Category Archives: Religion
Anachronism, Historical Fakes, Cults, and Scriptures
An anachronism is something inappropriate to the time and place being described. A momentarily famous recent example is the Starbucks coffee cup accidentally left on a table in a scene from Game of Thrones. Here are a couple others: In … Continue reading
Ideas Matter, Exhibit 1: The Horrific Legacy of Christian Neo-Platonism
The Christian Church grew up mired like a fly in treacle in the utter darkness that was Platonism–the sick, world-and-life-denying doctrine of Plato, who split the universe down the middle, into an airy-fairy spirit world “up there” and a contemptible … Continue reading
The Dumbest Idea Ever
St. Augustine was obsessed with sex. He thought incessantly about getting laid. At the same time, he believed that his desires were sinful. In this he wasn’t much different from a lot of sanctimonious Repugnican moralists today. We know all … Continue reading
Unlearning a Western Pathology
The philosopher Peter Van Inwagen suggests that we humans are very good at physics and very bad at metaphysics and that this might be due to the ways in which our minds are constructed–that we might simply be blind to … Continue reading
Play and the Origins of Art
In the middle of the last century, anthropologists discovered something surprising: supposedly “primitive” hunter-gatherers like the Aborigines of Arnhem Land, in Northern Australia, and the !Kung San of the Kalahari, in Southern Africa, spent only about 20-something hours a week … Continue reading
