thinktoomuch.net

Back in February, we sought an answer to the question Any interest in a “Book Club” of sorts? The answer at the time was “yes!” By decree, we decided on Bones, Rocks and Stars by Chris Turney. I propose we start with this book on 13 July...

[This post represents my personal views, strongly stated, unmediated. Details, nuances, rationales, they can be explored in the comments. I appreciate that others differ from me: I explicitly do not expect others to come to my way of seeing things...

Since I don’t have enough pending posts and series-in-progress (irony intended), I’ve decided to tackle another: sketch out my philosophical-theological framework/worldview/language with which I approach all things religion...

So a literal reading of Genesis (first book of the Torah) brings many people under the impression that the world/universe was created in six days, is less than 10,000 years old, and that there was a global catastrophic flood...

(Sorry English readers… this one’s Afrikaans.) ‘n “Internet-vriend” van my wat dikwels bietjie godsdiens-joernalisme doen, het die Mighty Men konferensie gaan bywoon. Sy artikel verskyn in die Rapport: ‘n Magtige dreuning...

This brilliant TED talk by Jonathan Haidt talks about five human moral foundations...

(This was going to be at the bottom of the previous post, but that one grew into a monster and I didn’t want to bury this *that* deep.) Ikon’s Easter Sunday gathering gave me goose bumps...

(This blog post is mostly me chatting away, the real meat of the matter is in a post I’m linking to at the end in the next post, to be experienced by those that choose to, at a time that is appropriate — though I’m a bit late…) It was never my intention to not write a blog post this Easter...

This isn’t an April fool’s joke, The Philosopher (a good friend of mine’s nickname for Prof Daniel Dennett) is visiting Stellenbosch on Wednesday...

How does a fundie know he’s right? This question was recently touched on in a long discussion with a “proud fundamentalist”...

I’d like to abuse my blog to congratulate two of my friends, two scientists, Doctor Kenneth (Botany) and Doctor -M- (Zoology), on officially obtaining their PhD’s earlier to

Much has been made of a number of Scandinavian countries’ cultural and social state, as an example of the “least religious nations in the world”. Can a culture be stable, secure, safe… without a religion...

Found via a blog post on his blog, in this video of Peter Rollins, he shares an ancient Jewish parable about what it means to wrestle with scripture, what the tradition means to those that belong to the family...

For those that can read Dutch: Terug Naar Je Maker. Here is my haphazard translation of the front page: BACK TO YOUR MAKER Valued Visitor, It is 2009, Darwin Year...

Real Live Preacher’s series of video clips on Hell, this is for Christians, who want to know/understand what the Bible teaches on Hell...

For many years, I’ve been a fan of endurance sport, be it cycling (mountain biking), paddling, running (trial running FTW!)… I’ve discovered being a fan (of participating) doesn’t mean I successfully motivate myself to do it often enough...

I consider this to be a universal truth: only God can convert people. In the context it is most often heard, it is advice to evangelical Christians in their efforts to evangelise their religion...

This post is for the purpose of continuing the conversation from the previous post, whose comment thread was getting too long. (A new cutline supports WordPress’ paged comments, but looses comment numbering, which we use a lot

Peter Rollins, one of my favourite authors-that-I-haven’t-read-yet, but-his-books-are-waiting-on-my-shelf, and-I’ve-read-his-blog (create an acronym out of that one!) has an interesting post: Fundamentalism isn’t too violent, it isn’t violent enough...

This article seems to have made its way around certain circles in the blogosphere. I first stumbled across it at a site named FutureChurch (dotcoza). It presents an idea that I will be referring to in the near future, an idea that will help frame some of my discussion...

I attended a talk at NG Gemeente Stellenbosch-Sentraal’s discussion group for “Our Religion and Science”* before, it was quite interesting to see what they were up to with their discussions. (*That doesn’t translate well...

I work in a very international office, there are many nationalities present. Taking just countries in the European area, I can think of people who are: Spanish, French, Dutch, Swiss, Italian, German, British, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Israeli, Greek… I quite like the diversity...

This post was promised as a follow-up to Sadducees and the Afterlife. That makes this the third post in a series of three, the first was Hope...

…on this blog, that is. We all agree that the problem is fundamentalism (the strong form, I sometimes use a softened version of the term). Where we don’t all agree, is what the “cause” is — consequently, what to do about the problem...

Happy birthday to this blog, which has now existed for two years and a day. I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly sit back and look at the first three years of this its existence. Chapter 1 First quarter, Genesis! There was chaos, there was uncertainty...

In my previous post on Hope, I talked about what I consider to be arrogance, when people think they know what’s best for others whose context they have no experience of (in the section “Thoughts about Destroyers”), in an attempt to promote understanding of the fact that where humans find...

It’s an interesting thing, hope. It isn’t really an emotion. It certainly isn’t a strategy. (That’s a motto in my job: hope is not a strategy!) An attitude? I actually think it is something more, something deeper, than a mere attitude. Hope is a belief, in the possibility of a better future...

Nearly two weeks ago, six male students decided to have some fun for themselves by barging into a church service naked. Four were successfully blocked from reaching the auditorium, but two made it all the way… and opened fire with pepper spray...

Europe typically seems quite open-minded and accepting of diverse cultures...

I long wondered what the Blue Man Group was. Those blue-head posters… the name of the group… just the kind of thing to pique my curiosity. Possibly first heard them back in April, from a friend’s ipod or CD or something, can’t remember for sure though...

In the previous post, I mentioned I prefer sanity to be found within the context of relationship, rather than by rules. In particular, I would like this to be the case for this site: I would have loved to have no rules or guidelines...

Within certain contexts, I’m quite a fan of anarchy. I believe relationships should be driven out of values and mutual respect, and hence not need rules...

The next post I’m writing will quite possibly turn into a series. I need to let some of the words and ideas mature in my head, maybe rewrite it once or twice. So I’m leaving you with this for the time being...