Daily Archives: May 21, 2010

The City of Lancaster, in California, is sued for offering sectarian prayers to Jesus before council meetings

Surprise, surprise. As fundamentalists so frequently do when obtaining power, the fundamentalists who dominate the Lancaster City Council (particularly the mayor, R. Rex Parris, and council persons Sherry Marquez and Ron Smith) have overplayed their hand, drawing a lawsuit against the city. … Continue reading

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In heaven as it is on earth? Are religious mysticism and Hegel’s “aufgehoben” (transmutation) sublimated forms of masochism?

The 81-year-old sociologist Peter Berger thinks that they are. In his book on the sociology of religion, The Sacred Canopy  (1967), he wrote this of mysticism (64): The extent to which the mystical surrender may be called masochistic varies empirically, … Continue reading

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