Cris
MY BLOGS
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Genealogy of Religion
http://genealogyreligion.net/
Exploring the Origins, History, and Future of Religion
LATEST ARTICLES ( 560 )
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Spirits Sanction Optimism
The discovery that two events, symbols, thoughts or texts, while so utterly separated by time and space that they could not “really” be connected, seem,... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2012 HISTORY, RELIGION -
Infinite Regress of Turtles
In this post on the overconfidence of evangelical atheism, we saw a physicist-philosopher taking serious issue with Lawrence Krauss’ triumphal tome which... Read more
Posted on 27 April 2012 DEBATE, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION -
Woe Unto Some Muslim Women
Yesterday the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia announced that the kingdom’s girls are, in the eyes of men and Allah, ready to marry at the age of 10 or 12. Read more
Posted on 24 April 2012 CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Hitler’s Faith & Nazi Religion
What did the Nazis believe about religion? Simply asking the question suggests some difficulties. “The Nazis” implies a homogenous group with clearly articulate... Read more
Posted on 20 April 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Myth of Pristine “Primitive” Religions
Scholars have long been fascinated by the idea that something like the primordial or original religion existed until recently and may in fact be curated by a fe... Read more
Posted on 13 April 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
How Not to Find Anthropological Universals
The aptly named Christian Smith, professor of sociology at Notre Dame, has posted an article in First Things claiming that “man” (sorry women) is naturally... Read more
Posted on 11 April 2012 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY -
Emerging (Neo-Gnostic) Church
Over at The Atlantic, Josh Kron writes about an evangelical group, the Emerging Church, which is influential in Africa and whose leading members are behind... Read more
Posted on 11 April 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Thomas Kinkade in Luminous Place
Thomas Kinkade is now presumably in a place that has all the luminosity of his paintings. When this blog was in its infancy, the spirit of whimsy possessed me... Read more
Posted on 07 April 2012 ART & DESIGN, CULTURE -
Cross Cultural Glossolalia: Babeling
Glossolalia or “speaking in tongues” is known primarily from charismatic Christian churches. In that setting it has been studied extensively with some remarkabl... Read more
Posted on 06 April 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Sharia Heaven on Shifting Earth
Over at Guernica, Sadakat Kadri has posted the lush prologue to his new book Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia t... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2012 HISTORY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY -
Animism as Altruistic Adaptation
I have a confession to make. I’ve long denigrated claims that what we today call “religion” originated during the Upper Paleolithic because early supernaturalis... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Scientific Evangelical Atheism
It’s been a good week for chastising evangelical atheism. First, there was the free-will symposium which allowed us to wonder about the obsessions of the... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2012 CULTURE, DEBATE, RELIGION -
Adaptive Mormon Revelations
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... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Tilting at Free-Will Mills
I’ve never quite understood why some New Atheists think it so important to resolve the issue of free will, or why they think it so important to deny free will. Read more
Posted on 22 March 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Apocalyptic Bedfellows
Over at The Medium and the Message, Adam Curtis is doing some of the best work on the web. His multimedia stories are part history and part journalism, spliced... Read more
Posted on 19 March 2012 DEBATE, RELIGION -
Olcott’s Construction of Buddhism
Over at The Smart Set, Stefany Ann Golberg has posted a nice piece on Henry Steel Olcott, an American civil war colonel and champion of Sinhalese Buddhism. Read more
Posted on 16 March 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
The Faith Worm Turns
In this interview with the German writer Martin Walser, we get to see someone struggling with faith, existence, meaning, and history: Once you have awakened to... Read more
Posted on 14 March 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION -
Fantasy Religions
CultureLab has posted an interview with sociologist William Sims Bainbridge, who in the past has done a great deal of work on religions in general and “cults” i... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2012 DEBATE, RELIGION -
Encultured Hallucinations
Hallucinations are a universal feature of human experience. This doesn’t mean that everyone has hallucinated, but everyone is capable of hallucinating. Read more
Posted on 06 March 2012 BIOLOGY, DEBATE, RELIGION -
Economists: The Magical Priesthood
In this powerful interview with Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, Philip Pilkington poses the following question: If what you say is true – and I believe the... Read more
Posted on 04 March 2012 BIOLOGY, CULTURE, DEBATE, HISTORY, RELIGION