Forum Fridininum

Space is the place the
context of my construct’s walk through
landscapes of being

I’m half way the Calvin College seminar program “Congregations and religious diversity in contemporary America” led by Stephen Warner. And because tomorrow will be the fourth of July — we have a few days off! OMG, I feel like a student again. It’s time for some procrastination.

Het lege land
waar keien schuilen
in een grijze waas
en mossig groen.

Het zwarte land
waar een poel de grond
herschept tot aardse
hemelspiegel.

Het moederland
herbergt haar dochter
in witte lakens
en mat beton.

Haar oude land
beklijft in zwart - wit,
in nachten vol van
herinnering.

Haar nieuwe land
tekent zich af in
felle kleuren, een
regenboog
van een kind.

My dad recently won the Frisian chess championship for seniors (60+). In his younger years he unsuccessfully tried his hand before, but now he has won convincingly with six points out of seven. He acts like winning the championship is nothing, but we, his family, are very proud!

Read more about it on the site of the Friese Schaakbond

Don’t leave a blog unattended, when you return to it you’ll find it infested with spam. That’s what I learned when I returned to Forum Fridinum recently. I am working on cleaning the blog. In the meantime, if you want to comment on my posts, please register here  (either with or without a blog at RR.org).

Inbound, Bolivar Roads

Originally uploaded by OneEighteen

De wereld kan mooi zijn, bewijst de fotoset van OneEighteen. Kan iemand me vertellen hoe ik zeeschepen kan leren sturen…

“As long as secular citizens are convinced that religious traditions and religious communities are to a certain extent archaic relics of pre-modern societies that continue to exist in the present, they will understand freedom of religion as the cultural version of the conservation of a species in danger of becoming extinct.” (15)

I have just read Religion in the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas. In this article Habermas discusses several views on the use of religious arguments in the public sphere. It is an interesting, but contested article. Read the rest of this entry »

Een horror film die op waarheid gebaseerd is, kan dat? Ja, dat kan. De film The Exorcism of Emily Rose is gebaseerd op een wetenschappelijke studie naar de dood van Anneliese Michel. Anneliese was een Duits meisje uit een klein dorpje in Beieren dat na een groot aantal exorcisme sessies stierf. Er werd een strafproces gestart tegen de ouders van het meisje en de priesters die de sessies geleid hadden. Zij werden veroordeeld vanwege dood door nalatigheid. Het proces veroorzaakte veel maatschappelijke opschudding: hoe kon het dat in het moderne Duitsland zulke Middeleeuwse praktijken nog plaatsvonden? Read the rest of this entry »

Thus, the very experience of the weakening of the foundations of religion becomes the starting point for the reconsideration of European religious heritage with reference to two specific aspects: firstly, the possibility of redefining autonomy on the basis of Judeo-Christian concepts of otherness and mutual relations, rather than as merely the liberal affirmation of an individual’s autonomy in his or her private life; secondly, the issue of dominion over nature, which might be considered, in the light of the Judeo-Christian concepts of the Creation, as something other than raw material and a source of revenue. In my opinion, the question of the “European soul” is best addressed by considering these two aspects, not by referring nostalgically to a religious past that is both glorious and painful but which has, in any case, definitively ceased to exist.

An interesting article by Hervieu Legér in Eurozine