Aug 17th, 2010
I’ve avoided writing about this whole “ground zero mosque” fiasco simply because I was hoping it would drop out of public conversation. Seriously, you’re going to object to a house of worship in an American city? On patriotic grounds? Really? I hesitate even to link to these fearmongers, for fear of enhancing their cause. The [...]
May 24th, 2010
You’ve probably heard the NPR show “Speaking of Faith,” and you probably have an opinion on it. What you may not know is that the host of the show, Krista Tippett, just wrote a new book called Einstein’s God, a collection of interviews from the show, on the topic of science and religion, one of [...]
May 14th, 2010
So author Phillip Pullman (of The Golden Compass fame) has a new novel out. Pullman, an avowed atheist, wrote The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ right in the middle of the controversy over the movie version of The Golden Compass, and whether it would turn our children into little avowed atheists–which it wouldn’t, [...]
May 6th, 2010
MM can not resist the jaw-dropping Pope story of the day. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Pope Benedict has affirmed the authenticity of the much-maligned Shroud of Turin. The cloth, which has been scientifically dated to about 800 years ago, says the embattled head of the Catholic church, was nonetheless the actual garment of [...]
Oct 20th, 2009
The worship of idols has been given a bad rap ever since the Bible’s golden calf. Putting your faith in earthly things, rather than heavenly ideas, was considered heretical, not to mention embarrassing and primitive. But as you might be able to tell from MM’s obsessions with skulls, stones, and trees, I’m actually a big [...]
Aug 28th, 2009
Dear Reader, please forgive the Mythographer as she geeks out: I just have to note how excited I was to read James Wood’s piece in this week’s New Yorker taking apart the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (which form the irresistible conflation “Ditchkins”) for being just as stubborn and intolerant as the [...]
Jul 29th, 2009
It would seem that those who have given up looking for the remains of the actual Noah’s Ark have decided to build it themselves. You may have heard of this Dutch guy, whose traveling Ark exhibit features “real size polyester animals and interesting scientific information on Noah’s flood.” Doesn’t seem either very scientific or very [...]
Jul 27th, 2009
In the annals of MM’s long-term surveillance of Noah’s Flood and the mythology surrounding it, perhaps no entry is weirder than that of the celebrated British engineer William Willcocks, who seemed at first to be so normal. He built the enormous Aswan Dam across the Nile in 1903, and rebuilt South Africa after the Boer [...]
Jun 5th, 2009
Allow me to be naive for a moment here. I know President Obama’s Cairo speech didn’t really say anything new; it didn’t set out specific policy initiatives; he gave it in a country run by a totalitarian regime. But part of me wants to stand up and applaud in my pajamas watching the speech on [...]