{"id":1617,"date":"2007-06-22T21:22:10","date_gmt":"2007-06-23T01:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2007\/06\/22\/my-picks-for-open-minded-blogs-in-religionpolitics\/"},"modified":"2007-06-24T22:49:40","modified_gmt":"2007-06-25T02:49:40","slug":"my-picks-for-open-minded-blogs-in-religionpolitics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2007\/06\/my-picks-for-open-minded-blogs-in-religionpolitics\/","title":{"rendered":"My Picks for Open-Minded Blogs in Religion and Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry for the delay in posting my five recommends for the Open Minded Blog award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It turns out that many of my favorite blogs are not terribly open-minded (grin). <\/p>\n

Politics – generally speaking – turned out to be a dud. I started exploring to see what I could find. Not much, I’m afraid. For one thing, I think it’s really a very difficult time in the United States for finding open-mindedness in politics. My personal disgust and depression about American politics is a hard thing to overcome – at least for the moment. I agree in theory that open-mindedness and civility are the right way to go. However, I think there are too many issues and problems that need straightforward statements and positions – many of them in outright opposition to current policies and actions. Compromise isn’t working. In addition, the whole discourse is so contaminated and overdetermined by various interests that I almost despair of seeing the kind of change that I think we need to survive and thrive in future. So, overall, I don’t think I’m in a position to extoll the virtues of open-mindedness in political opinion just now.<\/p>\n

So then I turned to religion. You might think, given recent posts, that the topic would be more difficult than even politics. It isn’t, though. I already have a number of favorites, and found many more with spiritual and religio-political themes.<\/p>\n

Some of the best ones are actually institutions, or group blogs, and I got the impression that this award was really for discovery, not reinforcement. On top of that, many blogs I read don’t actually have a great deal of interactivity, or they don’t post on a regular enough basis. More than a couple had decided to take some time off. <\/p>\n

After the initial weed-through, I had a list of about thirty blogs – to whittle down to five choices. This was not easy. At all. <\/p>\n

There a number of great blogs with spiritual concerns of various kinds. I tend to prefer the ones that deal in some way with other concerns as well. There are many who are worthy of the award. Finally, I just picked five on the list that I have enjoyed. They have the requisite qualifications of civility, openness, receptivity and interactivity – and I feel comfortable recommending them to others. They are grounded in somewhat different traditions\/perspectives, but I like the vibe on all of these. <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. T h i s * i s * i t<\/a> – “Life. This is all there is. Start living.”<\/li>\n
  2. Blog of the Grateful Bear<\/a> – “ramblings of a freelance panentheist { “all things are in God, and God is in all things” } . . . musings on spirituality, mysticism, Sufism, lost gospels, cats, music, healing, interfaith dialogue, gay and lesbian issues, and more.”<\/li>\n
  3. The Cartoon Church Blog<\/a> – Delightful cartoons and observations.<\/li>\n
  4. Even the Devils Believe<\/a> – “I hope that this blog can serve primarily as a forum for talking about spirituality, liturgy, and the many paths to love and humility.”<\/li>\n
  5. slacktivist<\/a> – “Knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Winners, go here<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n

    Please comment if you can recommend additional open-minded, kind and civil blogs on the topics of politics and\/or religion. I would really like to add to my list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Sorry for the delay in posting my five recommends for the Open Minded Blog award. It turns out that many of my favorite blogs are not terribly open-minded (grin). Politics – generally speaking – turned out to be a dud. I started exploring to see what I could find. Not much, I’m afraid. For one thing, I think it’s really a very difficult time in the United States for finding open-mindedness in politics. My personal disgust and depression about American…<\/p>\n

    Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,8,14],"tags":[2848,6170,674,3960,750],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-blog-toys","category-religion","category-virus-related","tag-civility","tag-humor","tag-meme","tag-open-minded-blog","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}