In a comment thread on Talk To Action, I got into an interesting discussion about "recovered memories" -- the very idea of which has been the focus of lots of controversy among psychologists and psychotherapists. Is it possible for people to repress, more-or-less completely, their memory of a traumatic event, and then to recover it later? The ( Read more... )

In the Dark Christianity LiveJournal community, in a thread titled They're at it again, begun by roseross, there was a comment by underlankers referring to dominionist Christianity as "de facto Satanism." Naturally, I questioned that.

( Brief recap of conversation )

In most parts ot the U.S.A., the religious right wing seems to be dominated by evangelical Christians. But here in New York City, it seems to be dominated by ultra-conservative Catholics and ultra-Orthodox Jews.

And one of its leaders is now a judge.

( Read more about Noach Dear, former city council member, now a judge. )

Talk To Action has a weekly series by Frank L. Cocozzelli on "The Catholic Right," about the Catholic religious right wing. The most recent post in the series is Jindal, Rising, about Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. Frank Cocozzelli apparently lives in Brooklyn, judging by his post My Son's School, in which he identifies his parish as St. Finbar ( Read more... )

In The End of American Jewry's Golden Era, Daniel Pipes is quoted as saying:

"Militant Islam cannot be compared to any segment of Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism. These religions do not embody groups with totalitarian utopian ideologies that seek world hegemony.
Yes they do ( Read more... )

One of my heroes is Brad Hicks, who was one of the earliest activists against the "Satanic Ritual Abuse" scare back in the 1980's. (He discusses this briefly in the following posts of his here on LiveJournal: Wicca Lies (part 3): Hierarchy and Wow, I Haven't Been Threatened for My Writing in More than a Decade.) He was president of the Alliance ( Read more... )

Something I missed when it happened, but I just came across it recently: As of January 2008, it seems that the Vatican has revived the hullabaloo about Harry Potter. However, I find two very different accounts of this:

• Potter "Driving Kids to Satanism" by Cameron Millar, Daily Star (U.K.), 16th January 2008
• The Vatican Revives the Harry ( Read more... )

On the blog A Heathen's Day, I just now learned about a news story in the Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina), SC lawmakers have religion on minds, in bills by Jim Davenport, Associated Press, Tue, May. 13, 2008, in which Democratic Senator Yancey McGill (of South Carolina) says that Wicca is not a religion, and he's not sure about ( Read more... )

In Florida, there's a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would allow state funding of all manner of religious stuff. Here's an opinion piece against it: Your Tax Money For Madrassas? by Buzz Kelly, The Tampa Tribune, April 10, 2008.

( Read more )