Toraja: Just Plain Mental
In January, we went back to Toraja, the highland area of Sulawesi that’s famous for its gory funerals, not to mention burying babies in trees....
Tagged: religion
Do Atheists Celebrate Christmas?
Procrastinating on Twitter the other day, I saw a thread about the “most irritating questions atheists are asked”, courtesy, of course, of Richard Dawkins, whose...
Everest Base Camp Day 3-4: Namche and Thame
Everest Base Camp The Lazy Way Day 3-4 – Namche to Thame We have, both of us, familiarised ourselves with the symptoms of altitude sickness,...
The Biggest Stupa in Asia?
“Look!” I say, coaxingly. “It’ll be interesting! It’s the biggest stupa in Asia! We have to see that, right?” “Oh, alright!” says my spawn. (Neither...
A Very Small Atheist Does the Holy Land
“You know, I think the least workable argument for the existence of God is the ontological argument,” spouts my spawn from the back seat. (He...
HezbollahLand: The Middle East Writ Large
We wind our way up, and up, and up, along a narrow road through stark and beautiful moutains in the hinterlands of South Lebanon, within...
The Village Where Time Just Stopped
Up in the Chouf, the mountains that are home to Lebanon’s biggest nature reserve, a whirl of cedars, cypresses, golden broom and wildflowers, we make...
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 7: The Working Mother
I sits with her daughter, her son and her daughter-in-law in the shade of a Nubian mudbrick dome, looking out over the expanse of Lake...
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 6: The Taxi Driver
We screech to a halt in heavy traffic – a car has accelerated across our path. A overtakes the other driver, blocks him in, and...
The Friday Photo: The Oldest Mosque In Cairo
The tranquillity of Ahmed Ibn Tulun mosque came as a welcome relief from a city about which, if I’m honest, both of us have profoundly...