“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
With this famous sentence, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his masterful critique of political power. Less well known is another sentence from The Social Contract (1762): “No State has ever been founded without Religion serving as its base.”
My reading of history is that Rousseau was right. State-formation [...]
Tags:China·civic religion·disciplina·divination·Dominique Briquel·Etruria·Etruscan·Etruscan books·haruspices·haruspicy·J.G. Frazer·Jean-Jacques Rousseau·magic·politics·power·prodigia·religion·Roman·Roman epistemology·Rome·Romulus·science·Shang Dynasty·state formation·Tages Against Jesus
The actor David Carradine may have led a troubled life but he experienced no such trouble as Kwai Chang Caine, a Buddhist monk on the move in the old American west. From 1972-1975, the Kung Fu series was must watch television for kids my age, even if we had no idea that Caine was a [...]
Tags:ancestor worship·axial age·Buddhism·China·Confucian·David Carradine·David Keightly·divination·Jamil Anderlini·kung fu·Kwai Chang Caine·legitimation·monastery·power·Shang Dynasty·Shaolin Temple·Shi Yongxin·Ti·Zen
If you have ever suffered through an episode of “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel, you might believe that every megalithic structure in the world was constructed by extraterrestrials:
Apparently inspired by the show, one credulous soul posted this question over at Answers.com: “Can scientists prove that Stonehenge was not built by ancient astronauts?” The pithy [...]
Tags:ancestors·ancient aliens·ancient astronauts·archaeoastronomy·Aubrey Holes·Benjamin Ray·Bronze Age·chieftains·cycles·Durkheim·elites·form·function·Giorgio Tsoukalos·lunar·megalithic·megaliths·neolithic·power·ritual·sarsen stones·solar·Solstice·Stonehenge·Wessex·Woodhenge
By most accounts, Anthony Weiner thinks highly of himself. Filled with bravado, Weiner considers himself to be a political warrior. Regaling one 17 year old girl with stories about congressional battles, he likened himself to Superman: “I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit.” Weiner even took cape-less photos of his pecs [...]
Tags:Anthony Weiner·celibacy·celibate·Cheyenne·energy·Great Spirit·John H. Moore·Lame White Man·politics·power·procreation·reproduction·Roman Nose·scandal·sex·spirit·sublimation·superhero·Superman·Twitter·war chief·warrior·Wild Hog
According to the Ghostbusters Wiki, Gozer the Gozerian (known also as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, and Lord of the Sebouillia) is an ancient entity who “was originally worshiped as a god by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians around 6000 BC.” When not visiting retribution on New York in the form of the Stay [...]
Tags:Akitu·Alan Lenzi·Assyria·Assyriology·Babylon·dead religions·divine messages·Ghostbusters·Gozer·Hittites·ideology·kings·Lord of the Sebouillia·Mesopotamia·Mesopotamians·mythmaking·politics·power·prophetic texts·Sennacherib·Slavitza Jovan·social construction·Stay Puft Marshmallow Man·Sumerians·Tiamat·Ur·Volguus Zildrohar
Death is big business. This past year, Americans spent $15 billion on funeral related expenses. Americans are not outliers when it comes to death spending; funeral related expenditures around the world are estimated to be at least this much and probably more. Strangely, the ratio of death spending does not diminish in poorer countries. In [...]
Tags:ancestor cults·ancestor worship·ancestors·bones·burial·Catal Hoyuk·Catalhoyuk·Cree·death·delayed return systems·filial piety·funerals·funerary·genealogy·grave goods·Ian Hodder·J.G. Macqueen·lineages·morals·mortuary·mourning·Native Americans·norms·Ojibway·Paul Hackett·power·rituals·secondary burial·skeletons·spirits·Sunghir·supernatural surveillance
Are capitalism and Christianity compatible? This is the bizarre question asked by Mario Gómez-Zimmerman in “The Capitalist Structures of Hinduism.” His belief is that this compatibility (which seems self-evident to me) will somehow be strengthened if he can show that other religions are also compatible with capitalism.
This is a zinger of a non-sequitur which would [...]
Tags:Ayn Rand·capitalism·caste·Christianity·classical Hinduism·elites·Hinduism·India·inequality·legitimation·Mario Gomez-Zimmerman·Neolithic transition·political economy·power·stratification·Varna·Vedic
Historians have long known that the shelf life of complex societies throughout human history has been rather limited. Archaeologists are aware of this also. But how to explain it?
In a recent (open access) paper, “Cycling in the Complexity of Early Societies,” Sergey Gavrilets and colleagues mathematically modeled early complex societies using a number of variables [...]
Tags:chiefs·collective action problems·competition·complex societies·control mechanisms·cycling·David Anderson·domination·earliest religions·early societies·elites·emergence·group conflict·legitimation·Mesoamerica·Mesopotamia·Neolithic Revolution·Peter Turchin·power·priests·Robert Carneiro·rulers·Sergey Gavrilets·shamanic·shamanisms·stratification·succession mechanisms·warfare
Craig Martin is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He has published several articles (links below) and a recent book, Masking Hegemony: A Genealogy of Liberalism, Religion and the Private Sphere. Craig is also active in the blogging community and is editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion.
I [...]
Tags:Anderson University·Anthony Giddens·authenticity·authority·binary·Bruce Lincoln·Bulletin for the Study of Religion·Craig Martin·discourse·disparity·domination·essentializing·Foucault·functionalism·legitimation·Marxist·Masking Hegemony·Pierre Bourdieu·Platonic forms·power·private·public·religious studies·Russell McCutcheon·social construction·St. Thomas Aquinas College·stratification·Syracuse University
The Russian Orthodox Church has long been allied with the state, even during the Soviet era when the relationship was somewhat strained. When Stalin got (or at least tolerated) religion, you know things were bad in the mother country. Under Putin and Medvedev, the relationship has become even more cozy. Russian Orthodoxy is no stranger to power.
This [...]
Tags:Checkhov·Chekov·Dostoevsky·excommunication·Medevev·power·Putin·Russia·Russian Orthodox Church·Stalin·state·Tolstoy
