Asians show no sign of a collective death-wish. They are generally proud of their ethnicity and nationality. This, I will argue, has much to do with their general attitude toward their ancestors. Ancestor worship is an essential part of Asian traditions, and although it has receded in big cities, it is still widely practiced. Anthropologists... Read More

Jérôme Fourquet’s The French Archipelago provides a kind of dynamic radioscopy of the French nation as she has developed in recent decades. The picture, as detailed in my review of the book, is one of the fading away of the old sociological left and right, leaving behind a fragmented subcultural and political landscape, divided in... Read More

Feelings don’t care about facts. The mass hysteria that’s gripped the Western world after the death of George Floyd can’t be explained in rational terms. Police are shooting fewer unarmed black men each year, and most of the shootings are justified. Police are more likely to shoot a non-threatening white than a non-threatening black. In... Read More

I’ve heard that, as part of new amendments to the Russian Constitution, President Putin proposes to include the Russian people’s “faith in God,” and a definition of marriage as a “union of a man and a woman.” I’m a bit skeptical about the news, but if true, I think it’s a great idea. If voted... Read More

Just got back to Guadalajara and environs after two weeks of Christmas in Washington. Good times were had, old friends seen, but it was not altogether a delight. Going back to America every nine months or a year is like watching something decay in time-lapse photography. It can be a shock. Arriving in the Virginia... Read More

If it can be said that Europeans are today largely blind to Jewish aggressions, then Christians are among those fumbling around in deepest darkness. Historian Jonas Alexis once remarked that, contrary to older Christian anger at depictions of Jesus and Christianity in the Talmud, no such reactions are evident in relation to modern the Jewish... Read More

It’s not surprising that Robert “Beto” O’Rourke wanted to apply an ideological test on churches, it’s just surprising he felt so comfortable saying so. Even liberal journalists admit stripping tax-exempt status from churches that oppose homosexual marriage is unconstitutional. However, there has been a concerted effort in the Main Stream Media from The New York... Read More

I recall a saying of the twentieth century that neither religion nor politics are to be discussed in polite company. Cat

After three weeks in Saigon for Tet, I’m back in Ea Kly. It’s 5:33AM as I begin this, and I’ll type until 6:45, to begin my work day at the plastic recycling plant. As usual, I sit at Mrs. Ha’s cafe. I’m her first customer. Unlike Saigon, it’s chilly here. Appearing suddenly from the shadow... Read More

Introduction by the Saker: I have always had a passion for theology in general and the studies of religions in general. Several years ago I discovered, quite by chance, a book written by Michael A. Hoffman II entitled Judaism's Strange Gods which I found most interesting and thought provoking. Reading that book, I felt that... Read More

Atheists are genetic mutants who, for the most part, would never have been born if we hadn’t managed to break free of pre-industrial conditions of Darwinian selection. This was the conclusion of a paper published just before Christmas in the leading journal Evolutionary Psychological Science[The Mutant Says in His Heart, “There Is No God”: The... Read More

Two recent controversies about the religious freedom of public and political officials have provoked similar outrage among my fellow social conservatives. I’d like to respectfully suggest that there’s a difference, and that conservatives are mistaken to equate the two. The outrage about one of the stories is absolutely justified. The hounding of British Liberal Democratic... Read More

In today’s irreligious and indeed anti-religious climate the fashion is to dismiss Christianity as crude superstition, and to babble wisely about the separation of church and state. This is unfortunate, and stupid, since Christianity was the heart and soul of as yet the greatest civilization the world has seen. Those who know nothing of it... Read More

Philly is blessed with a generous allotment of public space at its very center. On any day of the week, weather permitting, there are throngs of people at LovePark, DillworthPark and near the Clothespin. Around this 45-foot-tall sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, I’ve seen an assortment of petty hustlers selling everything from loosies to oddball T-shirts,... Read More

Dear friends, Christ is Risen! I have enjoyed a much needed break, but I could not fully forget about the blog and a few current events. Many of you have asked me for my reaction to the meeting between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis but at the time I decided not to comment about it.... Read More

Religiosity is moderately heritable—25 to 45% according to twin studies (Bouchard, 2004; Lewis and Bates, 2013). These figures are of course underestimates, since any noise in the data gets classified as ‘non-genetic’ variability. So the estimates would be higher if we could measure religiosity better. But what does it mean to be religious? Does it... Read More

It's that time again. There's been another horrific high-profile mass shooting. And as usual, all the nonsense that typically circulates when that happens is circulating again. "We need more gun control!" "The problem is mental illness!" Or "it's not mental illness!" "It's racism!" Chris Harper Mercer added another layer to the matter – the fact... Read More

On the Unz Review I find a piece by Razib Khan, Can a Religious Person be a Good Scientist? His answer, yes, is inarguable since, as he points out, many good scientists are religious (Newton, a Christian, by most accounts did pretty fair work.) But why should it be necessary to ask such a luminously... Read More