The End is Always Near: Jesus to Return by 2050
A recent article in the UK’s Telegraph notes that forty one percent — yes, 41% — of Americans believe that Jesus will return by the year 2050. With wry understatement, the Brits observe that American...
View ArticleNear Death Experiences: Portal to Another Realm?
There are many who believe that near death experiences (“NDE”) provide evidence of the existence of a spirit-soul and that those who have these close encounters with death have glimpsed another realm....
View ArticleHitchens on Anti-Semitism
Provocative and thoughtful as he usually is, Hitchens opines on anti-semitism for The Atlantic: There is, probably first and certainly foremost, religious anti-Semitism. Unlike other nations or...
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Fantastic Beliefs
Anyone interested in the history of religions will inevitably become familiar with all manner of truly fantastic stories and beliefs. Whether we are talking about the soul flights and death duels of...
View ArticleSage or Schizophrenic?
Over at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack has written a nice article on the fine and sometimes indistinguishable line between religious inspiration and madness. Because Stack’s audience in...
View ArticleHe’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
By now you surely have heard about Colton Burpo (he is a real kid from Nebraska, not a character from an Upton Sinclair novel). When Colton was 3 years old, he allegedly went to the Christian heaven...
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The Sins of an Evolutionary Psychologist
In a recent essay on the cult of David Foster Wallace, Nathan Heller notes that DFW’s mature work deals with the crisis of contemporary pluralism: “how to think intelligently and truthfully about the...
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There’s Spiritual Power Inside a Woman
“I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he...
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Christian Mysteries
Salon is a strange virtual place for an article titled: “Jesus’ Resurrection: What Really Happened?” I have italicized “really” because this word is usually associated with empirical reality. I was...
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Wine as Ritual Blood
Since at least the 8th millennium BCE, wine has been considered a sacred elixir and has been bound up with all manner of religious rituals. Several weeks ago, Aeon editor Ross Andersen posted a...
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