Posted by Nontheist Friends on Apr 10 2006 | Tagged as: Blog Posts
Nontheistfriends.org presents the work of Friends (Quakers) who are more concerned with the natural than the supernatural. Some of us understand “God” as a symbol of human values and some of us avoid the concept while accepting it as significant to others. We differ greatly in our religious experience and in the meaning we give religious terms.
Posted by Os Cresson on Jun 27 2009 | Tagged as: Blog Posts, Definitions, Republished
Unity during meeting for worship for attention to business is familiar to Quakers. It is a commitment to move forward together and, significantly, it does not mean we have to hold the same views. This method of doing business has long been characteristic of Quakers.
To my surprise, the approach also applies to another kind of [...]
Posted by James Riemermann on May 21 2009 | Tagged as: Blog Posts
…I don’t mean that everyone should engage in or care about this kind of intellectual wrestling, and I certainly don’t mean that our worship should become intellectual debate or performance–yuck. But the widespread fear of and distaste for intellect, as if the search for understanding could possibly be a bad thing, does not serve us well…
Posted by Peter Schogol on Apr 27 2009 | Tagged as: Blog Posts
I don’t recall the first time I woke up dead, having done so many times since. Each time feels like the first time, so maybe it’s an ongoing thing — waking up dead.
There are days when I wake up fully alive, and those are the cruelest of all. Those are the days when I feel [...]
Posted by Robin Alpern on Jan 28 2009 | Tagged as: Events, Reports
One person attended because of the laughter from the nontheism workshop at the Friends General Conference Gathering. Another came because a fellow Meeting member who attended in 2007 was so impressed. A third signed up because he questioned whether Quakers could be nontheist. A teenager brought her dad.
Zach Alexander (Cambridge MM, NEYM) and I, co-leaders for this weekend, met for the first time at the 2008 FGC Gathering, 5 minutes before we were scheduled to facilitate an interest group together. The interest group went well, and we agreed to pair up again.
Posted by James Riemermann on Jan 20 2009 | Tagged as: Blog Posts, Events
My friend Nat Case, from my own Twin Cities Friends Meeting, has a blog I hadn’t paid much attention to until a month or two ago. I don’t know how much of my inattention is because I hadn’t noticed how smartly provocative his writing is, and how much is because, as a cartographer, he’s been writing less for a mapmaking audience lately, and more for Quakers and other people who question the meaning of religion. People like me.
This post expands on a brief comment I made on his post Fragments of a Religion That Never Existed, where Nat writes in part:
“What I’m interested in here is the idea of scripture not defined by its innate qualities (e.g. dictated by God), but by its functional qualities. What does scripture do? I find scripture-as-community-glue interesting, but my sympathies lie with scriptures-taken-to-heart. I do have a series of books, passages from books, poems, some formal religious texts, ballads, and films that form what I believe is similar to the sort of scripture-taken-to-heart that orthodox folk might have. Except I do not have a community that draws from the same set of texts.”
Posted by Zach Alexander on Jan 09 2009 | Tagged as: Blog Posts, Definitions, Reports, Republished
“If you think Richard Dawkins is too easy on religion, go down to that end of the room,” I said, indicating the steps up to the bookstore. “And if you…”
“Careful…” someone said.
And I was. There were several believers-in-God present – the exact number depending on your definition – and I didn’t want to make a joke that might be taken the wrong way.
“If you’re, uh… very theistic, go down to the other end,” I finished, indicating the fireplace. “And if you’re somewhere in between, go somewhere in between.”
Posted by Rik Panganiban on Jan 09 2009 | Tagged as: Blog Posts, Blogroll, Events, History, Personal Journeys, Republished, Stories and Poems
For three days I have been at the beautiful Powell House Quaker retreat center, up in Old Chatham, New York. I have been attending a workshop on “nontheist Quakers” led by Robin Alpern and Zach Alexander with about 16 other Quakers from around the northeast area.
Posted by Nontheist Friends on Nov 25 2008 | Tagged as: Events
Facilitated by Robin Alpern and Zach Alexander
January 2-4, 2009
Please join us as we explore the faith and practice of Quaker nontheists and the richness of a spiritual life not necessarily dependent on belief in God. Friends have become increasingly aware of the theological diversity of our Religious Society–a large proportion of our Society is somewhere [...]
Posted by Zach Alexander on Nov 22 2008 | Tagged as: Stories and Poems
In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It’s two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit. [...]
Posted by James Riemermann on Jul 27 2008 | Tagged as: Blog Posts, Definitions, History, On Other Sites
A Friend on the nontheist Friends e-mail discussion list at some point challenged us to seriously study early Quaker history, and not just dip into it, “to develop our knowledge of and insights into the origins and development of the tradition or movement we have committed to.” Good advice, no question. And yet I felt [...]