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Meta
Category Archives: Religion
Eostre Debunked?
The Guardian (from 2011): Did you know that Easter was originally a pagan festival dedicated to Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, whose consort was a hare, the forerunner of our Easter bunny? Of course you did. Every year the … Continue reading
Posted in culture, history, Religion
Tagged Attis, Christmas and other holidays, Easter, Eostre, Sir James Fraser, The Golden Bough
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Pope Francis, (Partly) Explained
Hayek: But the near-universal acceptance of a belief does not prove that it is valid or even meaningful any more than the general belief in witches or ghosts proved the validity of these concepts. What we have to deal with … Continue reading
Mosquito as “Enforcer” of Social Solidarity
America Magazine is, in its own way, an entertaining corner of the religious left published by Jesuits. It’s a reliable source of by-the-numbers leftism supplemented by pious distortions, holy evasions, extra helpings of sanctimony and regular hosannas for the Dear … Continue reading
Posted in politics, Religion, Science & Faith
Tagged Climate Change, Jesuits, Religious Left
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Evolving with Gods
Here’s John Gray in The New Statesman, reviewing God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human by Dominic Johnson: An evolutionary biologist trained at Oxford who also holds a doctorate in political science, Johnson believes that … Continue reading
The Vatican and Brexit
The Roman Catholic Church has always been somewhat suspicious of the nation-state, an institution it regards as an obstacle to its own claims of universal authority, so this story from the Daily Telegraph comes as no surprise: The Vatican wants … Continue reading
Posted in Church & State, politics, Religion
Tagged Brexit, Henry VIII, Roman Catholicism, UK, Vatican
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Must-Read Interview with Sam Harris
The New Atheist’s interview with Salon – a publication largely hostile to the Bertrand Russell-style liberalism of Harris and his ilk – is better read at Harris’s own website, in its unedited form. (A portion of the interview that badmouths … Continue reading
Posted in culture, Religion, Science & Faith
Tagged Islam, new atheism, salon, Sam Harris
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New Heights in Wishful Thinking
A Facebook friend posted this today: This person isn’t particularly political – a well-intentioned but corny meme isn’t really the stuff of those more consumed by politics, in my experience – but their taken-for-granted progressivism was kicked into gear following … Continue reading
Cognitive Dissonance in Paris
After reading this piece from Haaretz dubbed “In Paris Neighborhood Heavily Hit by Terrorists, Residents View Attackers as Victims,” one wonders if the idea of the “liberal mugged by reality” is itself more fantasy than real-life: They aren’t angry, at … Continue reading
Posted in philosophy, Religion
2 Comments
Liberal Churches Most Discriminatory?
That’s according to new research on display in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: This article reports the results of a nationwide audit study testing how Christian churches welcome potential newcomers to their churches as a function of … Continue reading
Posted in culture, Race, Religion
Tagged catholic, discrimination, evangelical, protestant
1 Comment
On ISIS, Enchantment and Authoritarians against Totalitarians
Over on his blog, Sam Harris interviews Mark Riebling, the author of Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler. The historical ground covered is interesting—how could it not be?—but these passages, in particular, caught my attention: Conservative, even … Continue reading
Posted in culture, politics, Religion
Tagged enchantment, ISIS, Islam, Jung, Myth, Syria, totalitarianism, Vladimir Putin
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