Heretical musings on religion and culture from a literary scholar
The Bible: Read it again for the first time.
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 - ...
Oops, it's 2:56AM here in Taiwan and I was just reminded that September 30th is International Blasphemy Day. Luckily, since most of the world is half a day behind, I still have time. I decided to celebrate by dusting off this post about Emily Dickinson I've been meaning to publish for about a year. It vexes me to see Christians and other religious people quote Emily Dickinson's Poetry in support of their faith, when she spent ...
I started writing this post a couple years ago as a response to a very silly book called "How to Profit from the coming Rapture". Here's the description: "Taking the familiar form of a how-to investment guide, HOW TO PROFIT FROM THE COMING RAPTURE instructs those readers who will certainly be left behind (Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, less ardent Protestants, and many more) on how to exploit the inevitable demise of the world in order ...
My sister sent me the following chain letter, which goes into surprising detail about exactly how, physically, Jesus suffered on the cross. The point of the letter is to get you to feel his pain, which generates an emotional catharsis; it makes you first feel guilty, and then overwhelmingly grateful. Don't forget that this highly robust psycho-religious emotional experience was already being practiced by the Jewish women mourning for Tammuz in the Spring on the ...
Wearing skulls and dressing in black will get you killed - at least in Iraq, where dozens of teenagers have been stoned recently for wearing black and channeling Emo. "Emo" is a Western subculture that follows the revival of gothic and horror trends in society and literature, and also parallels closely the attraction to vampirism, witchcraft and magic. Skulls and crossbones have become super cool symbols in international pop culture; even hello kitty is on board. As ...
An online review posted about Disney's 2012 John Carter of Earth movie runs thus: "John Carter evokes pretty much every sci-fi classic from the past 50 years without having any real personality of its own." The essential thing to keep in mind, however, is that Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars was first published almost a century ago in 1917! Science fiction and fantasy novels and stories since then are deeply indebted to John Carter. Others ...
***Oops - the movie adaptation of Paradise Lost starring Bradley Cooper has been canned as of February, 2012! It's a crying shame...Hope they revive it down the road.*** For the past decade, traditionally marginalized or "evil" characters have gained the limelight - witches, vampires and werewolves have changed from creatures of the night to tragically misunderstood victims of humanity's bitter prejudice. At the same time, Western humanist values caused us to champion rebel heroes - heroes ...
Here's an interesting mental exercise for you: 1. Let's define Satan as the worst thought you can think. So anything bad, evil, disagreeable, wrong... all that stuff is "Satan" or "Satanic". He's the absolute most vile, ugly, scary creature you can imagine, with fangs, horns, and lots of eyeballs. 2. Ok, are you picturing it? Can you conceive of this idea? Now in your mind, take this concept a bit further by imagining that it exists in reality. This ...
King David (who first defeated Goliath, stole his sword, then become a violent kingly soldier) soaked in the blood of battle, one day happened to see his fellow warrior and friend Uriah's wife Bathsheba bathe in her courtyard from the roof of his palace. He had her brought to his chambers and had sex with her, resulting in a pregnancy. Informed that her husband was Uriah, David summoned Uriah from battle to meet him, suggesting that ...
Something interesting I discovered today was the link between the David and Goliath story and Homer's Iliad. I've already come to understand how much of the Old Testament (especially the flood story, but there are others) were lifted from Sumerian stories (Abraham was raised in, and left behind, a highly developed Sumerian culture before founding his new religious movement). But I hadn't considered the extent to which Old Testament scribes borrowed from successful Greek Literature such ...
Prepare to be amazed. Today I've been looking for pictures of Satan, and pictures of Garuda, for two separate art projects. What I'd never before realized, however, is that medieval depictions of The Devil are basically direct copies of much earlier (I presume) pictures of Garuda - the hindu flying Deity (half man, half eagle) that the God Vishnu flies around on. I'm guessing Garuda is first because A) Hinduism is older and B) they ...
You probably know Cain as the bad guy who (for no good reason) killed his nice and kind brother Abel in Genesis, in the world's first murder. Some of the unexplained problems of this account (such as why God accepted Abel's sacrifice but not Cain's, which is what pissed Cain off in the first place) are answered in the apocryphal book of Enoch. Interestingly, the Book of Enoch also suggest another motive as well: Adam was planning ...
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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