Two Friars and a Fool and the FUTURE! (Future...future...future...)

Work has begun in earnest on a new website for Two Friars and a Fool.  We are moving toward WordPress as well as changes in layout and function.  The blog thing has been good, but we want to go further.  We are working not only on a forum for extended barroom arguments, but also on inviting some new voices to say their piece  - hopefully leading to further entertaining arguments.

The thing is, our vision for this whole project remains something like a gathering of friends and loyal opposition in a place where outright brawlers are bounced to the curb but at the same time we don't have to watch our language so closely.  We want passion without going as far as soccer-hooliganism.

Because it is a lot cheaper and easier to set up a website than to build an actual bar (if we were good at business do you think we'd be pastors?) that's what we've done.

But we can, and will, do it better.

Coming off the General Assembly season and moving toward what will doubtless be knock-down-drag-outs at our local Presbyteries, there will be plenty to talk about.  And not just for the Frozen!  What we're talking about, everyone else is also talking about.  Sex, marriage, Muslims, Jews, the Gay, the Straight, the Alphabet Soup of Sexual Minorities, prObama and antiBama, the hideous tyranny of our dark and dismal times - all that good stuff.

We'll keep you posted on how things are going.  It always takes longer than we think it will, but here's the key.  We're all getting ordained, and part of what comes with that is this thing called "continuing education" or "professional development".  And there's some money involved.  Which means that we are contractually obligated to remain....

Two Friars and a Fool.

Brief Announcement

So, amazingly, I've gotten hired by Examiner.com to be one of their "Examiners" for religion and spirituality in the bay area. This gig may pay next to nothing - the pay isn't really the point for me. The point is that it is a writing gig.

The point of this post is to say that I'll still want to be involved with Two Friars and a Fool, but I'll have this other thing I'm responsible for as well. I'm starting in the next couple of days (I've been moving and so on) and am responsible for writing 3-4 short articles per week. I already feel both excited and quite daunted by the prospect.

There are still things I want to say here that I won't really be able to say there, so this isn't goodbye by any means, just a brief announcement...

And now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Repost: Tolerance

This linked article from A Classical Presbyterian made me think that I should repost my little definition of tolerance - just to be clear...if nothing else, then because I don't want to have to defend a definition I don't espouse.

Second note: This post on Adiaphora is a great example of a position I'm almost diametrically opposed to, and that I seek to refute with this post.

Ironically, I think the general definition of tolerance that is bandied about is too broad. It leads to absurdities like having to answer "well, shouldn't you Liberals tolerate intolerance?" This is followed by a gotcha-smirk and triumphal nodding. Checkmate!

I don't think "tolerance" should mean that we tolerate everything, and I think a better definition is in order to clarify things.

What I think we liberals, progressives, whatever, mean when we talk about tolerance is ethical toleration - tolerance of things that are not overtly harmful or ethically unjustifiable. It is the self-discipline of allowing voices that we disagree with to be heard. So, for example, it is not intolerant to move away from you if you are poking me in the eye with a stick. I can be tolerant and also avoid eye-poking. I can also be tolerant and avoid some equivalents of eye-poking.

I can be tolerant and yet not tolerate things that I think are ethically unjustifiable or harmful. In those cases, tolerant or not, I have a moral responsibility to speak out and say something, and to do what I can ethically to put a stop to what is going on. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, I can tolerate you swinging your fist around until it connects with someone's nose.

So, for me at least, when I write about tolerance, assume what I mean is ethical toleration. I think it is what Liberals/progressives/whatever also mean when they use that word, but you'll have to ask them.

(Honestly, I think responsible conservatives probably buy into this in principle as well - but I'll have to ask them.)

Getting to Know You

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Dammit This Is Supposed to Be Fun

I don't know why we get into blog-fights, but it sure is a waste of time and energy. Hoo boy. I feel myself getting older, losing precious minutes on this planet, just thinking about it.

If we're to be judged by our fruits, what kinds of fruits do blog-fights bear? I'm hard pressed to come up with any. I think that part of why these pointless fights made sense to me was just plain depression - it reduces one's capacity to realize the futility of what is going on. Or, maybe more accurately, it makes everything feel equally futile, so I guess arguing with someone in their comment thread feels just as pointless as pretty much anything else.

I now feel like I am looking at these things from something of a new light - from my point of view at least.

I think we should ordain homosexuals. I think that abortion is wrong, but I also think the Pro Life movement is wrong. I am a pacifist to the best of my limited ability. I cry because sea turtles get caught in long lines and are going extinct, along with most large animals in the oceans. I think we should have a canon only insofar as the canon shows us who we are and who God is, and that whatever we agree shows us those things should be "canon". There are parts of the Bible I just never read. I'm a pluralist.

Take your shots. :)

But here's the thing. I want to enjoy this, so when it stops being fun, that'll be that. A good rousing argument can be interesting, but I'm going to scroll past comments that take themselves too seriously, and feel free to do the same with my idiotic little posts.

Yer Doin' It Wrong

This piece seems quite appropriate for our consideration as bloggers (and readers of blogs). It provides an interesting (if liberal-biased) introduction to how the brain works and how our sense of disgust weighs heavily into moral judgments. When Aric talks about aesthetics, we're in this territory of morality and disgust.

Anyway, interesting reading, and it might wet your appetite for more...

I'm fascinated by the idea that the difference between liberal and conservative might come down to the sensitivity of our gag reflex.

Among Friends...

In previous experience blogging one thing I found utterly perplexing was that some people (often the most vocal ones) choose to frequent places where they have radical disagreement in order to provoke arguments. Mind you, part of me really likes arguing. I have at times been strongly tempted to go leapfrogging around fundamentalist forums spreading bile. I am frequently dumbfounded at the things people say and believe while claiming to be Christian and I'd love to show them for the impostors they are. Doubtless there are some people out there who feel exactly the same about me.

