Miscellaneous

Blog visitors, me included, were encountering too many problems with the TypePad Connect commenting feature, so I've gone back to the old system. It looks like comments made during the past week have been preserved. I've copied them in case any are missing.

Some blog visitors haven't been able to view recent comments. I've let TypePad support know about the problem. Hopefully it will be temporary. The new commenting feature, TypePad Connect, is in "beta" mode, so it isn't glitch free. This blog, like others that have adopted it, are helping to make TypePad Connect better by pointing out problems.On this front, I've turned off the photo/image that can appear with a comment. I don't like how the space for a comment is reduced by the width of the photo/image.

Since one of my favorite godless blogs is trying out this "open thread" thing, I figured it was time for me to take the plunge. It's just an opportunity to say whatever you want via a comment. Or comment on a comment. And so on. Basically an open thread is putting up a soapbox on a blog, so people can talk about any subject that comes to mind. (P.Z. Myers has his untouchable subjects; I don't ... so far.)

Ooh, change! Sort of scary. Especially when I just made the change to this here Church of the Churchless blog. Even though it isn't holy (except to me), any fiddling around with blog features, particuarly beta ones still in testing, is a bit anxiety-producing.So far, the new commenting feature seems to be working fine. That's based on one comment I just left to the previous Krishnamurti post.Let me know, via the email link to the left, if you encounter problems. I'm as new to this as you are, just about, but will do my best to answer questions.For the moment…

It bothers me when visitors to this blog don't talk courteously with each other. Now, I realize that this is an endemic problem in cyberspace. Anonymity breeds contemptuousness. Everybody who leaves comments here is a person (possibly aside from some robo-spam, which I have to delete now and then). Yet if the people who engage in heated Church of the Churchless comment conversations were face to face in a coffee house, it's hard to believe that they'd be talking to each other in their online fashion. Even, or especially, if they'd just met. There's no hard and fast rules for…

Periodically I have a pleasant email conversation with Steve, a Christian who rarely goes to church. I like how Steve is willing to consider the blasphemous and ungodly musings posted here.

Interestingly, it was two years ago today that I shared a thoughtful message from Steve in my “Why I’m not a Christian.” Since, Steve has been a regular Church of the Churchless visitor.

On New Year’s Day he emailed me again. Steve spoke about the lack of change he observes in the content of this blog – both my posts and the comments of other people. I found this intriguing.

Because I both agree and disagree with him.

I expressed my yin and yang reaction to his message in a reply. Which led to Steve…(make a guess) changing.

Cool. I like a guy who walks his own talk. Wish I could be as self-consistent. Anyway, our email conversation follows, mildly edited. My favorite line from Steve: “Maybe the conversation itself is the goal.”

Join in, if you like. Has anything you’ve read here changed your mind about something? Or spurred you to lead your life differently in some way?

(the conversation between Steve and me is fairly lengthy, so I’ll make it a continuation to this post)

I've been doing a lot of conversing lately. That's cool. By and large I have a grinch'y attitude toward Christmas – I absolutely hate the Salvation Army guy who plays "Joy to the World" on a loud trumpet in the foyer of a store that I go too frequently. But I enjoy the social events that blossom this time of year, and the conversations that accompany them. Last night my wife and I hosted our annual Holiday Potluck and White Elephant Gift Exchange. Aside from being able to get rid of some junk that we wrapped up and foisted onto…

I just realized that TypePad, which hosts this blog, has been over-zealously filtering some legitimate comments as spam. I just added a comment to a recent post (the subject of most of the rejected comments) explaining the problem. Amazingly, my own comment about the over-zealous spam filter was rejected as spam! That's what happens when rigid dogma, in this case programming related, overrides common sense. Hopefully TypePad will get its act together soon. Until then, I'll check regularly to see if any legitimate comments have been flagged as spam and publish them if they have been. Here's what I said…

