Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'fear'

The Hydra Head of Islam

July 22nd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Axial Age, Globalization, History, Philosophy

Over at HuffPo Religion, Cynthia Boaz has written an earnest piece that implores Americans to think harder about Islam and not simply demonize it.  I agree with much of what she says but the unfortunate fact is that her plea will fall on few or deaf ears.  Not many religious or political extremists are reading [...]

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Tea Party Metaphysics

June 19th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Civil Religion, Economy, Emotions, Globalization, Philosophy

Today, while examining the key word searches that have led people to this blog, I noticed this interesting query: “Are tea partiers psychotic?”  This Google search must have pulled up my post “Tea Parties and Monkey Gods,” in which I observed that Tea Partiers seem to be animated by a toxic combination of anger and [...]

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Tea Parties and “Monkey Gods”

May 20th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Axial Age, Daily Devolutions, Emotions, History

Avoiding politics and political arguments is a passion of mine, but total avoidance would require something like a monastic life (which at times sounds fairly appealing, given the vacuity of American politics).  Add a bit of religion to the mix and the results are positively toxic.
While I do not know much about Tea Partiers other [...]

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“Fear of Spiders Can Develop Before Birth”

February 19th, 2010 · No Comments · Emotions

I must admit that when I saw the title of this article over at LiveScience, I was a bit skeptical and prematurely concluded the contents would be goofy.  The picture in my head was something like this: “scientists show fetuses ultrasonic images of spiders and then image their brain activity using fMRI — the amygdala [...]

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