Stop, think, chew
Rather than looking for secular surrogates, we should look for other ways to cultivate the virtues that ritual promotes. Such practices need to be at least as embedded in our daily routines as prayers are for believers.
ReadCategory: Articles & Essays
Ebooks v paper
Because it is obvious that reading is important, it can easily seem self-evident what reading is. Perhaps the real contribution of ereaders will be to make us re-examine that assumption.
ReadAtheists: The Origin of the Species – review
A thorough history of atheism is long overdue. The godless may not at first be pleased to discover that the person who has stepped up to the plate to write it comes from the ranks of the opposition. But Nick Spencer, research director of the Christian thinktank Theos, is the kind of intelligent, thoughtful, sympathetic critic that atheists need, if only to remind them that belief in God does not necessarily require a loss of all reason.
ReadThe problems of describing mental illness
We are often told that there is still a stigma surrounding mental illness. It is therefore strange that the England cricketer Jonathan Trott was stigmatised for allegedly not having one. Trott left the England tour of Australia in November citing a “long-standing, stress-related condition”. But when he gave an interview last month explaining that he was burnt out rather than depressed, the former England captain Michael Vaughan said that he felt “a little bit conned”, saying, “When I hear players talking about burnout, I suspect it is an excuse.”
ReadCameron’s ‘vague faith’ is nothing to fear
It’s only when religion is brought into the workings of government and state that we should be worried. The distinction indignant atheists are failing to make is between a Christian country and a Christian state. Our laws and public institutions should indeed be independent of any faith or belief group, but this is entirely compatible with society being dominantly Christian.
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