Over at HuffPo Religion, John Whitehead has penned a high-minded piece taking Christians to task for failing to understand they are major contributors — given their high divorce rates — to the perceived breakdown of the “traditional” family. I have bracketed “traditional” in the same manner that we should bracket “natural” — these are historical [...]
Tags:Christians·D.H. Lawrence·democracy·divorce·epochs·extended family·family·foragers·freedom·human history·John Whitehead·kinship·marriage bond·mystification·Naturalization·Neolithic Revolution·nuclear family·pair bonding·pre-state societies·Roman history·social construction·The Breakdown of the Traditional Family·traditional family
In the New York Times Science section, Rachel Donadio reports on a museum in Florence that treats Galileo as both a “secular” and “religious” saint; the curators thus commingle two concepts (the secular/religious) that were being developed during the Renaissance and which reached fruition during the Enlightenment:
The Galileo case is often seen starkly as science’s [...]
Tags:beatification·Catholic Church·Christianity·cosmology·enlightenment·essentializing·excommunication·Florence·Formations of the Secular·Galileo·Gallileo Museum·Genealogies of Religion·heretic·Islam·Naturalization·Rachel Donadio·relics·religious·Renaissance·saint·secular·Talal Asad·William Conolly
In my last two posts (The “Sin” of Sodomy and “Natural Moral Law“), I have been considering the naturalness of sexual physiologies and preferences. By serendipitous accident, yesterday I read Bob Plant’s (2006) article, “The Confessing Animal in Foucault and Wittgenstein,” in which he observes that these famous philosophers are connected by their shared suspicion [...]
Tags:Bob Plant·dogma·expertise·Foucault·gender ambiguity·genealogy·history·homosexuality·human nature·moral law·natural·natural science·Naturalization·naturalizing·Nietzsche·opinions·sexual physiology·sexual preferences·sexuality·social construction·sodomy·the body·The Confessing Animal·Wittgenstein
Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers discusses the case of a professor — teaching at a public university — who presented his Catholic views, disguised as philosophy, on homosexuality to his students. One student complained to the administration, calling the professor’s position “hate speech.” PZ Myers disagrees and calls it “stupid speech.” Myers then proceeds to [...]
Tags:berdache·biology·bisexuality·Catholic·Catholic belief·Catholic Church·Catholic dogma·Catholic Moral Law·Catholic theology·essentialism·ethnographic record·evolutionary fitness·extended kinship·fictive kinship·genetics·hermaphrodites·history·homosexuality·Kenneth J. Howell·Missives from Marx·moral·morality·mystification·Native Americans·natural moral law·Naturalization·nature·nuclear family·Pharyngula·procreation·PZ Myers·reality·Reification·reproduction·sexual anatomy·sexual development·sexual ontogeny·sexual physiology·sexual preferences·sexual variation·sexuality·social construction·societies that accept homosexuality·Two Spirits·University of Illinois·utilitarianism
