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Societies without God: immoral hell or egalitarian health? pt. 5

Posted onThursday 4 July 2013Wednesday 3 July 2013

So, a quick concluding bit, since I wrote part 4 yesterday while struggling with my brain overheating, in the last hour before the blog was supposed to update — and I’m not sure I was as clear as I could have been… and also because this is the 4th of July, and I feel the…

Societies without God: immoral hell or egalitarian health? pt. 4

Posted onWednesday 3 July 2013Thursday 4 July 2013

Okay, so now we know who doesn’t fit into Scandinavian society: those (usually) men who are heavily invested in patriarchal hierarchies. However, we also know similar types of men did very poorly when Eastern Europe broke away from the Communist bloc — yet Europe as a whole is certainly not dispensing with patriarchy. So obviously…

Societies without God: immoral hell or egalitarian health? pt. 3

Posted onTuesday 2 July 2013Monday 1 July 2013

What Is Patriarchy? In yesterday’s post I stated that the growing lack of interest in organized, patriarchal religion in Scandinavia is not some simple, casual social cause-and-effect, but rather the unplanned byproduct of the social elimination of patriarchy. This may sound startling, but I have a number of excellent reasons for this statement. First, though,…

Societies without God: immoral hell or egalitarian health? pt. 2

Posted onMonday 1 July 2013Sunday 30 June 2013

Zuckerman writes a fascinating book with a great deal of startling information in it, and I greatly enjoyed reading it. However, after pondering the book for some time, I believe the author has missed the true revelation which his data offers. He considers himself a nonbeliever/agnostic (7-8), and so this Scandinavian lack of religiosity appears…

Societies without God: immoral hell or egalitarian health? pt. 1

Posted onFriday 28 June 2013Saturday 29 June 2013

(all the numbers in brackets within this posting are citations which reference the stated page numbers within the book Society Without God by Phil Zuckerman) A common trope amongst the devout is that morality is derived from religion, and therefore a society lacking strong religious beliefs would be an utterly immoral, un-free, irrational society which…

Lazy post-travel posting ;)

Posted onWednesday 19 June 2013

Got home safe & sound, much to my relief — I really prefer my own nice little futon. Wanted a really simple crockpot recipe for my first dinner at home again, so tried this. The smell was fabulous all day long — yum! I served it with a salad first, to make sure we all…

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Daughter of Auntie of St. Louis

Posted onMonday 17 June 2013Monday 17 June 2013

One pick-up truck. Four people. One steep flight of basement stairs. Forty six comics long boxes. Ow. That, of course, does not count the boxes the day before which we (just two of us this time) hucked up the basement stairs to muggy garage and thence into the packing pod, which the company came and…

Two fascinating examples of women’s resistance to oppression

Posted onSaturday 15 June 2013Monday 10 June 2013

An excellent historical example of increasing patriarchal domination of women, and their ensuing resistance, is feminist historian and professor Ulrike Strasser’s “Bones of Contention: Catholic Nuns Resist their Enclosure.” The Pütrich nuns of Munich were established in the 13th century. Like all nuns at that time, they were not cloistered and therefore served extensively in…

The pain behind Fire Eyes

Posted onFriday 14 June 2013Monday 10 June 2013

Trigger warning: this documentary review covers female genital mutilation. Don’t read further if you are easily squicked, please. ~ * ~ *~ *~ *~ * ~ We see activism as it happens in Soraya Miré’s short 1994 documentary film Fire Eyes. As a victim of the practice who has chosen to become a survivor, her…

Wisdom worth listening to: Daughters of Mother Earth

Posted onThursday 13 June 2013Monday 10 June 2013

Daughters of Mother Earth: The Wisdom of Native American Women, edited by Barbara Alice Mann, offers us a view of ecofeminism rooted in indigenous women’s teachings (one caveat: when I use “we,” I am recognizing that I, like the Whites being written about, am speaking from a position of social privilege which is and should…