The British government has, after a lengthy vetting process, recognized Druidism or Druidry as a religion and granted it charitable status. The commissioners in charge of such decisions apparently had a hard time getting their collective heads around the idea that not all religions are monotheistic, textual, dogmatic, priestly, hierarchical, institutionalized, or systematic.
As the Toronto [...]
Tags:Anglican·animism·animist·anthropomorphic deities·Celtic·Charity Commission·city-states·deism·divine kings·Druidism·Druidry·Druids·Gallic·Great Britain·human sacrifice·megalithic structures·Melanie Phillips·nature worship·neo-pagan·Neolithic Revolution·pagan·polytheism·Stonehenge·United Kingdom
As you can see from Texas A&M’s anthropology aggregating site (which is one of my favorite places on the net), at least a dozen stories have appeared in the past week about new archaeological finds near Stonehenge. Using ground penetrating radar and other non-invasive technology, archaeologists have discovered another henge — which was wooden, approximately [...]
Tags:Aztecs·Babylon·barrows·burial grounds·chieftains·city-states·cosmology·Druids·Egypt·elites·empires·ground penetrating radar·materialism·Mayans·megalithic·megalithic architecture·megalithic structures·pagan·pyramids·royal family·Stonehenge·Sumeria·symbolism·temples·unilineal evolution·Woodhenge·ziggurats
Over at ABC News, Ki Mae Heussner reports on a Diane Sawyer interview of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking with this contentious headline: “Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win.” This is an unfortunate banner. During the interview, Sawyer asked if religion and science could be reconciled. Hawking’s response was profoundly unhelpful:
“There is a fundamental [...]
Tags:animism·anthropomorphic·anthropomorphism·Babylon·Babylonian high god·city-states·Diane Sawyer·earthly kings·gods·Hebrews·hunter-gatherers·Judaism·Ki Mae Heussner·Levant·Mesopotamia·Neolithic·Neolithic Revolution·religion·Roy Rosenberg·science·spirits·spiritual kings·Stephen Hawking·supernatural thinking·Yahweh·Yahweh Becomes King
There have been many articles over the past week reporting that an unusually large group (150 members) of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda has been engaging in systematic territorial expansion by attacking and killing neighboring groups. The Nature article notes that this is “cooperative behavior” and then quotes from the New York Times story:
These [...]
Tags:aggression·Blackfoot·Cheyenne·chimpanzees·chimps·city-states·cohesion·Comanche·cooperation·Cree·Crow·David Sloan Wilson·ecology·Egypt·Flathead·foragers·Gros Ventre·group level selection·Kibale National Park·kinship·Kiowa·Lakota·Levant·Matt Rossano·Mesopotamia·Nicholas Wade·Plains Indians·power·religion·religious warfare·Sarsi·shamans·Shoshoni·territoriality·The Faith Instinct·war
It was with great sadness that I read a recent article in the New York Times documenting the pillaging and destruction of Mesopotamian archaeological sites in Iraq. Although these Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian sites — and previous excavations — receive scant attention outside small groups of antiquities scholars, they are of critical importance to our [...]
Tags:Akkad·Akkadian·anthropomorphic deities·anthropomorphism·Babylon·Babylonian·Christianity·city-states·cosmology·earliest religion·Enlil·heavenly order·Iraq·Islam·Judaic·Judaism·Mesopotamia·Mesopotamian·monotheism·Muslim·polytheism·Samuel Noah Kramer·Sumer·Sumerian·Sumerian pantheon·temples·The Sumerians·Ubaid·Ubaidian·Ur·ziggurats
