Reading Time: 2 minutes Christianity is ceasing to be a white religion, and is becoming mostly a faith for people of color in the Global South, according to an American Anglican priest. Millions of those believers practice emotionally-charged worship styles, hold fundamentalist views, and speak in tongues. Writing in the New York Times, in a report titled “The Global […]
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Posted inMusic
The irrational love of music
Reading Time: 2 minutes Some of us crave classical music with a raptured obsession that defies logical explanation.
Posted inPolitics
The yearly torment of living in red states
Reading Time: 2 minutes We who live in conservative rural states suffer an annual nightmare as right-wing legislators try to wreck personal freedoms and sound science. In the 2023 West Virginia legislative session, which ended last weekend, the troglodytes tried to (1) force rape and incest victims to bear babies, (2) pass a “religious freedom” law to let Christians […]
Posted inPseudoscience
The scam of astrology
Reading Time: < 1 minute Horoscopes are harmless when regarded only as amusements. But when they’re taken seriously, it’s disturbing.
Posted inReligion
Imaginary gods
Reading Time: 2 minutes My grandson named his dog Anubis after the ancient Egyptian canine deity that is either a jackal or a dog. Those long-ago Egyptians worshiped about 2,000 different gods of every variety, some part animal and part human. The holies were served by an army of priests in lavish temples. The Egyptian priesthood held enormous wealth. […]
Posted inEnvironment
Too many people
Reading Time: 2 minutes Wealthy, well-developed nations are nearing ZPG (zero population growth), which makes life better for everyone.
Posted inPhilosophy
There is no ‘divine plan’
Reading Time: 2 minutes Imagine the millions of small fish in the seas that are devoured every day by larger fish. Oceans are vast killing zones. Churches proclaim that God created all living things as part of a divine plan. Why did he design a slaughterhouse? Mark Twain wrote, in Letters from the Earth: “The spider kills the fly, […]
Posted inReligious News
Mangled Methodist morality
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Methodist church, like other Christian denominations, is schisming over the question of whether LGBTQ people deserve equal rights.
Posted inLaw
Black collar crime
Reading Time: 2 minutes Big-money evangelists who get rich from religion are a blemish on America—and one currently is tangled in criminal charges.
Posted inDeath & Dying
You gotta walk that lonesome valley
Reading Time: 3 minutes I’ll be 91 in February. It may be my last birthday, or one of a final few, because my actuarial table is ticking away relentlessly. I have no fear of death. It’s simply the natural end of every life. It awaits all eight billion of us humans. Nobody can escape it. For now, I’ll just […]