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e64d4ae
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We wouldn't expect to gather crucial information about modern cultures from their knives, forks, hammers, and screwdrivers, so why should we suddenly set different standards when we try to understand the ancient world?
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archaeology
culture
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Graham Hancock |
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7df9ae6
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It is often said that we live in a youth culture. It's a lie. We live in an old culture. We idolize youth because we are old. We are tired and bored. Ancient cultures respected the old because those cultures were young. They were not bored.
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culture
philosophy
youth
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Peter Kreeft |
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1270f80
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If there is a religious agency in our lives, it has to appear in the manner of our times. Not from on high, but a revelation that hides itself in our culture, it will be ground-level, on the street, it'll be coming down the avenue in the traffic, hard to tell apart from anything else.
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culture
spirituality
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E.L. Doctorow |
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7bfe75c
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"Criminals beheaded in Palermo, heretics burned alive in Toledo, assassins drawn and quartered in Paris--Europeans flocked to every form of painful death imaginable, free entertainment that drew huge crowds. London, the historian Fernand Braudel tells us, held public executions eight times a year at Tyburn, just north of Hyde Park. (The diplomat Samuel Pepys paid a shilling for a good view of a Tyburn hanging in 1664; watching the victim beg for mercy, he wrote, was a crowd of "at least 12 or 14,000 people.") In most if not all European nations, the bodies were impaled on city walls and strung along highways as warnings. "The corpses dangling from trees whose distant silhouettes stand out against the sky, in so many old paintings, are merely a realistic detail," Braudel observed. "They were part of the landscape." Between 1530 and 1630, according to Cambridge historian V.A.C. Gatrell, England executed seventy-five thousand people. At that time, its population was about three million, perhaps a tenth that of the Mexica empire. Arithmetic suggests that if England had been the size of the Triple Alliance, it would have executed, on average, 7,500 people per year, roughly twice the number Cortes estimated for the empire. France and Spain were still more bloodthirsty than England, according to Braudel."
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culture
europe
history
human-sacrifice
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Charles C. Mann |
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15c184f
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How youMore people will learn about IBM from Wikipedia in the coming years than from IBM itself.
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credibility
culture
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Thomas L. Friedman |
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03a9bd8
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There is no room for rosy eyed acceptance of the cultural decay around us. Highly suspect will be any Christian literary and cultural critic who makes too much room for Lady Gaga, Harry Potter, Hester Prynne, Huckleberry Finn, James Bond, Katniss Everdeen, Joe Brooks, Leroy Van Dyke, and Star Trek: Into Darkness. Those who enthusiastically embrace these cultural icons appear to be happy with the macro-cultural trends of the Christian apostate world. That being the case, what does this say about their faith, their worldview, and their own cultural trajectories? Could it be that they have embraced the tattooed Jesus---the false Christs of culture? Indeed, many have been wooed by a false prophet, a false priest, a false redeemer, and a false king. They have been rescued from the wrong sins and have taken on the wrong view of reality, truth, and. ethics. They have embraced the wrong religion, and they have joined the apostasy.
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christianity
culture
pop-culture
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Kevin Swanson |
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d19a9ef
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The general air of insecurity and affection made it too easy for him to imagine these once-a-year fabulous creatures as the cubicle dwellers most of them were in everyday life.
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civilization
culture
mediocrity
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charlie huston |
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71764e7
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In California, after weeks of meeting transported Americans from practically every state in the Union, I announced to Kareem that I liked these strange loud people, the Americans. When he asked me why, I had difficulty in voicing what I felt in my heart. I finally said: 'I believe this marvellous mixture of cultures has brought civilization closer to reality than in any other culture in history.' I was certain Kareem did not understand what I meant and I tried to explain. 'So few countries manage complete freedom for all their citizens without chaos; this has been accomplished in this huge land. It appears impossible for large numbers of people to stay on a course of freedom for all when so many options are available. Just imagine what would happen in the Arab world; a country the size of America would have a war a minute, with each man certain he had the only correct answer for the good of all! In our lands, men look no farther than their own noses for a solution. Here, it is different.' Kareem looked at me in amazement. Not used to a woman interested in the greater scheme of things, he questioned me into the night to learn my thoughts on various matters. It was obvious that my husband was not accustomed to a woman with opinions of her own. He seemed in utter shock that I thought of political issues and the state of the world. Finally, he kissed me on the neck and said that I would continue my education once we returned to Riyadh. Irritated at his tone of permission, I told him I was not aware that my education was up for discussion.
