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Is Barbie the Answer?

How we view our history and future can be skewed, or even screwed if we don't see either well. I promised my readers I would review the Oppenheimer and Barbie movies, and I will, but on the way, I read three books and had a bike crash, all six of which can lead us to lessons. I hope you enjoy this grand sweep of history. I hope it helps place our lives in a larger context leading to more hopeful, realistic visions. The featured image…

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Between Barbie and Oppenheimer

“Do you ever think about dying?” asked Barbie.  I do.  Do you? I'm on the eve of my 78th, luckily still alive. I think about dying, but not in a morose way.  I stumbled into death at age 18 when I worked for a funeral home that also ran the community’s ambulance service.  We’d take the big “S” off the side of the Oldsmobile hearse, put the bubble light on top, and clamp in the stretcher.  Sometimes we’d deal with accidental or old age death;…

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The Pursuit and Enjoyment of Happiness

(This is the third article I've published in Maya's and her daughter Radhaa's series, Awakening Starseeds, Volumes 1-3. I appreciate the honor of being included in their book series (which is available on Amazon). I wanted to punch Rajneesh in the nose, pull back my fist, and ask him a question: “If we are not the body, it and the world all being the illusion of maya, would you mind if I punch you in the nose again?” I didn’t, of course.  I had nothing…

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Eden in Us in Avatar

Avatar takes us on an exciting ride that changes our sense of self, scale, and loyalty.  We soar up into tree branches and down into the roots as if we’re insects in the forest.  Who are we in the larger communities of life? We think of Pandora’s Box as releasing all the troubles of the world, but that’s a perversion of the original myth.  In the pre-patriarchal version, Pandora’s Box contained the goods of a natural world.   We were similarly tricked out of Eden.  We…

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Be in It

Dr. Arvind Vasavada, my guru and friend, my gentle, generous mentor from my seminary days, used to advise me and his analysands (counseling clients), “Be in it.” (Here he is pictured between my friends and colleagues, the Reverend Doctors Bart Gould and Vern Barnet, at my ordination in Saint Joseph, Michigan, in 1972.) Imagine my good fortune upon entering seminary at the University of Chicago in 1969 to meet a man who embodied the two main interests I had – Jungian psychology and Eastern religions. …

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Freethinkers: Paine, Emerson, Ingersol

Introductory Comments Let’s take a few moments to remind ourselves America is not only a Christian nation and never has been.  Freethinkers are foundational to what we are and could become.  I hope this skimpy foray into a few of our freethinking founders helps reassure and orient us. During my Unitarian Universalist seminary years at the University of Chicago, I was fortunate enough to also attend training for humanist leaders.  Conducted by the Humanist Institute, held mostly in New York City at the Ethical Culture…

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Earth’s Eden: Love it or Lose it

Readings prior to the sermon: “Managing environmental resources sustainably has always been difficult, ever since Homo sapiens developed modern inventiveness, efficiency, and hunting skills by around 50,000 years ago… [E]very human colonization of a land mass formerly lacking humans – whether of Australia, North America, South America, Madagascar, the Mediterranean islands, or Hawaii and New Zealand and dozens of other Pacific islands – has been followed by a wave of extinction of large animals that had evolved without fear of humans and were easy to…

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To all my subscribers

All three of you! (Actually, the photo was taken at my ordination.) Or maybe there's 116, which Mail Chimp says is how many checked this website last month. I was down and out much of last month, barely alive, and now glad to be alive while getting better. In any case, I feel like earthlyrelgion is my labor of love preparing for even more labor and more love. I hope to make earthlyreligion far more public and trafficked this coming month. So, loyal readers, all…

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An Atheist Embalmer Prays for the Pope

https://youtu.be/IZ-wJMIPXX0 I gladly welcome you, Pope Francis, to this video of my prayer for you. Although I wish to speak into your eyes, I know others may tune into this if only for the provocative title, and if so, welcome!  What follows is a reenactment of a sermon I presented to a mall Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Grants Pass, Oregon.  I was hoping to send a video copy to the pope.  However, the camera didn’t work, so I’m reconstructing it here for his and your…

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Pope Francis

My shortened version of Pope Francis’ 2015 papal letter on the environment and the poor.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME This is my (BBC’s) paraphrased (shortened) version of Pope Francis’ 2015 Encyclical Letter. This summary is in preparation for my impending sermon “An Atheist Embalmer Prays for the Pope." Key: My paraphrase of Francis’ letter are written in blue, while the copy/paste sentences are all black. When Pope Francis quotes another, I try to keep the quote marks apparent. My rare comments will be in bold. “Laudato si’, mi’ Signore”…

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