Tag: religion

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Lucid, ambitious, and provocative

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Indian historian, 1990 Kerala-born, Manu Pillai’s Gods, Guns and Missionaries is a survey of four centuries of Hinduism’s interaction with other faiths to explore the myths of true Hinduism. When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned woman alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But it quickly became clear that Hindu “idolatry” was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses … Continue reading Lucid, ambitious, and provocative

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Combine curiosity, irreverence, power of calmness and warmth to deal with difficult people

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Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural economist at the London School of Economics, defines Beliefism as a discrimination against those with different beliefs to us. In today’s civil discourse, one exacerbated by the anger-stoking effects of digital doomscrolling and the perverse incentives the media has constructed for political discourse (Anyone who changes policy in response to criticism, for example, is gleefully reported to have performed a “humiliating U-turn”.) The citizens of the US and UK are becoming more polarised and inclined to avoid altogether those who aren’t their ideological comrades. Do you really avoid people who are strongly against immigration? … Continue reading Combine curiosity, irreverence, power of calmness and warmth to deal with difficult people

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The giant Trauma

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The German Peasants’ War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the 1789 French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as thousands of people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The peasants took control of vast areas of southern and middle Germany, torching and plundering the monasteries, convents, and castles that stood in their way. But they would prove no match for the forces of the lords, who put down the revolt by slaying somewhere between seventy and a hundred thousand peasants in just over two … Continue reading The giant Trauma

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The Culture of encounter

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Hope is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Pope Francis, the first Latin American and the first Jesuit to head the Catholic Church, goes where no pontiffs have not dared, originally intended this book to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope have moved him to make this precious legacy available now. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the twentieth century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through … Continue reading The Culture of encounter

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Complexities of Hinduism

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One of India’s most accomplished historian makes a vital intervention, about Hinduism that begins with a maharaja’s cow sounds, reptiles with spices, mystery and backward traditions. When Europeans missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism as they saw it, was a pagan mess a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But soon it became clear that Hindu idolatry was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses with Christianity.  Manu … Continue reading Complexities of Hinduism

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Fear whipped up by ambitious politicians peddlers of fantastical lies

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In 1678, a handful of perjurers claimed that the Catholics of England planned to assassinate the King Charles II. Men like the “ Reverend Doctor” Titus Oates and “Captain” William Bedloe parlayed their fantastical tales of Irish ruffians, medical poisoners, and silver bullets into public adulation and government pensions. Their political allies used the fabricated plot as a tool to undermine the ministry of Thomas Lord Danby and replace him themselves. The result was the trial and execution of over a dozen innocent Catholics and the imprisonment of many more, some of whom died in custody. Victor Stater reveals the … Continue reading Fear whipped up by ambitious politicians peddlers of fantastical lies

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How can be broaden our minds

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Academic philosopher, Simon Critchley explores why Mysticism is about existential ecstasy – an experience of heightening one’s senses and self into a sheer feeling of aliveness and provides a fascinating overview of Christianity’s great outliers. Mystical experiences offers us a practical way to open out thoughts and deepen the sense of our lives, whether through a mainstream connection to God or by taking part in mind-altering experiences. Whether so-called “mystical” experiences are felt to be religious, spiritual aesthetic or something else, people have been trying to report, describe, and make sense of this strange kind of ecstasy for a thousand … Continue reading How can be broaden our minds

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I don’t think you know what’s coming – ecstatic misery

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A story of live and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends Thomas Hart, a journalist on the Essex Chronicle, and Grace Macauley (17),  small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of Maym and who is “by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful , but not hers”. worshipers at the Bethesda Baptist chapel in the small fictional Essex town of Aldleigh.  Thomas who is 50 and writes a column for the newspaper on scientific and astronomical topics, which brings him into connection … Continue reading I don’t think you know what’s coming – ecstatic misery

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William Wragg resigns party whip over Honeytrap malicious communications

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William Wragg, the MP, has voluntarily given up the Conservative whip, after admitting sharing fellow MPs personal phone numbers with someone on dating app targeted by a suspected  Westminster honeytrap plot. Mr Wragg, the MP from Hazel Grove, who has also given up his roles on the 1922 backbench committee and the Public Administration Committee, will now sit as an independent MP in the House of Commons.  Mr Wragg after chatting with someone on an app sent explicit uncompromising pictures and who subsequently asked him for the telephone numbers of other MPS, said “ They had compromising things on me. … Continue reading William Wragg resigns party whip over Honeytrap malicious communications

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Caught in the honeytrap of malicious communications

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William Wragg, a senior Conservative MP, chairman of a Commons select committee, has admitted his involvement in a honeytrap sexting scandal targeting a minister and fellow MPs, told he handed over the personal phone numbers of colleagues to a man he met on Grindr, a gay dating app. The vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers said that he provided the details after sending intimate pictures of himself to the user. Wragg said he was “scared” that the man ” had compromising things on me”. Those colleagues who included several MPs, members of their staff and a political journalist … Continue reading Caught in the honeytrap of malicious communications