Thinking Blogger Awards

I've been tagged with the "thinking blogger" award-slash-meme by Paul and Richard. (Richard thinks it started here.) I am supposed to respond by naming five bloggers who make me think. I'll go ahead and start with ... Paul and Richard:

1. Original Faith is Paul Martin's blog. Paul knows about interesting things like belief, psychology, and being really ill. Also, He's a bit of a poet. I like that about him.

2. Experimental Theology is Richard Beck's blog. Richard is a philosophy professor at my alma mater, Abilene Christian University, and shares my peculiar religious tradition. He knows about interesting things like genes, psychology, and speakeasies in New Orleans. He plugged me as "one of the few people I know who might be more heretical than I am". I like that about him.

Here are six other bloggers who make me think. I need to do extra because I don't want a real "blogroll" on my sidebar, and I feel bad about it sometimes. This is my way of expurgating that guilt. I'm glad you can all help me out.

3. Douglas Muder is a Unitarian Universalist, who once upon a time gently thumped me down because I said he had written a book he hadn't written. He's not a frequent poster, but he occasionally drops some good stuff at Free and Responsible Search.

4. Jack Whelan and Crystal are both Catholic, so I'm cheating and squeezing them into one slot. Jack's blog, After the Future, is primarily political, with a little touch of Catholic theology thrown in occasionally to spice things up. Crystal's blog, Perspective, is probably the most personal blog that I read, and has lots of Catholic theology with the occasional sci-fi movie review thrown in to spice things up.

5. Scoots is a Ph.D. student at Boston College, which happens to be in Boston. Scoots is a contrarian in a sea of liberals, just like I'm a contrarian in a sea of conservatives, so his posts tend to be a little conservative. His almost-eponymous blog tends to talk about things like the Bible and songs by Rich Mullins. But it's pretty good anyway.

6. Joel Spolsky, at Joel on Software, writes mostly about software development, but a lot of his insights apply to entrepreneurship in general. He used to work for Microsoft, started his own software company and wrote a couple of books, and has since ascended to the status of demigod in the programming community. I think this might have something to do with the fact that he says things like, "programmers should not be farmed in cubicles, but should have their own private offices with doors." I could be way off base, though.

7. Pastor Katherine preaches at South Bay Christian Church of Redondo Beach, which should make you deeply jealous. Her Sermon Blog is here, and she mostly keeps it updated. On a fairly regular basis, Pastor K's sermons manage to be triumphant without being cotton-candy. That's pretty sweet.

So there you have it, my set of "thinking blogger" awards. Hugs and kisses to all the winners.

Next up: the promised post about God and information theory.