A review by philosopher Simon Blackburn of Karen Armstrong’s book on religious practice.

About the naturalness of religious belief.

About evolution and religion: and followers of Darwin not following Darwin’s example.

Pictures of the largest active Hindu temple outside India.

Nice use of the Bhavagad Gita.

On the continuing appeal of John ( Read more... )

In India, a drink made from cow urine is being launched.

Five reasons against nudism.

The University of Hawaii explaining to students what metaphysics in philosophy is and is not (pdf).

Large families suffering the weirdness factor due to being large families.

The late Samuel Huntingdom was an intellectual pariah because of how he was fairly ( Read more... )

The lolcat bible project.

A classic exposure of Scientology. Just in case you need more info on what a crock Scientology is.

The Catholic Church is bringing back indulgences.

Pope Benedict has rescinded the excommunication of breakaway conservative bishops: since one is a Holocaust denier (and 9/11 truther), this is not doing great things for ( Read more... )

The French getting upset at a form of English becoming the new global lingua franca. The globish website.

The BNP vote as an expression of working class angst.

How multiculturalism is betraying women (and gays).

Labour peers reportedly engaged in fees for legislative services.

The BBC refuses to broadcast an humanitarian appeal for Gaza so as ( Read more... )

A website dedicated to great films which either (1) did not win an Oscar® or (2) were not even nominated. A nomination of five top not-Best Picture-nominateds, not including Dark Knight.

Dirk Benedict-“Starbuck” in the original Battlestar Galactica-having quite a rant about his experiences there and not being impressed by the new version. Adama ( Read more... )

Apparently, there is an email circulating around pointing out that 1.2 billion Muslims constitute 20% of the global population while 14 million Jews constitute 0.02% of the global population, yet there is a wild disparity in the relative number of Nobel Prizes ( Read more... )

The un-fun of losing one’s privacy.

Those sushi waiters, they can be scary people: "They pointed an stun gun at a waiter and demanded the cash from the till, but the staff grabbed kitchen knives and charged at the men," .

An essay-in-sculpture about national stereotypes has got some folk worked up.

Read this article by Bruce Bawer. Now read his ( Read more... )

Treating the suggestion that getting rid of the term “War on Terror” is more important than firmly opposing the use of torture with the contempt it deserves.

The new Pentagon directive on irregular warfare (pdf).

Lebanese politics and very different refusals to meet US figures: Jimmy Carter, an icon of the left, is not acceptable enough to ( Read more... )

Possibly the ultimate tabloid story first sentence …

About where current scholarship is on Roman decline and fall. Nice review of Ward-Perkins’s book.

Entymological clues about the origins of chess.

Critical examination of the polemics of Edward Said.

The divide in anthropology between social and evolutionary anthropologists. Seems like one of ( Read more... )

About which religion is the oldest.

Nice post about finding the burial site of a woman-shaman in Israel.

Neo-pagans praying at the Parthenon.

Giraffe milk has been declared kosher.

A magi priest who got himself into lots of Sasanian royal inscriptions. Iranian tradition was that Alexander burnt the sole complete copy of the Zoroastrian ( Read more... )