It's not really "new". It's just...not the Late Middle Ages anymore.
The Roman Catholic Church is a lot less centralized than it appears. In many cases, archdioceses are very autonomous and local church leaders may...
Oh it's been like this for...whew, since I've been here. Which was, oh, 2005? When I was just starting high school. There's a reason I only rarely...
It's not something baked into religion, it's something baked in the wider patriarchal society. Religion just reflects the society in which it...
It's been pretty well-accepted in the social sciences, anthropology especially, to define religion in terms of a confluence of worldview and ritual...
The ancient polytheistic religions weren't based on astrology, I don't know where you're getting your information. These gods were interacted with by...
I'm a (poly)theist and I don't reject evolution at all. You're making overgeneralizations again.
Revelatory experiences are the most overt, though other kinds of personal experiences are common among the deliberately religious.
No. I believe the gods sprang, many at once, after the physical universe began.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. Now, taken together they are mutually exclusive with omnibenevolence. That's (one of the reasons) why I don't...
Yeah, being one of the first civilizations will do that for ya. Because my main focus is Classical Greek and Roman civilization. Different era,...
Yeah I don't know where you're getting that the Sumerians are some mystery that is kept secret from people. My world history classes as far back as...
We have. Numerous time. For years.
No. Science is a method of discovering knowledge, based on experimentation. It has no rituals, no specific creed or belief system. There's a loose...
Not exactly. Hypothetically, they don't have to. Daoism and Buddhism emphasize ethics and lifestyle, because they were not designed to supplant the...
We have to settle for "likely" in lieu of evidence of what Neolithic people thought and believed. There is evidence that deliberately producing...
It very often is.
Humans are instinctively inclined to see patterns, even in phenomena where there is no pattern. It is likely one of the sources of human spirituality.
Religion, in general and throughout history, does not work like that. You cannot use Christianity as the template for understanding world religions;...
Religion is the structure through which a people or a culture or a community interfaces with things that they find to be sacred, i.e. numinous or...
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