Off-site Essay: The Power of the Ring

This who have been reading this site may have deduce a particular fact about the author of the site:

1. The author is an unabashed geek
   
2. The author is fascinated by religion
   

In addition to this, anyone reading for any stretch of time will have realized that the author is an atheist. Unfortunately, this second realization may have prompted you to jump to any number of conclusions which are, in all liklihood, erroneous.

One thing that people instantly assume upon discovering my atheism is that I must, by definition, have an inherant hostility towards religion. To be sure, there are a number of things about religion that I can't agree with (most particularly the theistic conjecture that is central to a majority of religious beliefs) and there is a lot that I find objectionable in particular religions. Never the less, I actually do not have an inherit hositility towards religion, on the whole, and, in fact, consider it a valuable (if distorted) mirror of the human psyche.

Given this, my choice for this week's off-site essay nicely combines my geekiness as well as my fascination with religious subjects. It's a sermon by a Unitarian Universalist preacher. The topic of the sermon is The Lord of the Rings.

The semon is in PDF format so you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed to read it.