Category: Alterity

Questioning Faith

Questioning Faith

(Cross-posted on the Front Page) Asking questions is dangerous business.  I have friends and acquaintances who, after completing an inquisition into their own religious beliefs, forsook their religion, kicked the dust from their feet,...

The Hopeful Spirit of Dar Williams

The Hopeful Spirit of Dar Williams

“The Christians and the Pagans” by Dar Williams is one of my very favorite songs. The hopeful lyrics and heartwarming melody tell of a young woman and her friend who, in need of a...

Being in Uncertainty

Being in Uncertainty

Claire Creffield, an atheist who finds that, sometimes, “invoking the concept of God seems a very compelling way indeed of doing justice to the strangeness, the beauty and the peril of our lives,” asks...

To Hell with the Other

To Hell with the Other

Mitt Romney’s “not elegantly stated” remarks expressed a disposition that’s not exclusive to him or to his base.  As I wrote previously, disdain for otherness–a deep-seated and disordering belief that being other is bad–remains...

The Slavery of the Same

The Slavery of the Same

Conor P. Williams praised Michelle Obama’s DNC speech for combating the ugly belief that the president is something other than a real American.  “It was a speech that demanded the president’s recognition as one...

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