Why add another religion to the world’s crowded supply?  What would be different about God’s Goods?  How would it help?  Why participate and contribute?
Background
I don’t expect that you have to believe in God or the Bible to benefit from reconsidering what the Bible’s opening pages say.  Or you can believe in both, in which case, what those opening pages say is even more pertinent.  How they’re seen and what is said about them is vitally …

I’d like to start by thanking Hearne, Jordon, John and others from the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library for sponsoring these free Tuesday evening lectures. The donation you gave at the door goes to them to help them host this ongoing service. My humble perspective on sex is one among many varied topics on these Tuesday evenings. These cover everything from healing to finance to space aliens, so I figured this fits right in. I can’t …

From Texas to Tehran, societies scurry to placate the power of those posing as pious – instead of affirming and advancing inherent intelligence and integrity.   Modernity fears its own success.  Instead of claiming and furthering the steady progress of science and the Enlightenment, it falls prey to those resentful of both.  Fundamentalist advices to “have faith” or to “submit” turn us from knowledge, freedom, and responsibility, towards gullibility and obeisance.  Decent souls, questing for what …

Have you noticed that the three great monotheistic religions of the world are also the three great problem makers in the world? Is God the problem? Does God want these vast forces to wage war with the others? We’re told lately that society has gotten too secular, too wayward, and that we should return to our religions and have more faith. But should we? Haven’t religions often been the source of problems – from stifling …

A personal message from founder, Brad Carrier, regarding labor:
I’ve built dry-stack rock retaining walls for ten years and owned the business for eight. On one level, it’s just work for pay. I can work by the hour, or by the bid. But I’d rather work on creative projects that serve the general betterment of persons or society, taking whatever compensation it brings me. Like any job, it is work for money, but such labor is …

 
When I met Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh in a posh hotel in Bombay I wanted to punch him in the nose.  I had gone to India sick of the west’s view of earth as merely a place for a divine drama that leads to an afterlife.  In India I found its counterpart: a yearning for an instead-of life.  Rajneesh sported a Rolex as he knocked the communists for wanting worldly improvements.  He assured us the body …

I have a small scar on my hip, a little reminder: “You can’t toy with the ocean.”  I was body surfing in Laguna Beach, riding the big waves in, using my chest as if a surfboard.  I had a wonderful day.  What fun!  I wanted it to go on.  The waves seemed to be changing, as if to say, “Go in,” but I was greedy for one more ride.  I got that ride and then …

Nude Sermon: Deeper than Shame is Glory
Intro
This sermon comes in response to Ashland’s recent ban on nudity in public places. Thanks to Eric Navickas and Carol Voisin for trying to defend nudity, difficult and edgy though that cause was. Eric’s reasoning and passion inspired me to contribute my art to this event. Thanks to Amy Godard for opening MAda Shell Gallery for nude art, music, and sermon.
Though I came to Ashland in 1986 …

God’s Goods is not primarily about God. God’s Goods is about the goods “God” “created” and called “good,” and it is about the violation of those goods by the three theistic religions. God’s Goods is not a Christian religion, nor even primarily theistic. It is a humanistic, naturalistic, deistic religious perspective that seeks to reconnect humanity to its natural origin, home, responsibilities, and possibilities.
God, for Better or Worse
Cultures generate god-images which then orient and …

Faith in the Larger Liberty:  American Deism
Picture this: Our president in the White House takes scissors to Bible, cutting out of the New Testament all that makes Jesus more God than human. Out goes the virgin birth story, the miracles, even the resurrection. When preachers object, he calls them “soothsayers and necromancers.” To top it off, he is having an extended affair with his half-black servant, fathering children with her. Such a scandal would leave …