Don't throw Foucault out with the Judith Butler bathwater

While I like Helen Pluckrose and agree with much of Critical Cynical Theories, here is an antithesis from the Genspect Bigger Picture Conference last month. 

Heather Brunskell-Evans, a Quaker and a philosopher, explains why we shouldn’t throw the Foucault baby out with the Judith Butler bathwater. The Confluence of Philosophy, Feminism & Queer Theory. 

Also at Genspect Bigger Picture Conference: Gender Ideology as a Religion with Colette Colfer.

Winter Solstice - the intimacy of darkness, silence and stillness

Sometimes we just need to stop, feel and rest. Just like nature does at this time of the year, when the land becomes dormant, the trees naked, and the birds quiet. Deep underneath, the soil gets ready for new growth.

Blessing poem by John O'Donohue

To create a space for all our words, 

Drawing us to listen inward and outward. 

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place 

Where the Eucharist of the ordinary happens, 

Transforming our broken fragments 

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us. 

Words That Come Before All Else

The Words That Come Before All Else address the People, Earth Mother, The Waters, Fish, Plants, Food Plants, Medicine Herbs, Trees, Birds, Four Winds, Thunderers, Sun, Grandfather Moon, Stars, Enlightened Teachers, and The Creator. Each element of the natural world is spoken to and thanked for their contributions to all life. These words bind us and promote empathy with all creation.

Bible quiz

In the King James Bible:
a) What kind of fruit did Adam and Eve eat in the Garden of Eden?
b) How many Kings travelled to see the baby Jesus in the manger?
c) What did Mary Magdalene do for a living?

Max Planck on dualism and creation

As a postscript to two-miracles, here is Max Planck on dualism and creation. Planck won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum theory.

Two miracles

There are two miracles which are routinely denied by thinkers whom I otherwise admire and respect who can be termed materialists (or atheists or physicalists). The first miracle is the creation of the universe. The second is human consciousness. I don’t understand how materialists can bring these two phenomena coherently into their system.

Cartesian Dualism, Mysterians and miracles

More links for the book group discussion on Cartesian Dualism. Sorry that so many links are to Wikipedia.

Cartesian Dualism and Free Will

This is to inform our book group discussion on Cartesian Dualism. I've added the related topic of Free Will.

Rabbits as symbol of rebirth at Christmas

Here is one of Oxfam's Christmas cards this year. It depicts rabbits in moonlight.

Only Connect

“Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.” E.M. Forster

anti-Israel is not anti-Jewish

I'm outraged by Israel's treatment of the people of Gaza and the other Palestinian territories it occupies. I'm almost as vexed by the special status given to Israel by the West, which results from its position as the USA's outpost in western Asia, from which the USA can try to control the region's oil resources for its realpolitik ends.

urban myth of devils interval banned by church

Is it an urban myth that the so-called 'devil's interval' was banned by the Catholic church in the middle ages? (It is also called the diminished fifth tritone and it's the distinctive interval in Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze.)

equinox and solstice

Great resource by Greenwich Royal Observatory at equinoxes-and-solstices. A year on Earth can be split into four as we orbit the Sun. Each fourth is marked by an equinox or solstice.

Pagan Sabbats

There are eight Sabbats that make up the Wheel of the Year. The Sabbats are solar, seasonal and represent the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. They are: Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltain, Litha, Lughnasadh, and Mabon.

The Magickal Year by Diana Ferguson

The Magickal Year by Diana Ferguson provides a historical context for pagan belief and examines our changing spirituality in conjuction with our relationships to the natural world.

A miracle for Richard Dawkins

Scene:   Nosstick and Agnes are a couple of café philosophers and, as usual, they are sitting in a café discussing life, the universe and everything. Nosstick believes in God but Agnes is not so sure.

The Ancient Meaning of Christmas

Jesus was a Sun King (maybe like Mithras of Persia and Osiris of Egypt before him). You can tell by the way he is usually depicted with a halo of sun rays shining out from around his head. He is the latest in a long line of symbols of our sun worship that is many thousands of years old. The most important date in the solar worship calendar is the winter solstice: usually 21st December. This is when the sun 'dies' and is soon 'born again'. It is when its midday zenith (its highest point in the sky) stops descending and starts ascending. The rate of descent/ascent for a few days around the solstice is so slow that it is imperceptible to the naked eye. Not until telescopes were perfected by Galileo in the seventeenth century could astronomers see the infinitesimal changes in the sun's zenith either side of the solstice. Before that they had to work it out logically as Ptolemy did in ancient Greece by recording the sun's zenith through December and January and calculating the time of the solstice after the event. For thousands of years people saw the sun reach its lowest ebb and 'die' until, on the third day, it slowly began its re-ascent towards the summer solstice, bringing with it the promise of new life, another spring and another summer. They created the myth of the sun resurrecting itself on the third day.

Most people today know that the Christian church took over the pagan rebirth festivals of Yule and Easter and incorporated aspects that they couldn't erase. One important detail, mentioned several times in the Gospels and featured in the Eucharist or Mass, is how Jesus’ death is followed by his resurrection on the third day. Although Christianity has woven the myth of the resurrection on the third day into the rebirth festival of Easter rather than the birth festival of Christmas, it is nevertheless an example of Christianity building its myth on the ancient sun-worshipers' meaning. The Meaning of Christmas and of Yule before it is that, even in the darkest time, there is hope for the future.

As the Beatles said, "Here comes the Sun King, everybody’s laughing, everybody’s happy ... "

Yule log

The meaning of the Yule log, as I understand it, is that is a log that comes, not completely burned, from last year's Yule celebration, in order to be burned in this year's Yule celebration,  Thus it provides continuity from one year to the next. Obviously, next year's Yule log, which is to be set aside for from this year's Yule fire, is unlikely to be the same one as this year's. It is likely to be one that was only partially burned in this year's Yule celebration.