the voice of reason's blog

I didn’t know this. Did you?

According to the History Channel’s program “Banned from the Bible”, several stories that didn’t make the final cut of the official Christian Bible are preserved, word for word, in the Koran.  Read More »

This is my second post inspired by the History Channel’s program “Banned from the Bible.” (Find my first here: http://www.progressiveu.org/142846-the-evil-jesus-and-other-untold-bible-stories.) This one, as the title suggest, concerns women—beginning with a woman, Mary Magdalene, and her gospel: The Gospel according to Mary.  Read More »

My knowledge of early Church history is sadly lacking, and while I knew about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of Judas, I hadn’t heard of the Nag Hamadi Library. Sad, but rectified—although I missed the beginning, I got the chance to see the History Channel’s program “Banned from the Bible.”

The Gnostic heresies that rocked Christianity in the early centuries of its conception as organized religion were stamped out by religious leaders worried people were getting the wrong idea about faith, through means like destroying the writings. But these teachings are becoming known to us again today, through archaeological goldmines like Nag Hamadi. What interested me most, though, were the Gnostic conceptions of Jesus.  Read More »

Well, so far Happy Feet is my biggest recent movie disappointment. (I could count Snakes on a Plane—but I expected that to be pretty bad to begin with, so I won’t.) Everything I’d heard and seen about this movie practically screamed, “kid movie”—but it had penguins, and dancing, so I wanted to see it. I was really looking forward to it, thought it would be a good comedy. But it turns out this wasn’t just another variation on the loser-to-acceptance story… If you haven’t seen it and want to and want to be surprised, don’t read this; I make no secret of the plot.  Read More »

Well, it's that time of year... earlybird scholarships. I'm mailing my nearly-late one off tomorrow, and here's the requisite essay--a one page statement about my educational plans and goals--that's going with it. I'm really, really terrible at writing essays of this type, but this one didn't turn out nearly as bad as I thought it would, and since I've never had occasion to use the "critique my writing category" before, I thought--well, why  not. Let's see what Progressive U. readers have to say. But please--be kind. :)  Read More »

Responsibility.

Let me talk about responsibility for a little bit.

When you have a responsibility, you have to take care of it. It doesn’t matter if you can’t, if you don’t think you’re able, if you’re too wrapped up in your own problems to care, you take care of what you’re responsible for, or you are culpable.  Read More »

I love those “Idiot” titles. So versatile. Well, before getting down to it, a short disclaimer: I’m probably going to miss something, or more likely forget it. The former, because I’m thinking of new things all the time; the latter, because that happens all the time, too. In other words, just be aware, these are my thoughts as of the moment.  Read More »

Well, if you want my honest, concise opinion on the matter—in a word, no.

Here’s why.

I was actually watching a commercial for toddler toys, of all things, when this dawned on me. Women have the right to vote, the glass ceiling has all but been demolished, we now are nearly the majority in professions once dominated by men, like law—and yet, underneath it all, there’s a part of our society that still sees women as behind-the-scenes puppets; vacuum-pushing, baby-bearing, dinner-cooking, Mrs. Cleaver, Stepford Wives-esque, automatons.  Read More »