In the beginning, God placed two trees in the garden. The tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was named, explained, and forbidden. God described it, defined it, and drew a boundary around it. It became the only explicit command. The tree itself was not evil, but eating from it would change how life was…

We began this series of talks by questioning the common assumption that religion exists mainly to explain things we don’t understand. If that were true, then as knowledge increases, the need for religion should decrease. But globally, today’s polls don’t support that logic. We then looked at how religious scriptures work, and concluded that they…

Last week I arrived at the unsettling conclusion that religion developed not primarily as a result of knowledge or belief, but out of a real need (not just a psychological desire) to align with reality. In biblical terms, it’s like accepting the wedding invitation rather than gate-crashing and pretending to be a guest. I further…

Last week I continued to argue that Scripture was not intended to function primarily as a repository of answers, although it’s often treated as if it was. Rather, like Jesus himself, scripture operates as a formative, gentle, and non-coercive force that helps to shape perception—how people see the world, preserve tension—between the truths we are…

Last week, I challenged the belief by many that religion developed in order to explain the unknown. I countered that religion addresses the deeper and more persistent problem of living, when even intelligent human beings cannot seem to live together without eventually collapsing into conflict. Across traditions, cultures, and history, we saw that cooperation, restraint,…

This is the first of a series of five talks about Making Sense of Religion, in which I finally “come out” and declare “I got religion!” —which is a bit of a double entendre and I’ll leave it to you to figure out what I mean. This introductory talk is a bit long, and also…