Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Morality and Religion'

Stone Age Sharia Execution

August 18th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Archaeology and Religion, Axial Age Religions, Morality and Religion

Over at the NYT, Rob Nordlund chillingly reports on the execution by stoning of a young couple in Afghanistan who had fallen in love and eloped.  The details are disgusting:
Mr. Khan said that as a Taliban mullah prepared to read the judgment of a religious court, the lovers, a 25-year-old man named Khayyam and a [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:···········

Morality without God, Buddhism as Religion, and Christian Empire

August 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Axial Age Religions, Classifications of Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Definitions of Religion, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Morality and Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Power and Religion

Incredibly, there are three articles over at HuffPo Religion that I have recently bookmarked for brief discussion here.  There are of course about ten others which reflect the liberal, progressive, ecumenical, and mystical view of religion adhered to by a tiny minority of people, and which will be of interest mostly to the highly educated [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:···························

A Certain Kind of Islam and the Heinous Oppression of Women

July 31st, 2010 · 2 Comments · Classifications of Religion, Methodology of Religion, Morality and Religion, Power and Religion

Not long ago, I discussed an article on Islam by Cynthia Boaz.  In her article, Boaz attempted to correct several misconceptions regarding Islam and presented us with a progressive, liberal, and tolerant interpretation of Islam.  While there are Muslims outside of the US who interpret Islam in the way Boaz does, there are also Muslims [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:····························

The Nature of “Natural”: Foucault and Wittgenstein

July 14th, 2010 · No Comments · Emotions and Religion, Evolution and Selection, Methodology of Religion, Morality and Religion, Power and Religion

In my last two posts (The “Sin” of Sodomy and “Natural Moral Law“), I have been considering the naturalness of sexual physiologies and preferences.  By serendipitous accident, yesterday I read Bob Plant’s (2006) article, “The Confessing Animal in Foucault and Wittgenstein,” in which he observes that these famous philosophers are connected by their shared suspicion [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·······················

The “Sin” of Sodomy and Demographic Imperatives

July 13th, 2010 · No Comments · Ecology of Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Power and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Ritual and Religion

When attempting to determine whether something is “natural ” (vis-a-vis yesterday’s post on Catholicism and homosexuality) one good way of investigating the issue is to use the genealogical method.  So far as I can tell, there are no hunter-gatherer or pre-Neolithic societies that had taboos against homosexuality.  We can therefore trace the history of the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:········································

Professor Condemns Homosexuality on Basis of “Natural Moral Law”

July 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Axial Age Religions, Ecology of Religion, Evolution and Selection, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Morality and Religion, Philosophy of Religion

Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers discusses the case of a professor — teaching at a public university — who presented his Catholic views, disguised as philosophy, on homosexuality to his students.  One student complained to the administration, calling the professor’s position “hate speech.”  PZ Myers disagrees and calls it “stupid speech.”  Myers then proceeds to [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·············································

Perfectly Designed: Bananas and Religion

July 4th, 2010 · No Comments · Archaeology and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Evolution and Selection, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Religion as Evolutionary Byproduct, Ritual and Religion

In this classic video, Kirk Cameron explains — in all seriousness — how God perfectly and exquisitely designed the banana for human use and consumption:

Although the banana’s functional and optimal design features may not cause nightmares for those who understand that bananas evolved like all other plants and were domesticated (i.e., selected) by humans, they [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·····················

Return of the Sacred — Ringing Daniel Bell

June 10th, 2010 · No Comments · Atheism and Religion, Axial Age Religions, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Economy and Religion, Globalization and Religion, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Power and Religion

On rare occasion, one encounters a thinker and writer of extraordinary talent; the author, intellectual, and sociologist Daniel Bell is one such person.  Bell is perhaps most famous for his 1976 book, Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.  It was with great interest, therefore, that I read his 1977 Hobhouse Memorial Lecture, “The Return of the Sacred? [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·····························

Sunday Sundries — Spiritual Odds and Religious Ends

June 6th, 2010 · No Comments · Axial Age Religions, Cognition and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Daily Devolutions, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Ritual and Religion

As usual, lots of weird news from religion land.  Let’s start with this AP report about a Baptist minister in St. Cloud, MN who paid for a newspaper ad stating that Muslims “seek to influence a nation by immigration, reproduction, education, the government, illegal drugs and by supporting the gay agenda.”
This minister clearly knows nothing [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·····················

Training Humans: Better Living Through Religious Indoctrination

June 1st, 2010 · No Comments · Cognition and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Ecology of Religion, Emotions and Religion, Morality and Religion, Recent and New Religions, Ritual and Religion

Today’s title riffs on the seventh installment of William Saletan’s Slate series on the memory researcher, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus.  In several places in the article, one could simply replace words or phrases and the result would be an accurate description of the ways in which religious cultural inputs create imaginary worlds for believers of most [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:············