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arab-world
culture
opinions
politics
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Jean Sasson |
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3f7bed1
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"...the social conscience completely dominates the individual conscience, instead of striking a balance with it. We don't cooperate--we . We fear being outcast, being called lazy, dysfunctional, egoizing. We fear ur neighbor's opinion more than we respect our own freedom of choice.
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culture
freedom
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Ursula K. Le Guin |
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d9ac447
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In the context of today, this WAS heroism.
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culture
discipleship
humility
maturation
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John Howard Griffin |
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d07e7ff
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Cooking gave us not just the meal but also the occasion: the practice of eating together at an appointed time and place. This was something new under the sun, for the forager of raw food would have likely fed himself on the go and alone, like all the other animals. (Or, come to think of it, like the industrial eaters we've more recently become, grazing at gas stations and eating by ourselves whenever and wherever.) But sitting down to common meals, making eye contact, sharing food, and exercising self-restraint all served to civilize us.
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culture
eating
food
history
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Michael Pollan |
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5ebd0d1
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From all accounts, it seems the faithful opposition is reduced to Gideon's 300. The day has arrived for Christians to engage the battle...From now on, true Christians will engage the battle of ideas in academy. The time for giving up ground is over. Now we must fight. We must engage the [B]iblical worldview vigorously in the world of great literature. The greatests wars ever fought in history are not those fought by sword or artillery. The greatest battles are engaged in the realm of ideas
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culture
dominion
postmillenial
postmillenialism
worldview
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Kevin Swanson |
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c2cbf10
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I'm Jewish in the way Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.
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culture
discipleship
word-of-god
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A.J. Jacobs |
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48aa1d6
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"The refusal to examine Islamic culture and traditions, the sordid dehumanization of Muslims, and the utter disregard for the intellectual traditions and culture of one of the world's great civilizations are characteristic of those who disdain self-reflection and intellectual inquiry. Confronting this complexity requires work and study rather than a retreat into slogans and cliches. And enlightened, tolerant civilizations have flourished outside the orbit of the United Sates and Europe. The ruins of the ancient Mughal capital, Fatehpur Sikri, lie about 100 miles south of Delhi. The capital was constructed by the emperor Akbar the Great at the end of the sixteenth century. The emperor's court was filled with philosophers, mystics and religious scholars, including Sunni, Sufi, and Shiite Muslims, Hindu followers of Shiva and Vishnu, as well as atheists, Christians, Jains, Jews , Buddhists and Zoroastrians. They debated ethics and beliefs. He forbade any person to be discriminated against on the basis of belief and declared that everyone was free to follow any religion. This took place as the Inquisition was at its height in Spain and Portugal, and as Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake in Rome's Campo de Fiori.
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culture
islam
religion
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Chris Hedges |
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abac720
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The tribal pull of patriotism could have no better testimony.
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culture
identity
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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e0ffb8a
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All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre.
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culture
materialism
nationalism
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0f964d6
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Disorder is the least tolerable up sinful conditions.
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culture
sinful-fabric
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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435cc61
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The average Harvard freshman in 1952 would have placed in the bottom 10 percent of the incoming class by 1960.
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culture
meritocracy
middle-class
stratification
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Charles Murray |
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49f8fda
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"Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the "sin" of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, "Our culture's approach to other cultures is superior to yours."
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culture
relativism
religion
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Timothy J. Keller |
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d644b4b
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New York's perennial attraction was shopping.
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culture
materialism
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Erik Larson |
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f787236
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They looked more like day laborers than seamen.
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competence
confidence
culture
professionalism
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Erik Larson |
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15a722f
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The farm work they hated was the only work they knew. Often, even the basic skills of plumbing or electricity or mechanical work were mysteries to them - as were the job discipline and the subtleties that children raised in the industrial world learn without thinking about them; starting work on time, working set hours, taking orders from strangers instead of their father, playing office politics.
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culture
culture-shock
education
job-training
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Robert A. Caro |
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636c5aa
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The habit of mobility had become ingrained.
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culture
impatience
openness
technology
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Doris Kearns Goodwin |