So far this week I have heard the following from various friends: One is having shoulder surgery but wants to stay away from pain medications. He is consulting a homeopathic practitioner instead. Another couple we know has a child with the flu. I asked my wife if it was swine flu, but she didn’t know…

In responding to Christianity, Jews historically have objected that the other faith gives too human a picture of God. Needless to say, as a Jew I’d have to agree. Yet nowadays from many Jews I find much less strenuous objection to spiritual ideas that picture God in a “refined supernaturalist” way, as William James put…

Some readers thought I was unfair in a previous entry explaining the difference between my perspective on evolution and that of my fellow Beliefnet blogger Dr. Francis Collins over at Science and the Sacred. Am I really not being fair? Well, let’s test that hypothesis by picking out one idea from Dr. Collins’s book and…

Though I find Reform Judaism to be massively deluded about Torah and Jewish faith, it also has its good points. For example, I’m charmed and cheered by the news that the first female African-American rabbi will receive ordination from the Reform Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. As the Jerusalem Post reports, Alysa Stanton is a psychotherapist, adoptive…

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