Last weekend we watched “The Fellowship of the Ring” with our neighbors. Watching how much Gandalf behaves as a “normal” person is curious for those of us who have read a lot of scifi/fantasy novels. The magic doesn’t play a central role in the story, and no magic “system” is evident. Magic is used rarely, […]
Tag Archive for 'modernity'
I’m reading Terry Eagleton’s terrific book After Theory currently, and nearly every other page provides me with something to say to myself “wow, I should blog this quote.” Here’s one of them:
…the modern period has made moral questions hard to handle. It is not only because in a complex society there are too many answers rather […]
It seems to me that we have a crisis of authority in our world today. Speaking from my own experience, I grew up in a church in a very religious town. The authorities of church, teacher and home all taught me a certain set of truths and values. Everything was fine and dandy until I […]
Today, people are fearful of germs. Yesterday, people were fearful of demons and/or vengeful gods.
Yesterday, people would go to enormous lengths to propitiate the wrath of these spiritual beings, offering sacrifices and the like. Today, we make the modern sacrifice of spending ridiculous amounts of money on granite countertops and recessed sinks to avoid germs on […]
