Atlanta Unitarian

Tuesday night I attended a presentation of the Dow Sustainability Fellows, a cohort of faculty, postdocs, and doctoral students at the University of Michigan whose work touches on sustainability in some way.  One of the presentations was by the Director of the University of Michigan Energy Institute Mark Barteau.  He presented a basic overview of energy use across the world and the US, and showed that based on current projections we are headed towards a global increase of 3.6 degree Celsius, even if the world is able to stick to its current greenhouse gas emissions reductions commitments.  In addition, he showed us graphs illustrating how drastically the world would need to deviate from its current course to attain a 2 degree Celsius limit. It was a stark and depressing presentation.  One member of the audience fought with Professor Barteau about whether or not the University of Michigan should install solar panels on all its parking areas, something that would red...

One of my areas of greatest discomfort with Christian theology has been the concept of original sin.  To say that human nature is inherently inclined towards the evil seemed to me unfair and inaccurate.  Also, the score keeping seemed unfair as well:  If you do something wrong, you get the blame, but if you do something right, only God gets the credit.  You own your own flaws but not your own virtues. Now I say all of this as a strict amateur, someone who has never studied Christian theology seriously, so please take it with a grain of salt.  This is less an accurate portrayal of Christian theology than an outline of my own theological thinking. For a long time I think I subscribed to an essentially optimistic view of human nature - that people are born essentially good, and if they gravitate towards bad behavior later in life it is because they were not provided the necessary nurturing and guidance in their childhood.  I think this is a view fairly com...