Of Marigolds and Minarets
Starting with the towers
Does architecture have cultural significance? You bet:
... people in Switzerland, across Europe and notably in France – where stagnating birthrates and a breathtaking influx of Muslim immigrants are swamping these nations with a newly powerful Islamic presence – are terrified. They're terrified because suddenly their countries are awash in adherents to a religion that glorifies death, subjugates women and threatens with violence anyone who dares to oppose it. Like the fictional towers of the snake cult of Set in Conan, the minarets of Islam are rising over the formerly free people of these Western cultures, and these individuals are aghast and afraid of what awaits them.
The entire article is here.
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Can a plant die?
But how can something die that was never alive?
Evolutionary thought ties the function of life all the way from single-cell organisms to humanity. Paramecium, plants, pollywogs, primates, and people are merely increasingly more complex assemblages of cells that have "developed" over deep time. In practice, plants are considered to be just as alive as are people. The life sciences include botany as well as biology .... However, there is a popular teaching among evangelicals that physical death was part of God's original "good" creation. This dangerous doctrine is partially based on the "scientific fact" that plants are living things, and since God commanded humans to use these living plants as food, they "kill" plants when they eat them.
Vegans, at least, can heave a collective sigh of relief now.
Read the entire article here.
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—Mike Gray