Category Archives: Philosophy

I don’t want to change your beliefs, I want to help you believe them

A prob­lem I fre­quently expe­ri­ence when in con­ver­sa­tion with oth­ers is that I am often seen as the adver­sar­ial char­ac­ter. Part of this is because I use the label “atheist-christian,” which often leads oth­ers to imme­di­ately focus on only one part of the hyphen­ated label—when talk­ing to a chris­t­ian, I am labeled an athe­ist, whereas …

September 7, 2011 – 12:32 am | By Matt | Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Living Philosophy (or “How to get Fired”)

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series (False) Inclu­siv­ity

When describ­ing the philo­soph­i­cal approach of the Upan­ishads, Michael Nagler states, “…meta­physics and ethics are one.“1 I respect this con­cept in many ways, and I’ve often won­dered if my ethics (mean­ing my actions) will line up with my phi­los­o­phy or not. I recently had a chance to find out…I acted accord­ing to my phi­los­o­phy. I’ve …

August 23, 2011 – 5:20 pm | By Matt | Posted in Christianity, Life, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Identity and Responsibility: The Irony of Self-Labeling

Sev­eral weeks ago Tony Jones launched a poll ask­ing his blog read­ers to pick a label to replace “pro­gres­sive.” In explain­ing why he sought a new label, Jones states, “…we need a label. Words shape us; words do things; words have power. It’s no mis­take that con­ser­v­a­tives have cap­tured the term ‘evan­gel­i­cal.’ They did that …

August 17, 2011 – 2:41 am | By Matt | Posted in Christianity, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (6)

Determining the Neighbor--Who is it That I Shall I Love?

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series (False) Inclu­siv­ity

I was recently exposed to Žižek’s cri­tique of the com­mand­ment to “love your neigh­bor”. Briefly, Žižek says that such uni­ver­sal­ized expres­sions of love are noth­ing but ide­al­ized fal­si­ties that cover/mask the human­ity of the Other. The typ­i­cal def­i­n­i­tion of “the neigh­bor” in this con­text is a per­son close to us, say a fam­ily mem­ber or a …

August 13, 2011 – 3:00 pm | By Matt | Posted in Christianity, Philosophy, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Killing the Institution and the System

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series (False) Inclu­siv­ity

I recently had the oppor­tu­nity to engage in/facilitate a dis­cus­sion group about my pre­vi­ous thoughts on the topic of inclu­siv­ity. While you can read those thoughts in my ear­lier post, allow me to offer a brief sum­mary: I believe that to be inclu­sive means that one can­not, by def­i­n­i­tion, exclude. Such exclu­siv­ity in the name …

August 13, 2011 – 1:42 am | By Matt | Posted in Christianity, Philosophy, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

On (False) Inclusivity

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series (False) Inclu­siv­ity

Lately there has been an abun­dance of con­ver­sa­tions about how one should respond to those that reject LGBT peo­ple or the equal­ity of LGBT peo­ple. The major­ity of those con­ver­sa­tions come to the con­clu­sion that, in order to cre­ate a safe space for LGBT, we must exclude those who would seek to exclude oth­ers. A …

July 23, 2011 – 9:48 pm | By Matt | Posted in Life, Philosophy, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (12)