George Elerick

America is not a Christian nation. If anything it is one ensconced in its own religious attempts at mediocrity. Mediocrity in the sense that since its bloody inception it has continued down a course of self-perpetuation, which for most is the idea of progress and evolution -- the continuation/growth of...

There is a copious amount of controversy surrounding a video that actor Johnny Depp has helped put out recently. Although, he doesn't sing on the video, he does accompany the band. The song has attracted the attention of a few fundamental pastors and christians all over the U.S. and is...

We have this peculiar practice in the West, we willingly participate in groups that emulate the very narratives we ourselves subscribe to. If we believe that all animals should be treated equally (not merely within their own classification) with humans then we might join a local or international focus group...

In a passage from"Strangers to Ourselves," we find the idea that Paul's ekklesia speaks to psychic distress and soothes psychosis, which is usually divided into schizophrenia and paranoia. This ekklesia is a "community of foreigners." It is an "ideal community," "an original entity," a "messianism that includes all of humankind."...

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final...

God is Dead, and we have killed Him. -- Nietzche

Christianity is the only religion where God dies on the cross, and becomes an atheist -- Slavoj Zizek, Theologian

The Christian Bible (the Jewish Torah) is rife with story after story of a God who loves violence and is driven...

Competition is something that society seems to the thrive on. We have our favorite sports teams. We have our favorite drinks and favorite movies. Sometimes if someone else doesn't like what we like, we get mad, disillusioned. Somehow we think the world was created for us and around us. Competition...

In psychology, desensitization (also called inurement) is a process for mitigating the harmful effects of phobias or other disorders. It also occurs when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked in situations in which the action tendency that is associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary. Agoraphobics, who fear open...

"To love" means to desire the other as the subject of a desire - Jacques Lacan

Our world is filled with symbols. We have the golden arches, a symbol of overpriced greasy food that attracts millions to their tables. We have the symbol of the American flag,...

The ancient Jews believed that justice itself was judgment, that rather than pointing the finger or commercializing someone else's sins all over the tabloids, we should promote justice. Let me explain. If we don't like war then our role isn't to be anti-war, rather it's to be pro-peace. If we...

I have this friend, Phil Shepherd. He's a brother-in-arms and a catalyst for change. He's a provocateur and an Alaskan native. He co-pastors a group of experimental people in Texas called the Eucatastrophe, which assembles to talk about God, drink whiskey, and deconstruct life. In my interview with him, he...

In a handful of Eastern religions, including Judaism, the ancient idea behind perfection was that one only became perfect by evolving. When I use the term evolve, I don't mean going from a fish to a human; I mean internal progress of the soul, a moving forward rather than backward,...

We've been fighting for land and our rights since the early years of mankind. Way back when we were settlers, we figured out that war got faster results than bartering. Then when a small band of English people were suffering religious and political oppression, they fled to another land to...

The ancient Greek word for sin, hamartia, is an archery term that refers to missing the mark. It evokes an image of someone who tries to hit the bullseye, who has the intention of hitting it dead on, but who fails.

As pure as our intentions may have been, what...

There has been a lot of antagonistic debate over Obama's health care reform, and I am all for good debate, but what happens when someone throws in a curve ball and starts marrying politics with religion? Is that fair? Aren't politics and religion rather like oil and water? Statements like...

Consumerism is an after-effect of the colonization, commercialisation, and the deification of the indulgent spirit of entitlement. The more corporate we become the less people matter. The more we emerge into a society of self-indulgence that 'looks out for number one,' the more rapidly our worldview will become barbaric in...

Explorers like Columbus framed their existence on the unproven reality that the Earth was flat and had an edge -- until they explored the ocean blue and found that it was, in fact, round. Still, there is a small group of people tucked in the tundra of Alaska who remain...

"Reach for your goal." "Reach for the stars." "Chase your dreams." Since childhood, most of us have been inundated with the philosophy that everything we want to achieve is outside rather than in, that life is about finding ways to get what we want. It is consumerism dressed up in...

Pat Robertson has been under fire by Christians and non-Christians alike after his divisive comment over the reasons why the destructive earthquake hit the helpless country of Haiti. The televangelist asserted that the death toll is due to a historical pact that the Haitians made with the Devil and that...