A story of the secular that assumes a progressive and inevitable move from more religious to less religious is a reduction of experience to the point of actual and symbolic violence. It is an ethnocentric projection which prolongs a sense that We have superseded history to take an objective position. It seeks to de-anthropologise one set of human values in relation to another. … More The secular is not just about religion.
You may have noticed that I’ve been tweeting in the last week about the first results from the Republic’s census. For policy and research twonks like me, the release dates of census data in Ireland are good days. They’re good days because we all get to see the results of a counting process across a … More Armies for No Religion
Is it coy of me or just naive to question the conditions under which a discussion of gay marriage takes place on a topical TV show? Last night as I settled on the couch with a beer (brought by a friend staying the night), I switched over to Channel 4’s 10 O’Clock Live. … More The clapping, always with the clapping.
Now it’s getting interesting. Very probably as a result of what happened in the lead up to, and subsequent publication of, the Ryan report on abuse in industrial schools, Reynolds and Healy have gone independent. That’s Brigid Reynolds and Sean Healy, you know, formerly CORI Justice? Oh wait, Fr. Sean and Sr Brigid? Right, now … More Ryan report – real results
One of the repeating themes in my reading right now is that of the assumed division between subject and object, the private and the public. This is a division that arose in Western thought in the seventeenth century and is characterised by the compatibility of holding private beliefs (about religion for example) and public practice … More An emergent theme?
53 degrees 