The Genetically Modified Skeptic YouTube channel offers a cogent comparison of religious/cultic themes in the Mad Max universe with real-world fascistic (and anti-fascistic) movements. Readers with a taste for Mad Max cult action may also enjoy this behind-the-scenes glimpse into the training of the actors and stuntmen who played Immortan Joe’s War Boys.
According to The Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth: If compassionate and wise beings don’t create the religion of this age, others will. In recent years, religion has evolved more quickly than any other force on Earth. Powerful leaders are now publicly claiming things that would have seemed absurd ten years ago, … Read more“Cyborgs Need a Trustworthy Religion”
Recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, where I was heartened and intrigued to note that traditional Māori cultural/spiritual symbolism is increasingly being incorporated into public space design. The photo above is of Te Ātea (“the Space”) on the Lake Taupo foreshore: There are a number of different elements that come together to form … Read moreTe Ātea and the Potentials of Civic Mythopoetics in New Zealand
Pavol Kosnáč writes for the Abide University and Institute website – AUI itself being the laid-back academic branch of the Dudeist faith – on the subject of pop-culture religions; As Terry Pratchett once said, religion requires believers – if there is no religion, the god is not believed in, and ceases to be ‘god’ to … Read more“Pop Culture – a New Source of Spirituality?”
In the aftermath of the 2024 American elections, Lucien Greaves writes: It is often mystifying to me that people come to us and say, if only it were not Satan. But it is Satan, because we are Satanists. Do not ask us to discard Satanism, just accept that Satanism is not for you. You can support … Read more“Looking Ahead”: a new essay by Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves
M.L Clark writes for OnlySky: One unspoken tenet of anti-theist discourse is that we are limited by the religious stories at the core of our culture. For that slice of the nonreligious spectrum, it’s not enough not to believe, personally, in a god. The nature of religion poses a narrative problem that anti-theists feel must … Read more“Solarpunk humanism: How we dream bigger than despair”
Host Aviv Shahar of the Portals podcast interviews Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey, organizers of the Metamodern Spirituality Labs at Brendan’s Sky Meadow Retreat in Vermont. My own memoir of attending the Spring 2024 Lab is available here.
Patrick Barry writes: “Living wisdom” carries this idea of a dynamic, growing, becoming, manifesting sort of project. It’s not just what some wise dudes wrote a long time ago. It’s ongoing, a living project. It, itself, can and will evolve over time, as we slowly, collectively learn. We can be less confused, more wise, more … Read more“Call it ‘Living Wisdom’”