is available in Kindle eBook format for $24.94. The latter is clearly a price ripoff by Simon and Schuster Digital Sales. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

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New and updated essays during 2013-March (36 essays):

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During 2013-FEB:

During this month, we recommend the book:

Book cover image "The River of God: A new history of Christian origins" by Gregory J. Riley Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Amazon's book description:

"Acclaimed author Gregory Riley embarks on a remarkable journey in this readable and persuasive account of the origins of Christianity. Riley demonstrates that early Christians held widely differing beliefs about God, Jesus, the Devil, and the human soul, and follows these beliefs back to their sources in Greek science and philosophy and the religions of the ancient Middle East. An expert on the context in which Christianity arose, Riley maps out a new understanding of the forging of Christianity, and conveys a vital message for today about the true nature of Christian faith as inherently diverse."

Available from Amazon.com in paperback for $10.94 plus shipping.

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New and updated essays during 2013-February: (32 essays)

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During 2013-JAN:

During this month, we recommend the book:

Book cover image "Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening" by Diana Butler Bass

Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Amazon's book description:

"The data is clear: religious affiliation is plummeting across the breadth of Christian denominations. And yet interest in 'spirituality' is on the rise. So what is behind the sea change in American religion? With the same comprehensive research and insider reporting that made Christianity for the Rest of Us an indispensable guide to cultivating thriving churches, Diana Butler Bass offers a fresh interpretation of the "spiritual but not religious" trend.

Bass—who has spent her career teaching the history, culture, and politics of religion, and engaging church communities across the nation—brings forth her deep knowledge of the latest national studies and polls, along with her own groundbreaking analysis, as she seeks to fully comprehend the decline in Christian attendance and affiliation that started decades ago—and has increased exponentially in recent years."

Available from Amazon.com in hardcover for $15.98 plus shipping, in paperback for $15.98 plus shipping, and in Kindle eBook format for $17.18. The Kindle price is a major rip off by the publisher HarperOne. If you buy a copy, you might send a letter of complaint to the publisher at feedback2@harpercollins.com.

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New and updated essays during 2013-January: (37 essays)

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During 2012-DEC:

During this month, we recommend the book:

image of book cover  ""Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide" by Michael Slaughter, Charles Gutenson & Robert P. Jones

Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Amazon's book description:

"Rescue your church from the infiltration of partisan politics.

The last 30 years have seen the political discourse within our country grow more rancorous and increasingly uncivil. During the same period, there has been a growing tendency to conflate one's theological commitments with one's political ideology. As a consequence, partisan politics has infiltrated our churches and political commitments are creating unnecessary divisions. Perhaps of most concern, these trends generally tend to obscure the properly holistic nature of the Gospel of Christ and turn people off to Christianity altogether. Too often, it often seems politics trumps theology. Sadly, this leads to division, where decisions on church direction, and even the content of teaching, gets determined more based on partisan politics than on sound biblical and theological factors.

Hijacked explores this phenomenon, offers analysis, and proposes a way forward."

Available from Amazon.com in paperback for $10.98 plus shipping and in Kindle eBook format for $3.99.

Don't have a Kindle reader? You can download a free application from Amazon.com for your Windows PC, Mac, iPad, Android tablets, or many smartphones. See: http://www.amazon.com/

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New and updated essays during 2012-December: 37 essays:

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