Dawkins on Atheism
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” – Richard Dawkins What is Dawkins talking about?
Retroactive Xenophobia
The Ten Commandments appear three times in the Bible. Each entry is different. The Jewish, Protestant and Roman Catholic versions of the Ten Commandments are similar but not identical. The precise intention of the original text was subject to interpretation as the sacred words of the Ten Commandments were translated into new languages and cultures….
Assembling Humanity’s History
So now we know that early humans bred with Neanderthals and Denisovans. We know this because genome sequences from these “evolutionary cousins” make up from 4% to 6% of the genomes of some humans. And we’ve recently learned that some of the genetic material introduced by this cross-breeding included an upgrade of our immune system’s…
Religion’s ‘Extinction’
A study based on census data suggests that religion is heading toward extinction in nine nations: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. Extinction is the wrong word to describe what’s happening in these nations. Biological extinction means a life form completely disappears. The census-takers asked people whether…
Jobs and the Gender of Divinity
Six thousand to 7,000 years ago, the pairing of domesticated oxen and primitive plows triggered an agricultural revolution in the fertile Tigris and Euphrates valley. Before the plow, women using sticks and hoes were the managers of Mesopotamian agriculture. After the physically more challenging plow was adopted, men became the managers of agriculture in Mesopotamia….
A Praying Mammal
World adherents of all religions, mid-2010: Christians: 2 billion 281 million Muslims: 1 billion 554 million Hindus: 943 million Buddhists: 463 million Chinese folk-religionists: 454 million Ethno-religionists: 270 million New religionists: 64 million Sikhs :24 million Jews: 15 million Spiritists: 14 million Taoists: 9 million Baha’is: 8 million Confucianists: 7 million Jains: 6 million Shintoists…