Many of us have heard of the ‘blue moon’. This is when a full moon appears twice in one calendar month. This is a perfectly predictable astronomical phenomenon that occurs once every two or three years, infrequent enough to serve as a metaphor for rarity, as in the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’.
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In an interesting and amusing turn of events, Pastafarianism has been allowed to apply to be an official religion in Poland.
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I have been saying for some time that the internet is a real danger to religion. A new paper by Allen B. Downey of the Olin School of Engineering argues that what I had merely guessed at might be generally true. By controlling for other variables such as religious upbringing and education, the author finds that “Internet use decreases the chance of religious affiliation. Increases in Internet use since 1990, from 0 to nearly 80% of the general population, account for about 20% of the observed decrease in affiliation.” (p. 10)
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Although Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of my favorite films, I had not really thought about where the idea of the Holy Grail originated or what it represented. To me it was just another bit of medieval folklore whose origins were lost in the mists of time. In this clip, he explains some things about it.
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Islam is not one of the religions that come to mind when one thinks of providing equal status for women. Its rules about their dress and behavior in public are notorious for their restrictiveness. But at the same time, as Juan Cole points out, there is the curious phenomenon that many Muslim-majority countries have had women as their leaders, almost all of them elected to office. Here’s his list.
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The ACLU is suing the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on behalf of a pregnant woman who suffered because of their rules they enforce on all Catholic hospitals that prevent physicians from giving patients all the information and options they need to make a decision.
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