A few thoughts on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every culture has its ancestral story. This is one of mine. This is a story of survival. The Holocaust happened The Holocaust happened because of a world embedded deeply in antisemitism. It was embedded deeply with antisemitism because every country in Christendom had subjected Jews to second-class citizenship, to be denied, ransomed, evicted and...
Editorial notes: This post was found in ‘Draft’ mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 15/06/2016 Decomposition of Zoroastrian mythology into Rasta ritual and cant An historical narrative with novel conclusions The field of comparative religion has been stymied by a reluctance to attribute any reality to...
Right view is a way of knowing what it is that we experience. It is approached by a collaboration of labelling and interpretation. To know samma ditthi (right view) means to know that we exist in a maelstrom of a phenomenon that includes choices and that their relationships and unfolding are manifestations of a calculus of conditioning along a river of time and suffering. Autobiography I read the...
Editorial notes: This post was found in ‘Draft’ mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 20/11/2015 This is a variation-on-a-theme. Where I previously wrote on reading Talmud with Levinas, here I revisit the issue, simplifying some aspects, and expanding on the concept and role of will. There is one idea I wish...
Editorial notes: On this day Shai publishes his first post dedicated specifically to Judaism. This is significant as it is the beginning of the fourth phase in Shai’s intellectual journey. After having first devoted a substantial body of writing to scientific inquiry and to the study of ancient and classical Western philosophers, and having recently commenced his study of Eastern Wisdom, Shai...
There’s a great new study that shows how similar vertebrates’ and insects’ brains are. The scientists conduct molecular, developmental, genetic, and structural/morphological, neurochemical, neurological, and higher-order function tests! So maybe that’s cool1, but no real surprise2 1. It’s actually super amazing cool. 2. Well, not to someone with a reasonable education in biology. But I think this...
Thomas Aquinas spent the last twenty years of his life writing the famous Summa Theologica; a guide to the divine. The Summa included the quinque viae, the “five ways” by which the existence of God can be proved. A few months before his death, Aquinas stopped writing. When begged to continue he only said, “All that I have written seems as straw to me.” The Unmoved Mover:...
Editorial notes: This Book Review was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2 with the Summary section missing. It was last updated on 03/05/2011. C.S. Lewis is the British author best known for writing the Narnia series of books, but he also authored a number of books that discussed his religious beliefs, including this one – Mere Christianity. The book evolved out of a series...
Dawkin’s God is a non-fiction book by Alister McGrath published in 2004. It is a response to Dawkin’s views, especially as they regard religion. The book is subtitled Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. Comments: The most intelligible interpretation of McGrath’s take on Dawkins is that Dawkins is attacking academic-religion and not pop-religion. The reason for making this...
