Tag Archives: religion

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Friday Link Love

The Cult of Collaboration — Fernando Gros

Just jokin'. Sort of.

…We often need to collaborate in order to solve really big problems. And, as humans, we also need to work alongside other people to satisfy more basic emotional desires for community and belonging.

But, the hard slog of creating, innovating and thinking is something we largely do alone.

That’s something I totally agree with. And, it worries me that in many parts of society, including schools, we are not encouraging people to develop the skills required to work alone, for extended periods of time, on complex problems.

Add in the fact that smartphones mean that we need never be alone again, and this is an issue worth thinking about. Alone. Or together.

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Religion for Atheists — Alain de Botton

We are far more desperate than secular modernity recognises. All of us are on the edge of panic and terror pretty much all the time – and religions recognise this. We need to build a similar awareness into secular structures.
Religions are fascinating because they are giant machines for making ideas vivid and real in people’s lives: ideas about goodness, about death, family, community etc. Nowadays, we tend to believe that the people who make ideas vivid are artists and cultural figures, but this is such a small, individual response to a massive set of problems. So I am deeply interested in the way that religions are in the end institutions, giant machines, organisations, directed to managing our inner life. There is nothing like this in the secular world, and this seems a huge pity.

The above link is to an FAQ about Botton’s TED talk on Atheism 2.0, which is outstanding and available here.

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Pomodoro Technique

If you’re not familiar with the pomodoro technique for time management, it’s incredibly simple and very effective. I wrote Sabbath in the Suburbs primarily using techniques like this one.

Poke around the website to learn more about it, though for heaven’s sake, I don’t know why you’d need a $26 book to understand it, let alone the tomato-shaped timer, although it is cute.

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And along the lines of time management:

The Biggest Myth in Time Management — Harvard Business Review

In a nutshell: That we can get it all done. (Comments are interesting, trying to diagnose “Brad’s” problem in the article.)

I think this simple realization has profound spiritual implications, way beyond simple time management. But then again, I would think that, I just wrote a book about Sabbath…

Have a good weekend. It’s a long weekend for us, what with teacher work days on Monday and Tuesday. We have our congregation’s annual meeting on Sunday, after which the kids and I head to Johnstown, Pennsylvania for a short visit with Robert’s grandmother.

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Friday Link Love

Here we go:

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See-Through Church – Belgium

I ran across this on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, who said, “that’s one way to get more transparency in the church.” Visually arresting; see the link for more photos:

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Applying Sentiment Analysis to the Bible – OpenBible

An interesting image and idea, and something one could sit and study for quite some time… although I notice that the resurrection is listed as a negative event. Yeah, I guess Mark could be read that way…


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The Roots of Religion – Big Questions Online

Myth, story, practice…

 I have found that the very mention of the words “religion” and “evolution” sets off a kind of reflex reaction among some, but fortunately not all, contemporary Americans. Among both religious fundamentalists and what might be called atheistic fundamentalists these terms set off a war to the death, with abusive language directed toward the supposed opposition. In that kind of atmosphere any rational discussion becomes impossible. What unites these two groups is the idea that religion and science are essentially the same thing:  sets of propositional truths that can be judged in terms of argument and evidence.

What surprised me when I began to read the work of leading scientists in the fields of cosmology and evolution is how many of them rejected this idea and argued instead that science and religion are really two different spheres that may at points overlap but that operate in accordance with different logics. Science operates with scientific method in terms of which different theories can be tested and proved or disproved, though if Karl Popper is right, proof is always problematic and we are safer to stick to disproof. Religion on the other hand is a way of life more than a theory. It is based on beliefs that science can neither prove nor disprove. Its “proof” is the kind of person the religious way of life produces.

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Dying and Dinner Parties – Vimeo

Linked from the Improvised Life blog, this is a delightfully matter-of-fact take on the last adventure of life.

Dying and Dinner Parties from ThinPlace Pictures on Vimeo.

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An Interview with David Eagleman – BoingBoing

David and I were at Rice University at the same time, though I did not know him there. He’s made the rounds on some of my favorite podcasts, including Radiolab, and his book Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives is really interesting. In this interview he tackles near-death experiences, déjà vu and more. When asked what advice he’d have for young aspiring scientists and thinkers, he says:

Watch TED talks: smart people will distill their life’s work down to 20 minutes for you. Follow links through infinite trajectories of Wikipedia. Watch educational videos on topics that resonate with you.

There are a million ways to waste time on the net; reject those in favor of ways that teach you exactly what you want to know. Never before have we enjoyed such an opportunity for tailored, individualized education.

And be sure to get off-line often, to take digital sabbaths. As much as the net provides a platter of mankind’s learning, there is a different kind of learning to be had from a hike in the woods, the climbing of a tree, an afternoon building a dam in a stream.

Amen!