Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Flaming Chalice Clipart.

I whipped this up in the Inkscape SVG editor. I traced the 'k' chalice from the Chalice Font, then smoothed it out (the chalice font is rather bumpy.) SVG is a vector format, so the SVG version can be scaled up to any size and still look good. It is also fairly simple to change the colors. (or shapes!)
I also tried making a fancier looking chalice. I realized afterwards that the color would blend in nicely on this page, so you can see it at the sidebar. Click on it to grab the SVG file.
In hindsight, it looks more like a bowl with legs, that happens to be on fire.

My Elevator Speech

What Unitarian Universalism has is a rich tradition of recognizing the importance of people determining their own beliefs. This is something most other religions do not have. It is not that we lack beliefs, not even that we lack common beliefs. The thing that makes us different from almost every religion, what is in effect, our central teaching, is that seeking the truth is more important than teaching it.

When you have an idea that is so powerful that it has changed the world several times over, yet there is only one religion that dares to promote that idea, You must realize that that is a religion of note. We have seven ideas that powerful.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Forgiveness and Death

I saw a Jew once argue against the divinity of Jesus because 'God can't die'. My thought was that an equally amazing notion is that God could change. My understanding is that the Jewish concept of God is timeless and unchanging. The Jewish God is also a God of Justice. (harsh justice by today's standards, but 'punishment for transgressions', at least)
Christianity brings to this a forgiving God, a God that suspends harsh justice out of love. A God that CHANGES his mind. But this is incompatible with the old testament version of God. How can an unchanging God change?

A classic paradox:
Q: If God is all powerful, can he create a wall so strong that even he can't break it down?
A: Yes he can, and he did. Then he broke it down, but it killed him.
God, in order to forgive, had to alter a fundamental part of who he was, in so doing he became something else, he died. The real action of salvation wasn't at Calvary, it was in heaven, probably 'before' our space/time was created. This may have fractured him into the trinity.

What really irks me is that I of all people come up with this stuff, while after 2000 years of development Christians are using CHICK TRACTS?!? What is that about?