Books Apr 16, 2014 at 4:00 am

How to (and How Not to) Write About Spirituality

Didn’t invent real talk. She just speaks it. Sigrid Estrada

Comments

1
You write beautifully

have you seen read
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universalknowledge
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.,,, yet?
2
Maybe Pauly should go back whining about how mistreated it feels as a woman.
3
Wow! I had a totally different take on Bremmer's "My Accidental Jihad"! I found it quite well written and extremely insightful. She read at Elliot Bay books about a month ago and blew me away. I bought two copies. Chapter 14 "Bartering" is the most powerful critique on liberal notions of diversity I have ever encountered. It should be required reading.
5
Every Easter, I try to watch one of the lesser known, or lesser shown, religious movies that shows the Passion like The Gospel According to Matthew by Pasolini, or Godspell the musical.

This year I found the 1977 mini-series Jesus of Nazareth on Netflix. It also appears to be available on this streaming site, but I have not used it before. I'm near the end of Part I and it's quite good, has an all star (1970s) cast, and oscillates between high spirited humor and earnest seriousness. Also, in his film style Zeffirelli seems to want to copy Renaissance portraits of Biblical events.

6
Worst book review ever. The Stranger has become a rag for bad journalists and local advertisers to spew their koolaid jiz into.
7
While I do not agree with the vitriol, I do agree that this review is bad and Paul should feel bad for writing it.
8
I plan to read both books. I picked up Living with A Wild God, and I couldn't put it down. I've heard Krista Bremer interviews, and it sounds like an interesting read.

Since you all care about religion and evidently need something to complain about, Brandeis University was trying to give an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi, and now is on a tear that liberals ruined it for them.
9
"That emptiness largely remains unchallenged." Ha!
10
Sounds like a 50-50.. Subject matter sounds great, but badly written anything, with too many flowery adjectives, people trying desperately to write like they imagine real writers actually write, puts me the f off. Hopefully this is not that.

Fifty Shades of Grey did ok for itself though, and that was horrendously written.
11
There are alot of silly premises taken as axiomatic by many writers. One of them is that a greater god really matters enough to merit attention, to be affirmed by some, or denied.

Honestly, we need a new middle ground. Let's call it "Mootism" as in "The question is moot."

"Atheism" as a term is by definition "anti" something. That's a very combative position right from the get go, an easy way to make enemies and alienate potential allies in non-magical thinking.

As far as it goes, when considering "god" and religion, the question really is moot. Any god worth its salt wouldn't want to humiliate us by expecting worship; consideration maybe, but certainly not obsession. So why bother with making a big deal about it. What we believe about god is for us. God doesn't really enter into the picture, hence "Mootism".

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