There are lots of theories about what names do to us.  The trends in the naming of babies also say things about what is happening in our culture ( Read more... )

This is the after-elementary-school program being offered by an organization called The Satanic Temple.   It was news to me, but the Satanists I met tonight at the FFRF meeting consider themselves to be atheists.  They do not believe in a metaphysical God or Satan.  Satan instead is a symbol of individual liberty, of the ability we each have to say ( Read more... )

Originally posted by bill_sheehan at Sunday Sermonette: Putting the Christ Back In Christmas
I’ve written about restoring the ancient traditions of Saturnalia to this blessed time of year (Io, Saturnalia!), but some people just have no sense of tradition. They just want me to put the Christ back in Christmas. Fine, I don’t want to cause offense by wishing ( Read more... )

There are no gods, no devils,
no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition
that hardens hearts
and enslaves minds.

--Inscription planned for a monument
to be installed on Arkansas Capitol grounds,
if the state persists displaying
the 10 commandments.

( Read more... )

( Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins? )

( Read more... )

Psychoanalytic concepts captivated popular culture as have no other ideas about humanity's mind and heart. But the Freudian model belongs to a prescientific era in the search to unravel the enigmas of love. The demise of such mythologies is always probable. As long as the brain remained a mystery, as long as the physical nature of the mind ( Read more... )

( part #1: words from the time of Christ in this hefty novel )

In the history of psychology, Freud wished to squeeze everyone into his Oedipus myth theory wherein the child falls in love with the parent of the opposite sex and, out of jealousy, wishes to eliminate the parent of the same sex. Jung responded that this was Freud's own personal psychology, which he projected onto all of humanity. In Greco-Roman ( Read more... )