We are rapidly approaching a level of national insanity that is shocking. The Reverend Franklin Graham, influential son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, claims that religion is transmitted through gametes (otherwise known as sperm/ova) and contends this makes Obama a blood Muslim.
This is what Graham told CNN’s John King during a nationally televised interview on [...]
Tags:Barack Obama·Billy Graham·blood Jew·blood Muslim·evangelicals·fascism·Franklin Graham·fundamentalism·gametes·hysteria·Nazi Germany·Nuremberg·Nuremberg laws·ova·seed of Islam·seed of Judaism·sperm
In the beginning, I had some hope for the Huffington Post’s relatively new section devoted to religion. Here was a forum, I thought, where difficult questions could be asked and possible answers ventured. Not once, however, have I read a post which asks a tough question, which might include any of the following:
What is “religion”?
Why [...]
Tags:compassion·deities·demons·doctrines·ecumenical·educated·enlightened·ethics·exegesis·existential·Frank Schaeffer·fundamentalism·fuzzy·gods·hermeneutics·Huffington Post·HuffPo Religion·Jay Michaelson·liberal·literalism·love·meaning·morals·mystical·mysticism·myth·progressive·purpose·sophisticated·souls·spirits·syncretic·vague
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? [...]
Tags:Christianity·consumption·Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism·Daniel Bell·dualism·Emile Durkheim·fundamentalism·Harvard·high culture·human nature·human universals·Immanuel Wallerstein·intellectuals·intelligentsia·Janus·late capitalism·materialism·modernity·morality·mythical past·New York City elites·nostalgia·science·sociologist·sociology·The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of Religion·the sacred·Western culture·Whore of Babylon·world system
Religions of relatively recent origin — such as Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventism, and Scientology — offer unique opportunities to study the processes by which new religions are spawned and spread. Because the founding and dissemination of these religions is relatively well documented, the study of these religions provides considerable insight into the psychologies of founders [...]
Tags:fundamentalism·modernity·Mormonism·new religions·Scientology
