KtBlog

musings, news, events, and your letters to the editors

godly

Getting Godly in Mysore

We’ve  come to the hilltop where the Chamundeshwari Temple overlooks the city of Mysore, India, but we can’t pass up the free admission to the Godly Museum across the parking lot.…

Killing the Buddha

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,…

Killing the Buddha

Kiss This

Writes Stephen L. Carter, Yale church/state scholar and novelist: It is no accident that the great Western religions rely heavily on sacred texts—texts, moreover, that believers are able to touch…

Killing the Buddha

Galt Almighty

Bad news: Ayn Rand’s Alas Shrugged— sales of which are booming — is going to become a movie, starring Angelina Jolie, who will channel her father’s conservative politics and dip…

Killing the Buddha

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…

Killing the Buddha

Not That Kind of Girl

Carlene Bauer does not care for the new biography of Flannery O’ Connor by Brad Gooch: Aquinas is described as having “lofty, lucent prose” — which is like saying Plato…

Looking west at Fulton and Washington Avenues

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…

Killing the Buddha

Religion & Revisionism

There may be no right way to talk about the Holocaust, but there are certainly wrong ways — and the Catholic Church keeps finding them. Last month, an excommunicated bishop…

Dedication

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…

A Happy Purim

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…

Killing the Buddha

KtB on Twitter

Break out the cheap champagne! We’ve jumped on the bandwagon and joined the annoyingly irresistible micro-mayhem of Twitter. Now you can keep abreast of all articles and blog posts by…

Killing the Buddha

On Our Knees

Barack Obama evidently thought mega-pastor Rick Warren had words of wisdom for the nation worthy of Obama’s inauguration. But what would Warren say to the Obamas if they came to…

Killing the Buddha

Blinded By Science

Remember Paul Shanley? He was said to be the worst of the pedophile priests, sentenced in 2005 to 12-15 years. But soon, he’ll get another day in court, as Massachusetts’…

Killing the Buddha

Finallly. A New Bible.

Well it’s about time someone wrote a new Bible. Thank God – ehem – that it was this guy named Jeff. (NOT SHARLET). From the always dependable Onion: Thi Buy…

Marc Chagall, La Danse

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…

Killing the Buddha

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…

Killing the Buddha

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…

Killing the Buddha

Where the Wild Things Aren’t

I met KtB contributing editor Laurel Snyder back in 2004, when Peter Manseau and I went to Iowa City to promote Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible. At the time,…