Nathan Schneider
Nathan Schneider is an editor of Killing the Buddha and writes about religion, reason, and violence for a variety of publications. He is also a founding editor of Waging Nonviolence. His first two books, published by University of California Press in 2013, are God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet and Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse. Visit his website at The Row Boat.
Recent Posts by Nathan
Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness
We just received an announcement about a wild new book that may interest some of you wackos out there. You know those funny little lines and dots that float in front of your field of vision sometimes? Always assumed, like I did, that they’re nothing more than ocular aberrations not to be bothered about much?…
A Crook for Souls
Today I arrived in Wyoming to visit a dear friend. On the way, while in what she approvingly called “the Wyoming part of Colorado,” we passed the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga and decided to stop. On the road in we passed a magnificent little canyon and a pair of smiling alpacas. We were greeted…
The Tweets of the Christ
I’ve got a new little piece at Religion Dispatches this morning about last Friday’s Twitter passion play hosted by Trinity Church, that ancient place located at the top of Wall Street. “If you look in the scripture,” explains Linda Hanick, Trinity’s V.P. of communications and marketing, “the last words of Jesus are almost written in…
A Vegan Fast
Christos anesti. Over the years I’ve used the season of Lent as a sort of laboratory for experiments with truth. Perhaps that’s not the most properly penitential way to go about these 40 days of fasting, which should be more outwardly directed than inwardly, calling us out of ourselves to service, repentance, giving, and recognition…
Happy JewBu Day
Today’s a big day. At sunset, Passover begins (stay tuned for a special piece publishing at that very moment!). And in Japan, it’s the Buddha’s birthday. What a wonderful coincidence (or dilemma?) for all the JewBus out there! I also know at least two people with birthdays today, and they’re both at least part Jewish…
A Conversation with Peter for $10
Yesterday Religion News Service published a feature interview with Peter Manseau, KtB co-founder and, most recently, author of Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead (check out our exclusive excerpt). If you’re not an RNS subscriber, though, it’ll cost ya 10 big ones to read. But why bother when you can ask…
How to Give Alms
Let’s start with some exegesis. Matthew 6:2-4. Go. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not…
The Pleasure of the Text
Jean-Luc Marion, at the outset of God without Being: One must admit that theology, of all writing, certainly causes the greatest pleasure. During the year of my becoming a Catholic, that frought and crazy and inevitable year, I bought a New Oxford Annotated Bible from my college bookstore. Its over two thousand pages flop between…
Ars Moriendi
“To study philosophy,” wrote the French essayist Montaigne, “is to learn how to die.” In medieval times, particularly as the Black Death spread through Europe, the art of dying—ars moriendi—became the goal to which a lifetime of piety was devoted. Sure, a person can get by faking a good life. But a good death? There’s…
Ann Rice’s Jesus
The new issue of the n+1 book review, N1BR, just came out, and it includes a lovely essay on Anne Rice: Four years ago after writing twenty-one books about vampires, witches, mummies, psychic humans, and pleasure slaves (there were five books of erotica, under pseudonyms), she progressed one step further on the ladder of heroes….
You’re Doing What to the Buddha?
When you work on a publication whose title suggests the thought of doing violence to the benevolent founder of a major world religion, it isn’t uncommon to arouse well-meaning concern from time to time. Today we heard the following from “positive”: i think what ur sa Revive Her Drive click for more ying is wrong…
Attention Friends and Neighbors!
Making my merry way to breakfast past Fulton Street in Brooklyn this morning, the LORD raised up a mighty crowd in my path. They bore yellow balloons, wide smiles, and full-color fliers at the ready. The occasion? To announce the Grand Inauguration of the Cathedral of Faith tomorrow at 1091 Fulton. On the flyer is…
The Diaries of the Late God
Last week a dear friend blessed me with a 1968 first edition paperback copy of a sleeping classic: Excerpts from the Diaries of the Late God by Anthony Towne. I love this. The dedication page sends a tingle down my spine. The poet Anthony Towne was, if you didn’t know, the extraordinary partner of the…
Ain’t No Party Like a …
Biking through Brooklyn. 10:30 pm on a Monday. You pass big hats—big ones. Music pumping from even more enormous vehicles. Hummers? No. Escalades? No again. Rented white RVs scattered through the streets, packed full of Hasidic boys dressed in sparkles? Oh, yes. Did I mention the children dressed up in costumes? And that the music…
Must One Describe?
The air here is always dry. Thin, but also thick. A white pipe the width of a soda can reaches from floor to ceiling, making the never-ending music of a rainstick. From it comes enough heat that even on the coldest days of winter I’ve had to keep the window open at least a crack…
25 Random Notes on Ash Wednesday
25 Random Notes on Ash Wednesday I woke up early to my roommate putting away the silverware in the kitchen, then fell back asleep. When I woke up the wooden rosary that I fell asleep with wrapped around my hand was lost in the sheets. Last night I was asked if I keep any symbolic…
God Saved the World
They’re not who you’d usually expect to meet at a monastery.
Happy 5 Years, Bartholomew!
One of the best Buddha killers on the web, Richard Bartholomew, is celebrating 5 years of blogging at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion. We wish him the warmest congratulations! Little did I expect then what a great learning experience running a blog would be – I’ve become interested now in a whole list of topics I…