History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
Comment on Grayling on Dalai Lama
The field of mysticism is littered with a lot of wreckage, but your basic point is quite right: there is real common core to religions along these lines.
An appropriate stick with which to beat the New Atheists over the head.
As Rajneesh suggested, Jesus was unenlightened in life, but entered that [...]
I mentioned Rajneesh in the previous post because, however controversial or discredited he might seem now, he actually pointed to (without any explicit reference) the real history of atheism, which was religious, visible in the traditioin of Jainism, then Buddhism.
The question of the god obsession is a very late creation of the Israelite Axial Age [...]
An ungodly debate
Perhaps never before in history have science and religion been engaged in such dubious battle. The increasingly challenging claims of science – including that of being able to create life itself – have invited the inevitable backlash of a militant religiosity …
Asked about the paedophilia scandal currently sweeping the Catholic church, biologist [...]
Bringing the Vatican to Justice
Sam Harris picks up on the ‘arrest the Pope’ nonsense.
I think that this theme should be explicated by the original version, from the ashram of Rajneesh in the seventies and eighties, whose concern was the urgent need to hasten the passing of the religious traditions of celibacy, which are evident in [...]
I am a little puzzled by Hedges’ column this week: After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck With Nietzsche
An unfortunate piece of indirection, irony, or stupidity from a journalist I have followed for some time. What’s up here. Has Mr. Hedges lost his faith? Is he trying to get market share from the Dawkins groupies?
What is [...]
Bring the Pope to Justice
by Christopher Hitchens – Newsweek
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5489
This is Hitchens at his most idiotic. The irony here is that it was Rajneesh who first demanded the prosecution of the Pope.
Hitchens’ denial of the existence of buddhist enlightenment in the passage on the Rajneesh ashram which he visited (drunk) as a BBC reporter in his [...]
I am struck by deja vu confronted with the New Atheist attack on the pope, and on Christianity in general. It is a washed out version of the Rajneesh version of the eighties in Oregon: Rajneeshism Bible (Rajneesh Bible) (Paperback)
The book (which comes in four volumes, and probably is unattainable) is the most ferocious attack [...]
Michael Ruse….
The current attack on Catholicism is in many ways a parody (but no doubt par for the course anyway) of the eighties attack on Christianity in the Rajneesh world, and the New Age movement. But there is an important difference: those critiques had an understanding of the issues of religion and its history, where [...]
Does Richard Dawkins Think He’s Napoleon?
Dawkins is clever at promoting his New Atheism movement, but, while I hold not brief for the Pope, have to wonder at the absurdity of their current round of tactics. Actually, such tactics play very well with his base, and will energize the Dawkins peanut gallery.
But the sad fact is [...]
The New Commandments by Christopher Hitchens – Vanity Fair
Thanks to Florian for the link.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/04/hitchens-201004
Once again Hitchens imitates the guru Rajneesh. Go read Rajneesh’s The Rajneesh Bible here.
Some free advice on ’spiritual paths’
Again, I should say that in my experience the sufi domain and/or Gurdjieff branch of that are barren labyrinths where you will be doomed to wander, or be exploited.
Be gone from those worlds forever. The Indic paths, such as they are, corrupted by Hinduism, and filled with many confusions, nonetheless [...]
Atheism Was one of the Year’s Hottest Topics, and Greta Christina Caught the Wave as Well as Anyone
AlterNet. Posted December 18, 2009.
Have you been missing out on one of AlterNet’s most popular authors? Here are 10 of Christina’s best works from the year.
I look on with some dread at the confusion created by Dawkins [...]
Faith No More
What I’ve learned from debating religious people around the world.
By Christopher Hitchens
We discussed the New Atheist debates over religon and with religionists here ad infinitum a year or two ago, and were often critical of Hitchens.
Happiness, Inc: Deepak Chopra’s Path to Inner Peace
Thoroughly Modern Guru Says Daily Meditation Helps Him Avoid Stress
Edmund Burke, Meet Tariq Ramadan
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:
Immigration, Islam, and the West
By Christopher Caldwell
Doubleday, 422 pages, $30
Although I find Caldwell’s analogy with revolution (the French) and the Burkean reaction to that to be problematic, his book is nonetheless of great interest, and joins a long list of books dealing with this, most of [...]
mini-archive of posts from this year
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archive: March 13, 2006
After a post on Gurdjieff I got a question about Ouspensky and evolution. Below is a quote from A Secret History of Consciousness, by Gary Lachman.
Warning: be very careful of these people, their claims, and the innuendo they give out that since they are ‘esoteric’ they have all the answers. [...]
Blackburn on Armstrong
Armstrong is a completely frustrating author to deal with, cunning and stupidity are mixed together in a way that makes it impossible to trace her tracks. Is she an atheist pretending to be a theist in order to squelch religion by seeming to embrace it?? You can’t quite oppose her statements, many of [...]