Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Naut on Religion…XXI (Islam)
Now, a few words about pathologies... Writes Christopher Hitchens, “ Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism, invested in ignorance and hostile to free enquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive towards children: organized religion ought to have a lot on its conscience...”,...
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Monday, December 10, 2007
Naut on Religion…XX
We are entering the final phase of this series, and it may be useful to take stock. Everyone who has read this far knows my convictions: I am an agnostic who takes the position that it is impossible to know whether there is a God in principle, and who utterly rejects the notion that ‘scripture’...
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Monday, December 3, 2007
Naut on Religion…XIX
I ended the previous part with a question that was meant to be rhetorical, namely: what can account for the relative health of Christianity in America, while in Europe it is clearly languishing? But of course, even rhetorical questions elicit responses, and I had several interesting ones, which I...
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Naut on Religion…XVIII
I can’t leave this section without a few final remarks on this really multi-facetted religious myth we call Christianity. I believe that in its essence, its core, I am tempted to say in its conception (if that were not a term too reminiscent of something rationally planned, with due consideration...
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Sunday, November 25, 2007
Naut on Religion…XVII
In my view, those who, like Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens and others who speak of the ‘God delusion’, have got it wrong. Not because there really is a God, but because they view a faith in God as inherently pathological, as something that requires a cure. However, my understanding of the human mind and...
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Naut on Religion…XVI
In previous sections, I have emphasized that one of the reasons for Christianity’s success was that it is easily grafted on to diverse cultures because its message is culturally relatively non-specific. But over time, as the new religion became institutionalized across Europe, Christianity became...
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
Naut on Religion...XV
Beside the relative absence of cultural baggage derived from its origins, beside its message of hope for the down-trodden, there was another important reason for Christianity’s ultimately triumphant march across Europe – the ancient deities were already ‘dying’ or ‘fading away’. The gods had become...
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Naut on Religion...XIV
Prompted by comments and questions, always welcome, I shall try and explain in greater detail what I mean by saying that Christianity represents a radical departure from the type of religious myth we encounter in earlier periods of history. Any religion, even Christianity, is grounded in the culture...
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Thursday, November 8, 2007
Naut on Religion...Part XIII
As we now turn to an analysis of Christianity’s obvious success, I shall pretend that it is more of one piece than it really is. Having alluded to its historical and persisting heterodoxy in a previous post, however briefly, I shall now allow myself to disregard that and turn to the developments...
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Naut on Religion...Part XII
Throughout history, what we often refer to as religious conflict has never been merely about religion. Economics and matters of power always played a role as well. For example, it would be hopelessly naïve to assume that the Irish ‘troubles’ between Catholics and Protestants are motivated by...
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