Heretical musings on religion and culture from a literary scholar
It's no secret that modern teenage girls obsess about having a hunky vampire boyfriend; there are many reasons why the elegant, tragically conflicted, fashionably handsome, beautifully pale undead hunks make thousands of teenage girls all hot and bothered. But before the bloodsuckers became cool, Jesus Christ was fulfilling the same sexual fantasies, for many of the exact same reasons! That Jesus Christ is the perfect boyfriend, not just in a platonic sense, has been recognized by ...
If you're searching for the Real History of Thanksgiving, it might be for a school project or simply to satisfy your curiosity. Why do we have this great family holiday of good food and desert, a long weekend, just to remember what to be Thankful for? Well, you probably know the story of how the Pilgrims came over to America and landed on Plymouth Rock in 1621, and how the Indians taught them how to ...
Satan's Journal. Hi y'all, I haven't written for awhile. I'm spending a Friday night looking at pictures of aliens on mars and checking any new 2012 Doomsday Prophecies. Now you might think the Devil would want all that destruction and end of the world stuff. Hell No!! In anybody's version, the end of the world is where all the fun stops and you know who is kicked into the fiery pits to burn for all eternity. ...
Jesus Mary and Joseph. I've just watched the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. I had to press pause several times to take notes; it's a goldmine of meaningful symbolism, begging for a theological interpretation. On the one hand, there are standard, almost boring, Christian themes: The Devil in black, with a mustache, making bets and tempting souls - even handing out apples to nuns, for Christ's sake. But on the other hand there are some deep, ...
Who is the historical Jesus? What can historical research tell us about him? Scot McKnight is a professor of religion at North Park University in Chicago who has been intimately involved in "Historical Jesus Research" for the past several decades. In a fascinating article published in April of 2010, (Christianity Today), McKnight describes how, after years of passionate research, the quest for the historical Jesus is at a dead end. Illustrating this point in his classroom, ...
N.C. teen Ariana Iacono has been suspended for wearing a nose ring to school. She's fighting back, arguing that the nose ring is a fundamental part of her religious beliefs and practice, and that the school is violating the First Amendment right to practice freedom of religion as well as the school's own dress code rules which stipulate exemption on religious grounds. So what does she believe in? Is she a Hindu or Muslim? No - ...
Awhile ago I posted an article about how Google is like God: omniscient, omnipresent, omni-etc. The alpha and the omega. Here is a link to the church of google. I've also pointed out what Christians, or God, should think about the iphone (What does God think about the iPhone?), and explored what the iPhone means for people who enjoy the untethered freedoms of faithless living (Is the iPhone Satanic?) But it's all been hearsay, as I've ...
Hurrah. After years of searching for it - in exactly the place that it is supposed to be - the evangelical search team named "Noah's Ark Ministries International," a Hong Kong-based documentary outfit, has discovered Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat in Eastern Turkey. Kind of. In fact, they found a large wooden structure at about 13,000 feet, mostly buried under ice. It MUST be the ark, rather than anything else, they reason, because no human settlement ...
'Stuart' wrote asking me about something I'd said on my about page: "I was reading your "about" page, and wondered how you came to the conclusion that if Jesus existed then God would love white people more than other ethnic races?" This unnerving assumption may sound like I'm just being wicked and picking fights. Not true! The problem of Jesus' historicity excluding certain races and areas of the world through accidental historical developments is the main reason I ...
I've been excited to see 2010's Clash of the Titans since the previews came out last year. War on the Gods despite great odds? Defiance as a principle and free right? Greek mythology? These are some of my favorite themes. Unfortunately, if it weren't for Gemma Arterton - who, even while standing pretty still and delivering poorly written, flatly acted lines was still captivating - I might have walked out of the theater. Interestingly, the main ...
This is a little pet peeve; sorry it won't be a well researched, carefully executed argument or article. It is just something that popped into my head. Many, many English literature teachers - especially in Asia but also elsewhere - are Christian. Maybe not fundamentalists, but believing, practicing Christians. At the same time, many, MANY of the Western's world's greatest literary minds (the poets, the politicians, the founding fathers, the artists, the novelists, the speech ...
As was pointed out earlier, the epic of Gilgamesh is not only one of the oldest recorded stories known to man, but it was also familiar to Israel and may have been rewritten into the Old Testament. It should come as no surprise that, in addition to the New Testament, elements from the epic of Gilgamesh may have crept into several other literary creations. According to Sumerian cosmology, when Ea had created man he mixed the ...
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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