Of all the spoils that come from success in war, perhaps the least appreciated is the ability to write the history. To the victor goes the narrative. When the narrative is not straightforward history but is bound to politico-religious ideology and integral to nation building, the stakes are even higher. I was reminded of this [...]
Tags:Assyrians·Israelites·Jersualem·Jewish history·Judaism·Moses·Mount Gerizim·Samaria·Samaritans·Solomon's Temple·Stefan Schorch·Torah·Tribes of Israel·Yitzhak Magen
One of my favorite books on Mormon history, much despised by Mormons, is Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. Brodie writes with considerable panache about things Mormons would like to forget. Despite Smith’s many foibles and frauds, he comes off surprisingly well: it’s hard not to admire his audacious [...]
Tags:Abrahamic religions·Christianity·Fawn Brodie·Islam·Joseph Smith·Judaism·Mormon·Mormonism·Muhammad·prophecy·prophets·Revelations
Over at Salon the MIT physicist and novelist Alan Lightman recently asked whether God exists, a question he poses in the service of reconciling science with religion and lambasting Richard Dawkins. Although he is an atheist, Lightman’s accomodationist query prompted a predictable response from Daniel Dennett, to which Lightman has responded.
It is a thoughtful exchange [...]
Tags:Abrahamic God·Alan Lightman·atheism·Christianity·Daniel Dennett·deism·existence of God·God·god concept·interventionist God·Islam·Judaism·monotheism·monotheistic God·Richard Dawkins
Last night the Discovery Channel premiered “The Exorcist Files.” When initially announced, the show was touted as a partnership between Discovery and the Vatican:
“The Vatican is an extraordinarily hard place to get access to, but we explained we’re not going to try to tell people what to think,” says Discovery president and GM [...]
Tags:anti-Semite·Catholic·Christopher Hitchens·Clark Bunting·conspiracy theorists·creationists·demonology·demons·Discovery Channel·exorcism·exorcist·Jeffrey Goldberg·Jeremy Stahl·Judah Maccabee·Judaism·Lawrence Wright·Maccabees·magic·Mel Gibson·Mesopotamian religions·nationalism·shaman·The Exorcist Files·Vatican·Yahweh
Between 800 and 200 BCE, a remarkable series of sages, mystics, and thinkers gave rise to the transcendental traditions that are known today as “world religions.” In 1949, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers identified several themes common to these traditions and described this six hundred year period as the Axial Age: “These movements were ‘axial’ [...]
Tags:Akkadia·Alan Strathern·Assyria·axial age·Buddha·Confucius·Daoism·death·ethics·Hinduism·immanence·Jainism·Jaspers·Judaism·Karen Armstrong·Karl·Mesopotamia·monotheism·morals·Plato·Platonism·Socrates·suffering·Sumerian·Thorkild Jacobsen·transcendence·world rejection
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max Weber sought to correct or temper Karl Marx’s view that religion was always a reflection or epiphenomenon of the economic base. Although Marx’s understanding of religion was considerably more complicated and drew heavily on Ludwig Feuerbach’s idealist critique in The Essence of Christianity (1841), [...]
Tags:Calvinism·Christianity·evil·Friedrich Nietzsche·good·history of science·India·Iran·Islam·Judaism·Karl Marx·Ludwig Feuerbach·Max Weber·modernity·monotheism·Muslim·Parsis·Persia·profane·Protestant Ethic·Puritans·Robert Kennedy·Robert Merton·Rodney Stark·sacred·spirit of capitalism·truth·Zoroaster·Zoroastrianism
Over at the Evolution of Religion Project, Dominic Johnson comments on the first target article which will appear in what promises to be a fantastic new journal, Religion, Brain, and Behavior. Because the first issue has yet to be published, I will have to rely on Johnson’s summary:
Jeff Schloss and Michael Murray have written a [...]
Tags:Abrahamic faiths·Abrahamic God·adaptionist·biological evolution·Christianity·cooperation enhancement·cultural evolution·Dominic Johnson·Islam·Jeff Schloss·Judaism·Michael Murray·moral order·moralizing gods·nationalism·punishing gods·punishment avoidance·Religion Brain and Behavior·Rodney Stark·supernatural agents·supernatural punishment·supernatural punishment theory·unified theory
Over at The Stone, the primatologist Frans de Waal asks whether we can act “morally” without being “religious.” I quote-bracket these terms because they are not without complication, and we should be careful about using them in the context of such discussions. Regardless, de Waal poses some questions for which we have historical answers. For [...]
Tags:altruistic·Bart Ehrman·chimpanzees·Christianity·ethics·ethnohistory·evolution of morality·Frans de Waal·implicit ethics·Islam·Judaism·Misquoting Jesus·monotheism·Morals Without God·Native Americans·norms·polytheism·primates·primatologist·prosocial·religions of the book·right conduct
Over at HuffPo Religion, a well meaning Matthew Anderson suggests that all American junior-senior high school students should be required to take a minimum of two classes on world religions so as to be exposed to something other than their parents’ religion. He supposes that these courses would foster tolerance and lead to a more [...]
Tags:believing versus thinking·Buddhism·Christianity·ecumenical·essentialized categories·essentializing·genealogy of religions·high school curriculum·Hinduism·History·history of world religions·Islam·Judaism·junior high curriculum·Mathew Anderson·paleolithic supernaturalism·religious classes·religious teaching·rise of organized religions·The Case for Blending Church and State·theology·tolerance
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
