Tag: stories
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Believer, Beware in NYC!
The brand new Killing the Buddha book is coming out next month, so we’re going to spread holy doubt and confusion all over New York City on June 29th. Would love to see you all there! Here’s the release: What do you get when a Buddhist raconteur, a junior high Jewish messiah, and a transsexual…
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Resounding through Manhattan
Today I had the great privilege to join members of Resonanda, Brown University’s medieval music ensemble, for their one-day, unannounced New York tour (before you continue, go to Resonanda’s MySpace page and put on one of their songs as you read). It began—where else—at The Cloisters, the museum in the form of a medieval monastery…
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Mark Twain’s Eden
When I was little, one of my favorite movies was The Adventures of Mark Twain, a claymation video that wove together bits and pieces from some favorite Twain stories. I was reminded of this the other day when, browsing in Denver’s magnificent Tattered Cover bookstore, I came across a delightful 1995 collection called The Bible…
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Must One Describe?
The air here is always dry. Thin, but also thick. A white pipe the width of a soda can reaches from floor to ceiling, making the never-ending music of a rainstick. From it comes enough heat that even on the coldest days of winter I’ve had to keep the window open at least a crack…
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25 Random Notes on Ash Wednesday
I woke up early to my roommate putting away the silverware in the kitchen, then fell back asleep. When I woke up the wooden rosary that I fell asleep with wrapped around my hand was lost in the sheets. Last night I was asked if I keep any symbolic hidden things on my body, like…
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An Invitation: What Is Missing?
Beginning in this new year, which today has dawned on the present generation and its thoughts, I will be editing a new series of pamphlets with The New Pamphleteer press called “What Is Missing?” As in that cliche: “I was going through my life or looking at my world and couldn’t escape the feeling that…
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The Artist of the Beautiful
My report on Harun Yahya for Seed magazine just went up. It is a small sketch—a longer discussion with more context is set for the March/April issue of Search magazine, inshallah, etc. This one narrows in on some of the minutiae of meeting Adnan Oktar (the man behind the Yahya name) and his friends, as…
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Proof Enough for Me
Killing the Buddha, a wonderful old webmagazine founded by Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau, has just published an essay of mine called “Proof Enough for Me.” KtB hails from way back in 2000 with nary a redesign in site, which is why I’m currently helping to give the site a total facelift. The essay is…
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A Specimen in Our Midst
Now officially live-blogging. At the end of a fascinating panel at the AAR on the use of science by new religious movements, I was approached by a man named Halbert. He handed me a brochure about “History and Science in The Urantia Book: A Unique Case of Credibility,” then summarized its contents to me earnestly.…
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Reconstructionist Catholics?
A handful of Catholic higher-ups have recently voiced surprising sympathy for, of all things, the New Atheist project. One is Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, who, in a recent debate with Christopher Hitchens, seemed to agree with nearly everything Hitchens had to say. Another is the Vatican Latinist Reginald Foster, who appears in Bill Maher’s new film…