Raymond Argyle

If the Gods don't care ..., Dec 25 2011

The scientists searching for the God Particle -- the phenomenon that turned energy into mass at the time of the Big Bang to create the universe as we know it -- say they're closing in on their quarry.Of course, there's nothing God-like about what they're hunting, but the fact they've chosen to give it this name aptly illustrates our preoccupation throughout human history with deities of one kind or another.

Human beings created Gods (in our likeness?) around the time that we moved from hunter-gatherer status to tillers of the soil -- or maybe earlier. The Sumerians, ancient Greeks and then the Romans codified their Gods but it took the rise of Judaism and Christianity -- and… Read more

Myth and pathos in the Canadian West, Nov 16 2011

One of the proudest boasts of Canadian history is that Canada settled the West peacefully, while our American neighbors drenched themselves in the blood and killings of Indian wars and lawless cowboy shoot-outs when America turned its face toward the Pacific after the carnage of the Civil War.
This myths is severely tested in the latest work from Canada's preeminent western novelist, Guy Vanderhaeghe, whose thick, rich novel, A Good Man (McClelland & Stewart) completes his trilogy of prairie west historical works.
Vanderhaeghe has built his novel on the detritus of the 20 years following the Civil War. Between 1860 and 1880, the tensions of western settlement spilled across… Read more

On the failure of religion, Nov 13 2004

Sam Harris' book offers a refreshing and much-needed analysis of the failure of religion and the devastating effect that faith-based ignorance has had on human progress. The End of Faith postulates an age when mankind is no longer ruled by fictitious gods, but realistically recognizes this may be generations in the future. In the meantime, Harris advises, we need to work with whatever moderate elements exist within Islam (which he correctly identifies as the most dangerous of all the religions) to blunt the aggressiveness of Muslim fundamentalists. Harris' arguments, sound within themselves, lose some of their force when he debates the need for spiritual experience in the human… Read more