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doors to other worlds
Category Archives: anybody up there?
inventing God
Kyria said: Daddy, where did the world come from? To let her make up her own mind, I told her the two main western accounts: created in a week (say Christians and Muslims) and evolution. Hmm, she said, I’m not … Continue reading
surpassing Solomon
“Solomon, I have surpassed you”; that is what the 6th century Byzantine emperor Justinian is supposed to have said when he first entered the church he had commissioned, Aya Sofia, the shrine of the Holy Wisdom. In this mosaic he, … Continue reading
Posted in anybody up there?, road
Tagged Byzantium, church, Greek Orthodox, Islam, Istanbul, mosque, Turkey
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earth do not cover their blood
From the moment the bus stops, Auschwitz and Birkenau, 67 and a half years to the day after their liberation, are heaving with guided tour groups in a Babel of languages. The story goes on and on: three-and-a-half almost relentless … Continue reading
The American Future
A curious title for what is a work of thematic history about America interspersed with passages of personal reminiscence, but Simon Schama’s book was written during the 2008 election, those days of surging hope when it seemed the US might … Continue reading
Storms of My Grandchildren
This first book by James Hansen, the dean of American climate scientists and the man who introduced a mass audience to the concept of “global warming” in a Congressional hearing nearly a quarter of a century ago, was published right … Continue reading
Byzantium by bus
And so, 30 years after I first conceived the ambition while turning right at Thessaloniki, I came not sailing but on a highway bus (aware, always, of the tyre-tracks of history) to Istanbul-Constantinople-Byzantium. The rain had cleared and we descended … Continue reading
Posted in anybody up there?, road
Tagged Byzantium, church, Greek Orthodox, Islam, Istanbul, mosque, Ottoman, religion, Roman Empire, Thrace, Turkey
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mosque heaven: Edirne
From Samothraki I took the ferry before dawn back to Alexandroupoli, arriving in brilliant, freezing sunshine. After 20 minutes, the bus to Orestiada turned inland into thick fog, passing through small towns among roads lined with white single-storey Thracian cottages … Continue reading
The God Delusion
I suppose how you receive Richard Dawkins might depend on where you start from. A lot of his points about the folly of religious thinking in this book seem perfectly reasonable, if not unarguable, to the point where it almost … Continue reading
Posted in anybody up there?, read
Tagged atheism, book review, religion, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
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great gods
New Year’s Day: back in Thessaloniki, I opened the local bottle of red I had bought on the mountain, and drank it. Then I went out, tensing my shoulders in the sub-zero night, and found what seemed to be the … Continue reading
Posted in anybody up there?, road
Tagged financial crisis, Greece, Macedonia, religion, Salonica, Samothrace, Samothraki, temple, Thessaloniki, Thrace
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old religion, new year
now the rain came pouring down; it was cold, my shoe was letting in water, and I had no place to stay. Regretting that I hadn’t taken the ferry back to the world, I sheltered in the doorway of one … Continue reading
Posted in anybody up there?, road
Tagged Athos, Byzantium, church, Greece, Greek Orthodox, Mount Athos, religion
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Curved World 