Despite their emphasis on reason, evidence and a desire to see through false truth claims, many atheists hold surprisingly ill-informed beliefs about religion. Many of these myths go unquestioned simply because they serve the purpose of attacking religion at large. They allow for the construction of a straw man i.e.... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Magazine We must understand that the founder of a cult or new religion has no room for compromise: absolutes are necessary. True believers in mystical psychotherapy will not embrace a gospel with modest claims: it must be all or nothing. – Martin Larson... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Daily and Alternet Christopher Hitchens’s book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a lengthy and detailed description of what happens when religious people behave badly. And this apparent correlation between religion and bad behavior is perhaps one of the most... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Daily and Alternet As one of the most prominent public voices resisting the culture of Christian and religious dominance Christopher Hitchens earns himself a comparison to the freedom fighter who nearly fifty years ago urged the civil rights movement to "stop singing and... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Magazine and Alternet I want your opinion about something. I’m a liberal religious person who doesn’t believe in doctrines, dogma or a supernatural God. 19% of members in my tradition identify as atheist, 30% as agnostic and the rest Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Christian,... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Magazine God does not answer prayer. There, I've said it. I know for some my assertion is scandalous, while for others it is mere common sense. But before you summon the inquisitor to prepare the rack or brand me a heretic or rush... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Magazine “You’re either with us or against us.” – from Matthew 12:30 “Language is the perfect instrument of empire.”- Antonia De Nebrija I recommend checking out the latest booklet from Paul Kivel called “The Language of Dominant Christianity” (available as a downloadable PDF... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from IntegralWorld I'm not sure which is more surprising to me; that Henry Augustine wrote an article which contained in the title "the only feasible proof of God" or that he claimed to have done this in 400 words. If all it were to take... Continue reading

By Be Scofield - Crossposted from IntegralWorld "Trust in the Guru sometimes means living with an extreme situation that doesn’t feel right, and which one often doesn’t fully understand....So one day Andrew took a big risk with me. He had several of my brothers jump me and rough me up...But... Continue reading

By Be Scofield Simone Weil was concerned. In the name of liberation and revolution power was being abused. Ideological orthodoxy and state bureaucracy were crippling the freedom of the individual to critically engage with the world. New social forces both sacred and secular were promising salvation but delivering oppression. Weil's... Continue reading

By Be Scofield With the merger of the Unitarian and Universalist churches in 1961 a new theology was born. Drawing from their unique liberal interpretations of Christianity each tradition brought wisdom and insights to the newly founded Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Like many other religious organizations Unitarian Universalism sought to... Continue reading

By Be Scofield Writing in the early 19th century, Hosea Ballou argued for a version of Christianity that offered salvation to all people. As an early Universalist, Ballou stood against the Calvinist teachings that dominated his era. Universal salvation was a heresy at the time (and still is to many)... Continue reading

By Be Scofield Simone Weil and Dorothy Day were paying attention. Both of these radical mystics emerged in the early twentieth and responded to an era filled with great turmoil– two world wars paralleled with competing economic ideologies and the rise industrialism. Weil, from a French-European context and Day in... Continue reading

By Be Scofield. This is crossposted from Tikkun Magazine. Derrick Jensen wants to destroy civilization. The well known author, environmental activist, philosopher and “anarcho-primitivist” argues we should speed up the impending collapse of the global industrial society because when “civilization” collapses the aftermath won’t be as bad as if we... Continue reading

By Be Scofield. This article appeared in the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of Tikkun Magazine. You undoubtedly know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a progressive Christian and champion of civil rights and the social gospel. You may also know that he spoke out against the Vietnam War, harshly criticized... Continue reading

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal... Continue reading

By Be Scofield. Crossposted from Tikkun Magazine Pat Robertson’s latest claim that God punished Haiti for making a pact with the devil was rightly condemned by religious and political leaders across the spectrum. However, there is an irony here in that many of those leaders or religious laypeople who saw... Continue reading

By Be Scofield. Crossposted from Alternet.org and Tikkun Magazine Despite having engaged in numerous debates with Christians, Muslims and Jews across the liberal/conservative spectrum Christopher Hitchens still holds to an amazingly ignorant understanding of the liberal religious heritage. His understanding of who is and who isn’t a Christian is perhaps... Continue reading

By Be Scofield. Crossposted from Alternet.org and Tikkun Magazine Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought... Continue reading

By Be Scofield. This article is cross-posted from Integral World Andrew Cohen is a Rude Boy. He is not here to offer comfort; he is here to tear you into approximately a thousand pieces. - Ken Wilber Luna Tarlo spent over three years living with her guru Andrew Cohen (founder... Continue reading

Be Scofield - Crossposted from Tikkun Daily The idea “to be religious is to be a theist” as Christopher Hitchens stated in his debate with Lorenzo Albacete is a quite ethnocentric claim. It is true that in the West we have often associated a theistic God with religion, but this... Continue reading

by: Be Scofield crossposted from Alternet and Tikkun Daily. Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought... Continue reading