The internet is not a hospitable habitat for reasoned debate. The prerequisites for effective persuasion - mutual affection, trust and understanding - are virtually impossible to establish over an anonymous text-based medium. So don't be surprised if you come here in anger and fail to persuade me, Doug, or Nick of anything at all. Don't be surprised if you listen to our podcasts and read our posts and find none of it persuasive. We are not trying to persuade you and it is probably an impossible task anyway.

In fact, if you come here knowing that you disagree with us on almost everything and you find yourself repeatedly experiencing anger/disgust/dismay when you visit I have a suggestion for you: Don't come. Don't listen to us. Don't read what we write. Ignore us. We're not that important.

Disagreement, of course, is no problem at all... among friends. I invite and encourage healthy, respectful debate that assumes from the get go that we are friends with more in common than not. I will do my best to always be generous in my assumptions about you, even when what you say is completely asinine and I want to declare you anathema. I try to hold myself to the standard of never typing something in a comment or blog which I would not say face to face.

So if this blog feels like enemy territory to you, welcome. We'll try to show you that we're no enemies of yours, but we're not going to waste much energy beating our heads against a brick wall with you.

If, however, this blog feels like your kind of place - then pull up a stool. You are among friends.

Conversation Topics

Here at Two Friars and A Fool, we hope to have a lot of good conversations. One of the ways we want to converse is though a podcast that we are currently working on. We invite anyone who's interested to join in the discussion. We have been cogitating on what we might want to talk about, and would like any feedback people want to offer on some of our ideas, as well as other topics you want to see us cover.

One is Rick Warren. In a recent conversation with Sean Hannity, he came out and said that it would not only be righteous to assassinate Mahmoud Akmadinijad, but that it was God's intent for the state to do things like that. This statement and some of what followed it infuriated me to no end, and I want to talk about it and see what we come up with.

Another is Seminary education. These grapes have set our teeth on edge for almost four years now, ever since we Friars and Fool have been caught up in the sticky web of SFTS. If nothing else, we need to vent so that our ulcers are put off a couple of years. This may need to wait until we've all officially graduated, though.

A third could be abortion. Its an issue that seems designed to divide people and make them furiously angry. Also, to make them call each other Nazis as often as possible. And while calling people you hardly know "Nazi!" is pretty fun, eventually you realize that they're calling you Nazi too, and maybe you should do some more thinking about this topic. At least, that's where I'm at.

We could easily do a series on our current political climate. It seems like a lot of changes are happening. Our tax dollars are being shoveled into the pockets of incompetent executives at record-setting rates - billions of dollars allegedly already gone unaccounted-for in our haste to enact what Jon Stewart calls our "cash for incompetence program". Pretty soon Obama will ride into the White House on the back of a rainbow unicorn and fix everything with a wave of his magic wand. Right? Definitely stuff to talk about there.

Also, what the Hell? We can talk about that age-old threat leveled against non-believers and lukewarm believers alike - the fires of perdition! Do we need Hell? Do we want Hell? Is it a core affirmation of our faith, or relic of a time before the Hubble and geology? If we do keep it, where does it go? If we can toss it, what do we lose?

Of course we have to mention sex. The beast with two backs. The horizontal mambo. Coitus. Coupling. And so on. What argument about religion and then politics would be complete without ranging over into sex? A lot of yelling goes on about sex - who is having it with whom, what they are allowed to do, when they are allowed to do it - and a lot of sex is going on amidst all that yelling. Yet, rape statistics remain humiliating and terrifying for anyone with even a sliver of conscience and empathy. Domestic abuse and violence are unbelievably common. Kids continue to have kids. I dunno...maybe all this yelling isn't working? Ya think? So what do we do instead?

(And when the category of sex comes up, we'll probably also talk about The Gay. Mike Huckabee, on the Daily Show, just laid out the case against, and I think Jon did some good work taking it to him and not letting the issue stand pat, but there's always more to say.)

One thing I think we'd all like to see is feedback and suggestions from the patrons at our little bar here. What do you want to listen to three guys discuss and argue about? What do you want to discuss or argue about with us?

Theme and Purpose

You've just walked into a familiar pub. Three other regulars are having a loud argument over by the bar and though you'd planned on catching a bit of the game on the tellie (Rangers vs. Celtics) while sipping on a pint of lager, you find yourself getting pulled into the debate. Before you know it you're all red-faced and talking over each other and there are a surprising number of empty pint glasses unwashed on the bar, because the bartender is deep in the row as well. The verbal sparring goes on late into the night, punctuated by laughter and the bartender ringing the bell for last calls. The casual patrons leave, but you are a diehard so you get locked in and the conversation continues. It meanders over everything from politics to sex, with a lot of religion thrown in, and though you'll have a brutal hangover in the morning you know you won't regret the time spent with friends.

That's the feel we're going for with this place.

A huge part of developing that kind of atmosphere is going to be your participation. If we get good thoughtful regulars who contribute with comments that forward the conversation it will be more interesting than if this is a soapbox for our opinions. Our podcasts will be conversational in style, between the three of us, and we hope that through listener feedback we will even be able to incorporate, change and adapt to your interests. Of course, since we are the proprietors this will largely bear the stamp of our personalities, but we think of ourselves as responsive individuals. This site will test that theory.

In addition to the podcast this space will hopefully eventually morph into a social network of sorts that includes forums, our blogs, and who knows what other crazy content may come into it. We are all three people with busy lives and this is not likely to ever be a paid gig, so how quickly it develops and into what is up in the air, but I like to dream big. I count on my fellow Friars here to keep me grounded.