Heretical musings on religion and culture from a literary scholar
At the end of a hard day's work, I like to unwind with whatever TV show I can find. I tend to like supernatural drama series, but not really shitty high school drama ones. The latest series that has caught my attention is CW's "The Messengers" - which is, basically, the Book of Revelations but on TV. As someone who understands the Apocalypse Story as a vindictive minority group's wish-fulfillment future where all their enemies get ...
On a train from Toulouse to Barcelona this week I found myself without internet and searching my iPhone for something to read. I discovered Andrew Pyper's "The Demonologist" which I'd bought months before and quickly became enthralled. Like me, the main character (David) is an academic studying Paradise Lost, and reading Satan as the obvious hero of the story: a story about freedom, revolution, the right to self govern, and the tyrannical, irrational ruler he cannot escape. This ...
Criticism of Islam can result in very nasty and very personal backlashes, as Sam Harris continues to notice, but I was a little surprised to watch John Stewart grill Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Daily show on the March 23, 2015 episode. John often meets with authors promoting their books, and mostly laughs, pitches them softball questions and tells people to go buy the book. With Ayaan, who was there to promote her book "Heretic," he ...
As a theology major with his own plans to write bible-based apocalyptic fiction, I was excited to see a new TV show out with some great actors. On the one hand, the same topics are recycled so blatantly from other sources it's cliche on cliche... -A handsome FBI agent called to Israel to chase down a murderer who stole an antiquity... -An attractive red haired archaeologist (also American of course) on a dig under the Temple Mount looking ...
The holidays are always a strange time. The Winter Solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years - it can be argued that astrological events led to the creation of religious practice - but different cultures celebrate in unique fashions. But modern Western culture embraces such a confusing hodgepodge it's bound to cause discord. One baptist minister for example is drawing heat for a church sign that reads "Santa is Satan." He's not the first Christian to complain ...
It's a classic love story. Boy meets girl. Girl is wistful and spiritual, boy is scientific and needs facts and data. (Spoiler Alert!) Girl gets cut in half when elevator fails. Besides having the most gruesomely tragic death scene I've ever witnessed - something out of a Final Destination movie - I.Origins starring Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and Michael Pitt is an interesting, in-depth look at God, faith, spirituality and the space between. In the metaphor that frames the storyline, worms have no ...
I've been excited about the 2014 retelling of the Dracula mythos for quite some time. A Faust-based narration, casting Vlad the Impaler as a suffering hero who made a deal with the Devil to save his people? Sign me up! What I wasn't prepared for was the sermonizing, heavy-handed Christian morality, and cliché, card board cutout representations of good and evil. Let's start with the basics. Vlad the Impaler, Vlad III, was a Prince of Wallachia - Transylvania - who lived in the ...
In the PhD Thesis I'll finish one day, I make the connection between the rise of pirates, libertarianism and democracy with sacrilege and devil worship - not "real" devil worship of course, simply people who openly rebelled against the idea of God and aligned themselves openly with the politics of Satan. So I've been pleased to watch the sudden increase in pirate fascination... which I thought was running dry after the Pirates of the Caribbean movies ...
25 years ago, God disappeared. Some angels blamed humans, and led by Gabriel, they waged a war against the humans. Other, higher angels, led by Michael, decided to protect the humans. A child is born, with markings on his body, who will grow up to become the savior of the human race and lead mankind out of darkness. Followers of the faith "continue to believe that the chosen one, our savior will reveal himself to us." The ...
I was less than impressed with the 2014 remake of the biblical story of Noah and the Ark, featuring Russell Crowe. While some of the thematic and symbolistic changes they made were interesting (I'll discuss those below), the controversy itself offers much for discussion. People are angry because it "wasn't true to the Bible." But the truth is most Christians don't realize the version they learned in Sunday School isn't in the Bible either - ...
It's Valentine's Day again, which means we'll all be buying cards, chocolates and flowers for our significant other (or ridiculing the holiday for its commercial vapidness). Since Valentine's Day is one of the major holidays of the western world, you've probably heard the history: We celebrate Valentine's day in honor of St. Valentinus, who was martyred a long time ago around February 14th - the "romance" part is because he continued to marry soldiers during wartime; ...
Today on Steven Pressfield's blog he posted an article called How Resistance Proves the Existence of God. Let me start by saying, I saw this coming years ago. I saw it in his now famous "War or Art" and in the interview he did with Oprah. I saw it in the new book "Do the Work" Seth Godin asked him to write. In brief, Pressfield believes that we are all called to produce art, and our greatest enemy in ...
If you're interested in religious mythology, astrological symbolism, or supernatural folklore, grab my book Gods of Myth and Man. You can go buy it on Amazon.
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