{"id":11770,"date":"2012-10-10T13:09:51","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T20:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=11770"},"modified":"2012-10-10T13:09:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T20:09:51","slug":"god-and-somethingism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/god-and-somethingism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Somethingists — They Don’t Believe in God, but They Do Believe in . . . Something"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Simeis
The Somethingists believe Something is going on. NASA image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Good news for those of us \u2013 count me in \u2013 who aren\u2019t at all sure of what God is like.<\/p>\n

\"God-Cima-da-Conegliano\"
God — A mighty and loving Being as per Cima da Conegliano? . . .<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We wonder, is God a mighty and kindly Other who created the world and talks back to people who pray? Or is God some kind of diffuse and universal Spirit who inhabits rocks, trees, humans and houseflies?<\/p>\n

I dunno.<\/p>\n

Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn has given some thought to the matter.<\/p>\n

She reported to a meeting of her Religion Newswriters Association colleagues over hors d\u2019oeuvres in Bethesda last Friday night that there\u2019s a brand-new religion rising up in Holland.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called Somethingism. Or, Ietsisme<\/em> in Dutch<\/a>. (It’s pronounced ITS-is-meh.)<\/p>\n

\"housefly-on-screen.
A housefly? . . . Or Something else?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Somethingism is a religion for folks like Sally who believe in something \u2013 but who haven\u2019t a clue what that Something might be.<\/p>\n

Sally quotes a bumper sticker that sums things up for her: \u201cI Don\u2019t Know and You Don\u2019t Know Either.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m with Sally.<\/p>\n

Don’t miss yesterday’s post on the rise of the “nones” — the religiously unaffiliated <\/a>— in America.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[caption id=\"attachment_1163\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"427\"]\"The<\/a> The Helix Nebula. NASA Photo.[\/caption]\n

Good news for those of us \u2013 count me in \u2013 who aren\u2019t at all sure of what God is like. It’s called Somethingism. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[34,803,82,91,433,804,805],"class_list":["post-11770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-dont-miss","tag-ietisme","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-religion-and-spirituality","tag-religion-newswriters-association","tag-sally-quinn","tag-somethingism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}