Over on the left sidebar you'll find a new "Posts Compendium" section. I managed to take the assemblage of Church of the Churchless posts that I proudly called my blogistic compendium magisterium and transfer them from Google Page Creator to Typepad—my blog host. Typepad now has the ability to create web pages in addition to posts, so it seemed preferable to keep the compendium as part of this blog rather than over on Google. Browsing through my numerous posts, which date back to November 2004, I was reminded of how many words I've written. And also, of how much I…

[Update: The compendium has been moved here. The Google Page Creator site isn't up any more.] By the authority vested in me, which pretty much reduces down to keeping my annual TypePad blogging fee paid up, I hereby announce the release of a Church of the Churchless compendium magisterium. I rarely put text in color, but if there's any occasion that demands it, this would be it. For a magisterium relates to the teachings of the Church; it sounds profoundly Latinish; and this blog surely is a church, because it's got the word twice in its name. My compendium can…

There are some new friends in my "Links to Explore" category in the left-hand column. In the usual web fashion, I haven't talked with them or seen them, and probably never will. Yet I feel that we're close, closer in some ways than I am with people who I meet face to face all the time. Pondering deep thoughts about life, spirituality, and the cosmos (plus some not so deep) gives us a lot in common. The folks over at Religious Forums have brought almost 11,000 members together to discuss all sorts of belief systems. I appreciate their Church of…

Got some sort of Mr. Natural theme going on. Recently I ran across David Lane’s right-on musings about the problem with “perfection” when it comes to gurus. Or, anyone else. David says: "If we say something like the guru is infinite, then if we see something that is finite, something that is limited, then if we subtract that finite aspect from Infinity we end up with something infinitely less. There isn't apparently degrees of infinity here. So any thing that appears less than Perfect is going to become a point of contention, whether it is reactions about photos or internet…

Ever eager to help publicize my favorite Hollywood medium, Marcel Cairo, I invite you to peruse his Celebrity News Alert that got emailed to me recently. Download marcels_celebrity_news_alert.doc Marcel is engaged in some bloggish back and forth with Julia Sweeney, Saturday Night Live alum, who has morphed into an articulate unbeliever, as I wrote about in “Letting go of God. And Uncle Fred.” In this post on Sweeney’s blog she exhibits some skepticism toward mediums like Marcel. Well, a bit more than “some.” You say you believe in the afterlife BECAUSE you are a spiritual medium. What does that mean,…

Today I’m getting messages from somewhere or someone about something. Wish I could be more explicit. Maybe you’re better at deciphering messages than I am. Best I can do at explication is the one word title of an email that a friend sent to me: Evolution. This cartoon was the entire message. Which reminded me of a Rumi poem that I’d just read in Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies. The poem is called “Shore and Ground.” Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but…

Check out “Off The Beaten Track,” the blog of a British man who has left the well-trodden path of Christianity and is heading toward the wide-open spaces of spirituality. It was nice to get an email from Paul, the OTBT’er, who has made the Church of the Churchless his blog of the week. I’m honored. Faithless hands meeting across the sea. In the Best of Off The Beaten Track section I found “Do Not Believe,” which features some great advice from the Buddha about following your own way. I also noted via the most recent OTBT post that Paul had…

It’s always a pleasure to get emails from Church of the Churchless visitors. Especially when they include such marvelous phrases as “love your writings” and “I absolutely love reading it [this blog].” But there’s a lot else to like in what Elizabeth Wagner and Aaron Buss had to say. So here’s the sound of two voices other than mine that I’m pleased to share. Both Elizabeth and Aaron referred to my “Become one to know the One” post where I talked about not seeing my name in print. Elizabeth also speaks poetically about mystery. ------------------------- Here’s Elizabeth’s message: "re: mystery…

A frequent commenter on Church of the Churchless posts asked me to delete his comments, which I’ve done. So the thread of a series of comments now may be a bit difficult to make sense of, since sometimes other people commented on a deleted comment. I’ve taken the liberty of editing comments that started off with a mention of the commenter’s name, as in “Dear _____” or “______, you said.” I figured that it would be less confusing to leave out the name since the comment being referred to no longer can be read. However, occasionally this left the impression…

Here's a nice quotation from Andre Gide that I saw on pdxleft: Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. Those who are certain they know what is true almost certainly are mistaken.