Category: Theology
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A Theology of Human Machines | Solving the ‘Modest Problem of Death’
A fascinating read in the latest New Republic, reviewing Irish writer Mark O’Connor’s new book, To Be A Machine – subtitled ‘Adventures among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers and Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death.’ Anna Wiener writes: O’Connell is less interested in evaluating technology than in the people who make it and its philosophical implications. As he…
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Are Your Beliefs My Problem? | Liberal Belief in the Transcendent
I spent a fantastic New Year down in Devon with a great group of people – open fires, good walks, food, drink… and opportunities for ‘deliberate’ conversation too. In one such session, pretty late one night, a bunch of us had been thinking about ‘life in a post-truth era.’ It was fascinating stuff, but just…
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A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Currently reading this by Booker winner Julian Barnes, a collection of disperate tales that opens with the myth of Noah retold by a woodworm. Yup 🙂 It’s profound, and funny, and if you need a read for Christmas I’d recommend it highly.
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Can We Talk About Radical Theology and Alcohol?
In the past few posts about the bigger political, technological and cultural shifts that might be going on behind the ‘fake news’ scandal, I’ve proposed how Radical Theology might have in helping people to critique political and religious illusions. However, I’ve also mooted that Radical Theology could itself become a means by which the hard…
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Creating Freedom, by Raoul Martinez
This looks like a very worthwhile read. Comes highly recommended, and if you’re interested in understanding and acting in these strange times, sounds like one for the Christmas list. From the review in The Guardian: Creating Freedom is, in part, a mashup of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia, Thomas…
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Post Truth | Hypernormalisation and the Radical Response
In a post last week on the ‘Fake News’ scandal and the way that our information sources have become distorted, narrowed and – some now claim – deliberately confused by digital algorithms, I concluded by saying: In the chaos of this truthless mental and political environment, we more naturally turn to brands for security, to…