The word “sin” drips with centuries of religious baggage, conjuring images of fire and brimstone preachers and penitent souls begging for redemption. But what lies beneath the surface of this concept? In this episode, we’ll embark on a journey through the history and philosophy of sin, tracing its etymological origins, its central role in Christian…
Tag: christianity
The Ergonomics of Salvation
The idea of Salvation comes, I believe, from the one whom suffering breaks apart. He who masters it, on the contrary, needs to be broken, to proceed on the path toward the rupture.-Georges Bataille, Inner Experience Within some cleft of history emerged the fallenness of humanity. First we become aware of impersonal minds, entities, abstract…
The Golden Verses
(written with Cora Howell) Have you ever heard someone say that you should follow the Golden Rule? Even if you don’t follow the Bible or its teachings, I bet most of you would know that rule as being something along the lines of loving your neighbor as yourself or treating others how you want to…
The First Day of Creation
I thought it might be fun to revisit the topics and themes of my earliest episodes, starting with my first essay, “Six Days of Creation and the Sabbath.” It’s been almost five years now and both my knowledge and my writing skills have improved immensely, and my perspective and positions have shifted as well. The circumstances certainly warrant a second look at things.
A Tale of Two Christians
A Satanist Reads the Bible continues today with our series on the rising threat of Christian fascism in America. Today we’ll be looking at the thought of two Christians, one early 20th century German and one from our own day, respectively, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eric Metaxas.
The Dialectic of Christian Fascism
Today I’ll be arguing that this progression is amplified by a dialectic within certain threads of modern Christianity, an internal contradiction that pushes those threads further and further in a fascist direction.
The Evangelical Campaign for Queer Genocide
In March of 2022 Senator and former Florida Governor Rick Scott released his new 11 point plan to reshape the Republican Party. It’s clear from this that Scott has aspirations beyond his current senate seat; with this plan, he has set out a vision not just for his home state of Florida but for the entire party of which he is a member. His plan, as outlined on his website rescueamerica.com, is not mere political strategy but rather a comprehensive vision for the future of America. Given all of this, we are led to ask from what lens he is viewing this country in the first place, and one need only look at his words in order to understand that perspective.
The Faith of a Satanist
We certainly should not follow Kierkegaard so far into faith that we abandon reason, but we must recognize that this was the failure of Kierkegaard and his beliefs and not of faith, which he saw clearly. Rather, we must ask, given our belief in reason, in what may we have faith?
Satan in the Qur’an
My aspiration for religion is that it be a reflection both of who we are and of our highest aspirations for ourselves as humans, but in terms of morality, traditional religion seems to fail at this.
The Two Christianities
A Satanist Reads the Bible is getting big enough that I’m starting to get requests for topics, and one of the requests I’ve gotten a few times now is to do an examination of different denominations of the Christian religion. I think that this is an excellent choice for a topic.