Photo by Aniket Bhattacharya on Unsplash As a child growing up Roman Catholic, I remember hearing my Sunday school religious education teachers always telling us that Easter was the most important religious holiday. I could never figure out why – because Christmas was so much more fun particularly since it involved getting a lot of presents. To me, Easter seemed boring. As a child I could even grasp the religious importance of Jesus, as the savior, coming into the world – but

Photo by Stephan Widua on Unsplash One of the most famous examples of the conflict between religion and science was the situation with Galileo and the Catholic Church. In 1632, Galileo published a work that defended the heliocentric theory which said the earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around. This was heresy according to the Church because in the Book of Joshua it says Joshua prayed to have the sun remain stationary in the sky to allow for more daylig

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash The actions of prophets and their prophecies have been around since the dawn of civilization. So, just what is a prophet? Very generally speaking, a prophet is one who takes stock of the world around them and then offers predictions on what will happen in the world in the near or long-term future. This is true in both a religious and secular sense. George Orwell was considered a secular prophet when, in the 1940s, he wrote his books “1984” and

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash Many years ago, I was sailing half a year on commercial ships engaged in worldwide trade and spending the other half of the year as a professor of nautical science at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. I did this for many years. I remember every year when a new class had been at the Academy for several months, some professors would grumble that “this group of midshipmen is terrible. They don’t know anything, and they are poor students

Photo by Jordan McDonald on Unsplash Humans love to celebrate new beginnings, especially marked by a new year. The earliest known example of a new year’s celebration goes back to about 2000 BCE in Babylon – that’s 4000 years ago. This time was marked by the spring equinox which occurs in our March – the day of equal light and equal darkness. The celebration was called “Akitu” and was marked by various religious rituals, singing, dancing, and feasting. The holiday even include