Heretical musings on religion and culture from a literary scholar
Maybe you've seen the news clip about 19 year old Junior Garcia walking to D.C. with a big cross on his back. As someone who once did big things to prove my faith in Jesus, I can totally understand where the kid is coming from; but there's a number of big problems with this story, starting with: 1) Who Benefits? Junior is inspired by God (so he says.) But what does God hope to prove by this ...
The Grey (2011, starring Liam Neeson) is, on the surface, a man versus nature survivalist story about a group of man facing the elements and a pack of vicious wolves in the aftermath of a plane crash. However, this background is really just a platform to explore the movie's true theme: dignity in the face of death, and whether or not religion is helpful to ease the transition. On the one hand, given that the protagonist and ...
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 ...
If you found out that your employee was a child-molester, would you fire them? According to a new Supreme Court ruling, you may not be able to. Here's the story: a woman is working for a church, but she develops narcolepsy (she can't help falling asleep). The church fires her and gets a new employee - but she threatens to sue because she should be protected under the Disabilities Act. But the Supreme Court refused her right ...
Seventh-Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California, are in a fight against fast food chain McDonalds. The reason: 50% of the town practices a form of Christianity that endorses a clean, healthy and vegetarian diet. In their defense, the town has statistically higher health than many places in the world. The conflict: should they be allowed to prohibit the other 50% of the people from eating garbage? The "opposition" chosen to represent the heathens is a fat, ...
Tim Ferriss and Sam Harris are two people I like. And their names are even pretty similar. But I was still surprised to see - on Sam Harris' website page promoting his new essay "Lying" - a review by Tim Ferriss. Sam is a clever guy popular with atheists who criticizes organized religion. Tim uses his gargantuan ego, along with very smart and innovative marketing strategies, to self-promote his brand and sell a shit load of ...
Rick Perry's political agenda summed up in 30 seconds: no gays in the military, open celebration of Christmas and prayer in schools, end Obama's "War on Religion" and restore America's "Religious Heritage". Shucks, that sounds pretty awesome for Christians. But wait! Good Christians believe we are in the end of times, and should be watching out for a potential Antichrist. Many people mistakenly believe the Antichrist will seem evil or be anti-religious or atheistic. Not True! ...
There are many reasons to love Johnny Depp; his stunning good looks, goofy movie roles or charming bad boy personality. But here's another one: for his outspoken willingness to criticize religion and poke fun in places others dare not tread. Teaming up with the UK band BabyBird (which he's worked with before, and is close with the band's frontman Stephen Jones) Depp sung the lyrics to a new Christmas song release, Jesus Stag Night Club. Admittedly, the music ...
This post is prompted by TWO Yahoo articles concerning Satanism posted within one week of each other. The first, titled "Women Slash Teen 300 Times During Satanic Sex Ritual" (source) is about two Milwaukee roommates accused of slashing and stabbing a teenager 300 times in an apparent satanic sex ritual that lasted for two days. Actually the girls had some books on necromancy and dark magic - which is NOT Satanism. The confusion is that for anybody ...
This week a student at Idaho State University, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, took some shots at the White House, apparently in an attempt to assassinate Obama, whom he saw as the AntiChrist. Soon after, the bizarre video he'd made as a statement of his philosophy and desperate plea to get on the Oprah Show surfaced (you can watch it below). The video raises some interesting topics about American foreign policy, legalization of marijuana, and the dangers ...
Take the two most sensitive conversational topics in the world - religion and sexuality - and throw them together. Not an easy topic to discuss, but as Bill Maher pointed out in a recent interview, doesn't the fact that as soon as they caught Libyan dictator Gadhafi, they stuck something up his ass, say something about sexuality in that culture? The other panelists say "Well, they do really violent things to all tyrants" (Mussolini got hung ...
This week a study of the world's surface temperatures led Richard Muller - a long time, conservative skeptic scientists partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers - finally got him to change his mind. It's big news because he was a champion of those who say "There is no such thing as global warming" and "the earth naturally gets hotter and colder, human beings don't have any impact on the environment." For decades, ...
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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