In a series of just published articles not so subtly titled Murderers and Martyrs: The Difficult Struggle of Christians in the Orient, the German newsmagazine Spiegel details the sorry plight of Christians in Egypt and Pakistan. Although the facts and reporting are unfortunately accurate, this is sure to ratchet up the already considerable levels of [...]
Tags:Bernard Lewis·Christians·colonialism·Coptic Christians·Copts·Edward Said·Egypt·essentializing·Germany·imperialism·Murderers and Martyrs·Muslims·Orient·orientalism·Pakistan·persecution·radical Islam·Spiegel
Nearly 5,500 years ago or about 3,500 BCE, the Sumerians began writing about supernatural matters; in a sense, this marks the origin of what most people today understand as “religion.” This relatively modern and provincially Western understanding of religion is on full display in Paul Raushenbush’s article introducing HuffPo Religion’s new series on religious texts [...]
Tags:Bhagavad Gita·books·Buddhist·category of religion·Christian presuppositions·doctrinal·Edward Said·essentializing·Harvey Whitehouse·Hindu·imagistic·Jonathan Z. Smith·non-written traditions·orientalism·Paul Raushenbush·religion as academic creation·religion as text·religion as writing·religions of the book·religious writings·scriptures·shamanisms·shamanist·shamans·Sumeria·Sumerians·texts·The Word·theologians·theology·transcendence·transcendent·Vedic·word·writing
