Author Archives: Grant

Giving Sacred Thanks without God

A fellow scholar and a good friend of mine recently pointed me to this article, in which the conservative religious world apparently recycles its concern over the perceived religious vacuousness of Obama, based on the fact that he did not … Continue reading

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Garamantes, Ancient Civilizations, and the Material Basis of Knowledge

I was very excited to read in the Guardian about the Garamantes.  I had not known of the Garamantes before reading the article, and I am always excited to discover a new civilization.  The Garamantes were a pre-Arabic, Berber, urban … Continue reading

Posted in Reflections, Research, Teaching, World Religion | Leave a comment

September 11th Remembrance

I tell my students that I evaluate their work not only on its qualities, but its character.  In academic work, that usually means that I need to see that they show a concern for academic virtues like honesty, judgment, and … Continue reading

Posted in Current Events, Reflections | Leave a comment

Eastern Religions and Science

Philip Goldberg argues, over at Huffington Post, that Eastern Religions are more friendly to science then their Western counterparts.  The claim is a little simplistic, for sure, but interesting to think about.  One only has to think about the many … Continue reading

Posted in Nature and Science, Reflections | Leave a comment

More on beliefnet

Paul Harvey has an additional comment on BeliefNet, re-framing it into the discussion of religion in the marketplace.  Studying large media institutions, especially commercial ones like Beliefnet, is a significant contribution to examining religion in America, but I often find … Continue reading

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BeliefNet

I learned today from the Wild Hunt that BeliefNet has been sold to BN Media.  Jason does a good job of identifying some affiliations of BeliefNet’s new owners and the potential shake up this might bring for alternative religions.  Honestly, … Continue reading

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Learning from Ritual

For the past several months, in addition to coordinating and Online Writing Lab and teaching two sections of Introduction to Comparative Religion, I have been teaching a graduate class for Cherry Hill Seminary called Understanding the Ritual Experience.  For those … Continue reading

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Updates and Changes

Well, after some work I’ve done a major overhaul on the web page. I’ve decided to cut the old wiki and just use WordPress for content managing on the whole web-page. This means getting rid of the old blog and … Continue reading

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