Doomsday?

As you may have heard, the world is ending on the 21st. Actually, we're being told that the world is ending by a fringe Christian group in California. The group, Family Christian Radio, is a fundamentalist Christian sect that has spread the doomsday message across the country. Using a confusing, convoluted mathematical formula, a healthy dose of questionable scholarship, and a firm conviction that God prefers the Roman calendar, the group has decided the world will end this Saturday.

You can check out more 'doomsday' coverage on Belief Blog.

If Family Christian Radio's 2011 prediction turns out to be wrong, have no fear, there is another doomsday close behind. The Mayan's gave special significance to 2012 as the end of this world. So, of course, people have decided to flipout.

What is your response to this and other doomsday messages that come along from time to time? Why do you think that people continue to believe in these types of prophecies even when the prognosticators are continually wrong?

Join us this Thursday for a conversation about Doomsday, or the lack thereof. We meet at Short's Brewing in downtown Bellaire at 7pm. See you there!

unTapped Topic: Are Religious People Ignorant?

Our topic this week comes from Barb! Our discussion will take place at Shorts Brewery this Thursday at 7pm.

Are religious people ignorant? A new study shows that religious people are some of the most ignorant on matters of religion and faith. On the flip side, agnostics and atheists tend to be some of the most educated about faith.

Click Here To Read the CNN BeliefBlog Post

So, what do you think? Are non-believers more knowledgeable than believers? Why do you believe/not believe this? Have you ever met someone whose confidence in their faith exceeded their actual understanding of that faith? Have you ever met someone whose knowledge about a faith was the major factor in their rejection of that same faith?

• Here is a perspective from Mark Silk
• Pew Forum presentation by Prof. Prothero
  

Join us this Thursday at Shorts for a discussion of religious literacy (or the lack thereof).

unTapped Topic: Healed!

Next up for unTapped: what role does faith play in our physical health and wellbeing?

Topics we may cover:

• Are spiritual people healthier/happier?
• What role does faith play in your medical decisions?
• Do you know of people who have waived certain medical procedures on the basis of their faith?
• Do you pray for those who are sick? What are your expectations from those prayers?

Join us at MOKA all Summer long for conversations about ethics, faith and spirituality.

unTapped Topic: Why Faith?

In the past 10-12 years, there has been an aggressive push against faith in God from a group of people that have been labeled the "New Atheists." People like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, etc. have really started to take the gloves off in countering what they call superstition and irrationalism. (For a CNN article about the New Atheists, click here.)

Join us this Thursday at MOKA and tell us why you are a person of faith, or why you are not a person of faith. Why do you believe the way that you believe? What has brought you to the point of this belief? Faith is a subject that is very sensitive to personal perception and experience. So, the best way to understand it is for everyone to bring their own perceptions and experiences to share with the rest of the group.

We'll see you Thursday, 7pm at MOKA!

unTapped Topic: Many Faiths One Truth?

Join us, this week at MOKA (7pm) in downtown Bellaire for a discussion on interreligous harmony, and compassion.

A few weeks ago, the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times (click here). In his opinion, religious people need to be ardent adherents to their faith, but must also seek to learn from other faiths. He says that all major faiths contain a "strong unifying thread" and that thread is compassion. The Dalai Lama pleads for people of faith to refocus on the religous mandates for compassion. He says "mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole."

A Boston University religion scholar, Dr. Steven Prothero responded to the Dalai Lama's op-ed in a piece that Dr. Prothero called "The Dalai Lama is Wrong" (link). Prothero writes,

Religious exclusivism is dangerous and naïve. But so too is pretend pluralism. The cause of religious harmony is not advanced in the least by the shibboleth that all religions are different paths up the same mountain.

Prothero contends that compassion is not at the root of all religions and he calls the notion of religious harmony based on compassion "youthful naiveté".

What do you think?

Join us, this week at MOKA (7pm) in downtown Bellaire for a discussion on interreligous harmony, and compassion.

Conversation: Textual Faith

Drew developed our unTapped topic this week. So, blame him!

Topic: Textual Faith/Spirituality
How would religion/spirituality be different without sacred texts i.e. the bible, the Qu'ran, or whatever? Could there or would there be religion/spirituality without sacred texts?

Join us for our discussion this Thursday, 7pm at Shorts Brewing Company in downtown Bellaire.

Spirituality and Opium

Karl Marx once famously stated that "religion is the opiate of the masses." What Marx meant by that is that religion is a place that people flee in times of hardship instead of actually doing something about it.

Do you think that is true? Does religion hinder social progress? Does faith keep us sated while inequality runs rampant? Are we too doped up by spirituality to see the reality around us?

Join us at Shorts Brewing tonight for an interesting conversation on whether faith inhibits or initiates positive societal change.

Who's in? Who's Out?

Last week we discussed the fear and expectation of life after death from several different perspectives. Now, we turn to a very difficult concept to grasp - who gets rewarded and who gets punished in the afterlife?

In the conversation, some of us were concerned about the idea of justice last week. While it is comforting to think of rewards and benefits in the afterlife, it is equally disturbing to think about punishment for evil in the afterlife. The traditional Christian concept of eternal punishment is full of flames and agony. Other traditions like Hinduism refer to unappealing reincarnations.

So, what does it take to get the good reward and avoid the horrible consequences? Some faiths require a person to be "good," while others require some sort of conversion experience.

What do you think? If you believe in God or a just force in the universe, how do you think the delineation is made between good and evil people? For those who do not have faith in an eternal justice, is time heading toward some balance and is that a comforting thought to you?

Hopefully you can join us at Shorts for a great conversation.

Religous Rudeness

This story drove me crazy (click here).

i don't really want to get into the idea of Lord's Day in Christianity or Sabbath in Judaism. Instead, I want to focus on why so many religious people use their faith to be rude, inconsiderate, and nasty. It seems to me that our faith ought to lead us to be more loving, better customers, and down right nicer people.

What do you think? Have you heard about this kind of behavior?

Doubtful

You know, one of the things that faith traditions fear most is doubt. For some people, doubt is debilitating and difficult. It can crush a person's spirit.

However, other people find a lot of depth and insight by exploring their doubts. Some spiritual seekers can learn more about life and faith through questions than answers.

Where are you at? Have you ever struggled with doubting your beliefs and values? Is doubt a good thing?

Faith

In 1987, George Michael sang "I've got to have faith faith faith."

Faith in what?

I was in a group discussion one time and a professor was ripping the idea of faith. A girl raised her hand and said "I have faith." The professor then asked the strangest question, "Faith in what?"

I realized I was assuming that everybody shared my faith and that my spiritual tradition had some sort of monopoly on the word. My fellow student's response further expanded my perspective. "I don't have faith in anything; I just have faith."

Do you believe in faith? Do you have faith? Faith in what, or whom?