Did you know that CoolReligion has been around over a year now? The anniversary almost passed us by unnoticed, so I’ve decided to write this article by way of both a retrospective and a peek ahead…
Where have we come from?
Nowhere. We’ve come from nowhere.
When, in May 2010, I set up this blog I didn’t really know what to expect. Several people were responding to my articles on UbiquitousRat.com and were asking for more about the spiritual stuff I occasionally wrote about. So… CoolReligion was created.
Taking the attitude and advice of Edward DeBono, I tried to be politely provocative. “Po: you might have a soul!”, etc. The tribe of readers has grown slowly but it has grown. So has our stable of writers, both of them readers who offered to write too. Thus we have three regular writers, RevDMac and FustratedHistorian in addition to myself.
It’s been a wild ride for me too because I’ve been making a career change throughout the whole time of CoolReligion’s life. I’ve gone from a business background into a teaching career, all the while learning about and from the spiritual and religious life of the rest of the world. It’s been a nice start to a lifelong journey I am really looking forward to.
Let’s celebrate!
As a community, we haven’t been very good at celebrating. We are all so busy we almost forgot there was something to celebrate. So… if you’ve enjoyed any article this year it might be nice if you could pop a celebratory comment onto this post. That’s not compulsory, of course, but it might be nice to share.
Might I suggest that, should be up for it, you complete the following sentence in a comment?
“One thing that I really enjoyed about CoolReligion this year was…”
That being said… if you think this is ‘balls’, I don’t mind if you say so… just try to remember that our writers are volunteers. Please be polite.
Where are we going to?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It’s one of the reasons that I am writing this article and not another ‘content-focused’ one straight away.
For me, the focus of the next few months will be to build on the articles for each of the world’s religions already featured on the site. Yes, I still want to add a Pagan section, but I need to find a willing writer to take on the task. Preferably, I’d like to tempt a practising Pagan to do it, as I’m a little rusty 22 years after changing my faith.
Let me tell you that RevDMac is beavering away on an article covering the various interpretations of the Bible’s ‘Genesis’ creation narratives. Following that, he’s agreed to look at some further articles to add to the Judaism section.
I’m gearing up to add to the Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism sections over the coming three months. I’d like to see at least one more article on each section quite soon. I’m also keen to explore what is meant by the nebulous term ‘spirituality’ these days, which is also likely to be a jaunt into the philosophy of religion and the study of the mind.
Alongside all of that, I’d like to build up our reviews section with more coverage of films, books and other stuff that we’ve been pondering about and experiencing. I think that a spiritual slant on reviewing is something I’d like to do more of.
All in all, we’ve still got a lot of treasures to share… and we’re open to hearing from anyone who fancies moving from reader to writer. All you need to do is keep in touch, keep reading and commenting… and, when you feel ready, drop me an email to offer to write.
Most importantly of all…
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the site. If you wrote, commented or otherwise made your mark, thank you. If you simply logged on and read our gibberings, thank you. Even if you just slipped past once or twice, thank you.
Without you lot there is no point doing this. You are perhaps few in number but you are indeed a cherished few.
Keep having fun and I’ll write you another article soon.
Namaste.
Well, this is embarrassing. Note to self: don’t ask for feedback.
Sod it… while I am here:
One thing that I really enjoyed about CoolReligion this year was the first time someone stuck a comment on one of my posts.
“One thing that I really enjoyed about CoolReligion this year was…”
the humanity and pants around the ankles exposure (so-to-speak) approach to exploring faith and Christianity in relation to people and how it works in people’s lives.
CoolReligion isn’t afraid of taking flak, is open to criticism, can take a joke and about all is as open as Christianity should be.
Keep up the good work 😉
as always, I have enjoyed the privilege of engaging with others’ views and having others’ engage with me in debate. Hopefully I’ll even be able to contribute more by way of comments this coming year. 🙂
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Missed this Post mate.
One thing I have enjoyed about Cool Religion this year … hmm I hope having something and being able to contribute, not just critique.
The hardest thing has been finding the time to really go into so depth in sparring with you and RevD. Somethings have been posted which I do not agree wth, but the contribution would have been as helpful as “no, thats wrong”. A good example for me is the part in Are the Christian Gospels reliable where you equate the number of surviving sources of the gospels as compared to.. was it Tacitus? The simple answer was popularity does not equal truth or fact; heaven help future historians in this case as the Sun’s pages will be taken as social fact. I feel I need to up my game and interact some more.
@ FH:
hi mate, was a little surprised to find a response here instead of on the article itself. But feel the need to offer a clarification anyway.
The point of textual criticism (which is a discipline borrowed from historians) is to establish how accurately the text has been transmitted over the generations from the autograph (i.e. the original). In so doing the issue is not the truthfulness of the content, but whether or not the text has suffered from transmissional errors or, in some cases, deliberate corruption.
The point being is that if just 7 – 10 copies of a text are sufficient to say that these are the same as the original text, then there can be little doubt of the transmissional accuracy of the Gospels given the sheer wealth of textual evidence available. (This deals with the issue of ‘chinese whispers’ often cited as a justification for saying that the Gospels have been changed over time.) Therefore if the Gospel text is not accurate, then how can we be sure of the veracity of the text of the other texts cited?
That there differences in the Gospel text is acknowledged. examples include:
Bethsaida, and Bethzatha for the same place.
a scribal error which alters a word completely just by inserting one letter, so that Jesus is saying remove the fruit from your own eye, instead of the plank!
A more serious one being the story of the woman caught in adultery. Very few doubt that it is a story associated with the ministry of Jesus, but where should it be? It floats around in the various texts of John’s Gospel, and all competent translations acknowledge it.
So, I have to say that your analogy is, at best, off the mark. But, here is a serious thing to think about: if these texts weren’t ‘faith-based’ would there be an issue in accepting them? More importantly, as all ancient documents of the same period, and for hundreds of years around them, are written with a definite bias, why don’t we just write them all off as irrelevant to providing grist for the historian’s mill? Some of these texts are just as faith based if not more so, and definitely have the bias of being written to please the patron for whom they are written. Let’s not forget that Bede’s Ecclesiatical History of the English people is one of a very few sources which we have for the period of which he writes. Should we just write it off and put ‘Here be Dragons’ in history books from this point on?
My article was not about converting people to the truth of the content of the texts (although apologetics are often the very preliminary stages in that process), but about putting the evidence for the historicity of Jesus at a very high level, especially against the charge that there is no evidence that Jesus existed.
I’m sorry that you didn’t feel able to comment on the actual article itself, and had been quite disappointed that you hadn’t as I value your comments and insights.
D
Chill RevD 😀 – I didn’t reply there as I don’t feel I have a decent enough argument to put together yet. The post is here as an example of why I feel I need to up my game a bit. What I wrote here would not be an acceptable post for me as your response as highlighted. If I am going to walk into the Lion’s Den, I want a big gun not just a feather duster!
I will copy and paste your response over there for a small reply, just something to keep this ticking over.
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