Isis reveres the earliest, “purest” days of the religion, as practised under the Prophet Mohammed and his followers in the seventh century. Some 1,400 years later, it has built a repressive apparatus to recreate that ideal. Anyone deemed “heretical” has to carry a “repentance card” to show allegiance to Isis. Dozens of “un-Islamic” activities are …
Continue reading ‘The death throes of outdated religion? Or not?’ »
The following is a comment by Owen Bell, a contributor to this blog. It is particularly apposite in view of the strident militarism of some election candidates: “One of the reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire was perpetual warfare. They were constantly engaged in battle against the Germanic and Celtic tribes, to say …
The Metro Section of the Washington Post on February 16 carried an article asking “When things started going downhill” (it was a tongue-in-cheek article, and quite amusing). A Mr. Norm Phlion complained that the decline of American civilisation began when Johnson & Johnson removed the tiny red thread from Band-Aid wrappers that made applying a …
Psychiatrists now call disabling grief after the death of someone you are close to “pathological”. This is after only two months after the death. In a book called “Death’s Summer Coat” Brandy Schillace comments,”The modern Westerner has lost loss; death as a communal event, and mourning as a communal practice, have been steadily killed off.” The …
A most interesting thing has happened over the last twenty-five years or so. The story of Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor, has been transformed into a conservative anti-tax message, where, instead of the baddies being rich aristocrats and Norman landowners, the targets are now the modern “spongers”, the idle and …
