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Recent articles

When faith becomes a problem: the hidden costs of meaning-making during crisis

When you search for the “meaning” of suffering, you often find what you need to find. Faith offers a narrative that transforms randomness into purpose, chaos into divine instruction. But it is also potentially dangerous. The question is not whether faith helps—sometimes it does. The question is: When does meaning-making serve genuine adaptation, and when […]

The architecture of hidden meaning: why western modernity created “esotericism” and how institutions control sacred symbols

When you search for the “meaning” of a religious symbol, you assume you are discovering something hidden. You imagine that beneath the obvious interpretation lies a deeper truth—accessible only to those who study carefully enough. This assumption feels natural. But it is not. It is historically specific, born in 18th-century Europe, and it has fundamentally […]

The mythology of moral heroism: how societies construct and weaponize historical narratives

When we speak of inspiring figures in history, we are not simply recounting factual events. We are engaged in an act of collective mythology—a process through which complex, contradictory human beings are flattened into archetypal symbols that serve specific cultural functions. This distinction matters profoundly. The Gandhi we celebrate is not the man who harbored […]

Yom Kippur: when tradition claims continuity while meaning completely transforms

When a modern Jewish family sits in synagogue on Yom Kippur, fasting, praying, confessing sins in communal voice, they believe they are practicing an unbroken tradition stretching back 3,400 years to Leviticus. But this belief contains a profound falsehood. Modern Yom Kippur is not the same as biblical Yom Kippur. Structurally, theologically, and practically, they […]

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