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Mesoamerica Remains a Fascinating Mystery

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During the first few hundred years CE Christianity was mostly a tiny cult. Then a dictator of the Roman Empire gave it the green light and it started slowly to grow. In Central America, and other places as well, a lot of change was going on as well. The written records of this latter area are mostly destroyed by invaders but the story of the area and the people that lived there is slowly being revealed through archaeology.  I wish it were possible to know what the religious and/or spiritual lives were among the Incas and Aztecs. Apparently, there were different religious factions. I wish also it was possible to know where these people came from before they were in South and Central America. The natives of North America are equally interesting. Both groups lived on this continent for many generations and were sophisticated societies. White invaders brought guns, diseases and a will to destroy the native societies along with their histories. Weather changes may have changed their for...
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Jesus' Competition Includes Mushrooms

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As individuals around the world find substitutes for the orthodox religions, old friends are showing up. The anti Viet Nam war psychedelics are living on in home "churches." My theory about our current time is there is a large underground growth in new experiences we might call new religion, new spirituality or new ways to cope with whatever life throws at us. Besides basement "churches" inhaling mushrooms, such as the link, sales of occult objects has been booming in recent years. Maybe the two overlap. With such diverse things going on with so many groups it's likely none will be under one umbrella like, for example, the Catholic denomination. This lack of stadium events and press releases could mean lots of growth underground. Even now, polling has shown a steady increase in the group that does not identify with any religion, the NONES. The NONES have become larger than all non Christian groups combined. Yet, no one knows if there is any unifying trait and wh...
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Who is a Bigger Threat Than Satan

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The Satanic Temple organization understands perfectly the whacko Christian community. It knows how to push Christian buttons. Christian zealots, on the other hand, do not understand their smarter rivals, the Satanic Temple.  The Satanic Temple organization is starting up churches, youth groups and medical abortion clinics. If one could pick three kinds of activities that push more Christian buttons than these I don't know what they are. In cities that they judge would most hate a youth group in its schools or a "church" on main street they move in. Local city councils and school boards in these places are certain they can refuse zoning or requests by students to form such groups. The refusals make good headlines. Then, the Satanists win. I suppose this brings in donations and on it goes.  The link askes a reasonable question, who are these communities protecting their children from? It is not from predatory clergy. There are a fifty or more cases of predatory clergy liste...
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Everyone Has Their Own Private Religion

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                                An article appeared today in the Christian press lambasting a Catholic politician in England who voted against the official Catholic position on something. The politician said the vote reflected his own "private religion." The link said, paraphrasing, no Catholic has a right to his/her "private religion." This article follows up on a poll done recently that asked Protestant preachers whether or not they disciplined church members who sinned. Not surprisingly, 80% of so did not. My guess is the other 20% did not either but felt they should make this claim anonymously. The people in the pews pay the bills. They discipline the preacher, not the other way around.  The issue of "private religion", or individual conscience, was on display during Biden's presidency when some clergy refused to give communion to him and others. Those, like Biden, wanting communion simply got it fr...
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Some Christians Scoff at Psychic Readings. Believe Prayers Instead

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                                                       Periodically on religious sites I read condemnations of "Psychics." The old joke was the fortune teller who read about you in a crystal ball. There are palm readers, tea leaves, and as discussed in the link , those who receive energy from the earth. The latter is associated with paganism.  Driving across the country side I often see "prayer works" signs along the road. The one above is a yard sign for sale a $27.50. I've not seen one for sale that says, "palm reading works." Maybe there is a business opportunity there. We all know there have been competing spiritual ideas chasing after the gullible since forever. The Ten Commandments include one with the backstory of these ideas. It says, "Thou Shalt Have on other Gods Before You," admitting there were other gods, or hucksters promoting oth...
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Religion, Once About Peace, Now Associated With Violence

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The book I'm reading, Why Religion Went Obsolete, discusses not theological issues but cultural changes in how religion is seen in society. Decades ago, mostly the author says before 1990, the view by the public of religion was religion is good. Around 1990 a multitude of forces made religion seem not good. This included on-line life, later marriages, later careers, scandals in the faith and others. One was an increase in the association of religion with violence.  When I began this blog, about a dozen years ago, the attack called "9/11" was still in the news a lot. I remember writing about my exasperation with leaders like President W. Bush who called for "prayer." He gave a speech, not in some venue known to exude rational and secular thinking to offset the whacko religious views of the Muslim attackers, but in the National Cathedral. Can't people see, I wrote, that the whacko attacks on the World Trade Center (I was in that complex years earlier) were the...
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What is Artificial Inteligence

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The way AI is talked up in the press makes it sound like it is something new and powerful. I don't claim to know much about it but see it from an outsider's point of view. It is actually just faster and more comprehensive access to information that is already, and has been for a while, stored. It is not "powerful" in the sense of new ideas or strategies. One could argue, I'm sure, there are creative ideas about which information to use and how to use it. This is something different, it seems to me, than creating something that did not exist before. More discussion is showing up about the costs of storing and retrieving all this data. It takes huge amount of electricity. This use of electricity requires water for cooling. I heard the in the State of Virginia data centers use a huge percentage of the total power generated in the state. In some states without large amounts of water that is becoming a limiting issue. Then there is the issue of locating the data center...
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