In today’s Denver Post, Electa Draper reports that “Christian Scientists push for health insurance that covers spiritual care.” The story revolves around an actual case:
The burn victim, in his early 20s, was a Christian Scientist. When ER doctors told him he faced six months of skin-graft surgeries, he turned to his religion. His religion told [...]
Tags:animal magnetism·Christian Science·Electa Draper·Franz Anton Mesmer·hypnosis·insurance coverage·Mary Baker Eddy·mesmerism·mind over matter·Phineas Quimby·placebo effects·placebo healing·prayer healing·snake oil·spiritual healing·spiritual health care·sugar pills
Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, is generating a fair amount of press because of his claim that the laws of physics explain the Big Bang and remove the need for a Prime Mover. God in the Gap theists have thus been pushed further back in time to nothingness, which is the non-state that [...]
Tags:bellum omnium contra omnes·Big Bang·Deepak Chopra·deism·design·designer·Enya·God in the Gap·Leviathan·Natural Theology·New Age·physics·Prime Mover·spiritual realm·Stephen Hawking·The Grand Design·theism·theodicy·Thomas Hobbes·transcendent reality·watchmaker analogy·Where is the Design·William Paley·Yoga
Over at The Atlantic, Elizabeth Weingarten reports on Iranian Jews in America. I was surprised to learn there is still a community of Persian Jews in Iran and that so long as they are silent on the issue of Israel, they are free to do as they please. Iran truly is a fascinating country with [...]
Tags:Elizabeth Weingarten·Iran·Iranian Jews·Mazdaism·monotheism·Persia·Roxana Saberi·Zoroaster·Zoroastrianism
In a curiously titled (“Congregations Gone Wild“) op-ed piece for the New York Times, pastor Jeffrey MacDonald bemoans the pressures that now assail the American clergy. What are these pressures? Entertaining the flock. Selling religion as a commodity for comfortable consumers-parishioners.
Despite the title tease alluding to a sophomoric video series in which college-aged women bare [...]
Tags:clergy burnout·Congregations Gone Wild·entertaining religion·fear based faith·fear based religion·Jeffrey MacDonald·liturgy·marketplace of faith·Peter Berger·puppets·religion as commodity·religious entertainment·sociological theory·soothing religion·The Sacred Canopy
I have attempted to watch every episode of the History Channel’s series on Ancient Astronauts. Invariably, a time will come when I have to stop watching an episode because the commentary becomes so bizarre, speculative, and ridiculous that I just cannot take it any longer.
It is truly unfortunate that the so-called “History” Channel chooses to [...]
Tags:academic archaeology·aliens·ancient astronaut theorists·ancient astronaut theory·ancient astronauts·conspiracy theorists·History Channel·hypotheses·mainstream archaeology·theories
In a previous post, Religious Wars and Nationalism, I discussed two factors that play a major role in group cohesion. The first factor, which played a dominant role for the majority of human evolution, was extended and fictive kinship. This is what primarily held groups together during the Paleolithic. After the Neolithic Revolution, another factor [...]
Tags:Benedict Anderson·Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion·Carolyn Marvin·Civil Religion·David Ingle·Durkheim·group cohesion·group identity·group level selection·guardians of faith·high priests·hymnals·Imagined Communities·kinship·liturgy·nationalism·Neolithic Revolution·Paleolithic·patriotism·patriots·religion·religiosity·religious violence·ritual leaders·ritual objects·Robert Bellah·sacred places·sacred texts·saints·temples·totemism·totems
Over at HuffPo Religion, Pete Enns wonders whether God speaks to him and others through fiction. Although Enns is discussing “a non-literal interpretation of the bible,” which raises critical and unresolved issues of reader-responses and interpretive communities, my guess would be that if he did write, evidence for it can be found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s [...]
Tags:bible·cosmology·fiction·Gandalf·interpretive communities·J.R.R. Tolkien·L. Ron Hubbard·literalism·Pete Enns·reader response theory·Roland Barthes·Scientology·Stanley Fish·The Lord of the Rings·The Silmarillion·Tolkienism
Over at WaPo’s Faith section, Martha Woodroof has posted a dreary piece that discourages people from asking religious questions or seeking answers. Here are some of the more defeatist excerpts:
As people of faith, should we concern ourselves with God’s nature, relatives, ways and history? I, for one, think we should not. It seems to [...]
Tags:acceptance·blind faith·faith·God·God is unknowable·ignorance·ineffable·inscrutable·Martha Woodroof·mystery·mystery of God·people of faith·the great Whatever·unknowable·Washington Post
In yesterday’s post, I discussed Philip Goldberg’s contention that “Eastern religions” (i.e., Hinduism and Buddhism) are science friendly. To support his argument, Goldberg relies on a very specific — and Westernized — understanding of these traditions. Yesterday’s post was devoted to the Western construction and consumption of Buddhism; today’s post will cover the highly problematic [...]
Tags:consciousness·Constructions of Hinduism·David Lorenzen·eastern religions·Edward Said·energy·essentializing·Hindu·Hinduism·India·Indian nationalism·invention of Hinduism·official Hinduism·Philip Goldberg·Robert Frykenberg·social construction·South Asia·syncretism·Vedic·Western consumption·Who Invented Hinduism·Yoga
This is the question asked by Philip Goldberg in a recent article in which he boldly answers yes: “Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws. The same can be said for Buddhism, which derives from the same Vedic roots.”
Setting aside for a [...]
Tags:ahistorical·Buddhism·C.W. Huntington·critique·eastern religions·elites·empiricism·enlightenment·essentializing·Gregory Schopen·Hinduism·intellectuals·Jonathan Z. Smith·Philip Goldberg·reconstructed Buddhism·Religion and Other Products of Empire·Richard Horsley·Robert Sharf·science·social construction·The Zen of Japanese Nationalism·Vedic·Western consumption·Zen Buddhism
