Islamic fanatics shriek that Allah turned certain Jews into apes and pigs. Where does this harsh polemics come from? Do they get it from the hadith (Muhammad’s sayings and deeds outside of the Quran)? From later traditions? From thin air?
Many believe that it is, or if it is not more violent than it is equally so. Is that true?
Many on the left seem to think so. True?
This post on the Japanese religion gives the basics. Good for a quick review. At the end of this post, please see a Christian reaction.
Great review for students and other learners. Please see a Christian reaction at the end of this post.
This sweeping overview is great review for students and interested learners. A Christian reaction or response to Buddhism appears at the end of this post.
Taoism / Daoism: Great review for students and other learners. Please see a Christian reaction at the end of the post.
This post is a good review of the basics. Please see a Christian reaction at the bottom of the post.
Good for a quick review. A Christian reaction is at the bottom of this post.
If you ever wanted to see the teaching and history of this religion in a sweeping overview, here is the post that tries to do it.
Do you want to understand this religion in a broad sweep? Here it is. A Christian reaction is placed at the end.
This is a summary and overview of the religion over time: key concepts, figures, and events.
A post for your review. Please see the Christian reaction and reply at the end of the post.
Mao Zedong: The “communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” (1938). Nikita Khrushchev: “Every year humanity takes a step towards communism” (July 1956). This post is about the brave souls who fought against evil, tyrannical communism and for liberty. Lots of details here.
This short post covers the gist of his main points. He tries to provide an answer to this thorny question. Great for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers.
This post outlines his essay “Existentialism and Humanism” or “Existentialism is humanism.” Good for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers.
This post is an excerpt of the most famous passage in Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings It is very soul-shaking and powerful. What does life look like without God? Are you brave enough to find out?
Are moral values relative, or are there some that are objective–true for all places and times?
Does the universe exhibit design, like a watch? Does a design imply a designer?
This is Hume’s anti-teleological argument. Teleology means the study of “purpose or goal in nature. Is nature designed He says no design. Is there a reply to him?
This is an outline of his main points. A Table of main points at the end. Post is great for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers.
This outline covers only the first two Meditations, but they are important for Phil. 101..
This post summarizes in outline form Locke’s main points. Great review for Phil 101
How much evidence do we need before we decide? Will we always dawdle and delay before stepping out in faith?
When should we believe? On how much evidence? Great review for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers.
This short post summarizes his main points. Good for a quick review for students in Phil. 101 and other readers.
This post covers the main points of his version of utilitarianism. Good review for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers.
This post covers, in an outline, the main ideas in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Good for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers who need a review.
Do you want to be happy? Aristotle tells you how! This post covers portions of Books I and II of Nicomachean Ethics.
Plato is a soul man! This post summarizes and outlines book 1 of the Republic. Good review for students in Phil. 101 and other interested readers.
This short post presents his basic arguments for the existence of the soul. Good for a quick review.
In the old days, “apology” meant “defense.” This post is an outline of Socrates’s Apology of himself.
It’s where we live nowadays, and we’re not going back. We got to examine it.
Let’s face it. For much of the Twentieth Century and into the current one, we’ve been living in the Sneering Age among intellectuals. Or it could be called the Age of Contempt or the Age of Hyper-skepticism.
This topic may seem obscure and irrelevant to your life, but think again. How can you read the Bible and its historical background, for example, if you let hyper-skeptics kick sand in your face during your devotionals and personal study? This article provides three ways for you to be confident.
On 28 Apr 1603 her body was put in a coffin and was taken to Westminster Abbey on an open chariot drawn by four horses hung with black velvet. Her coffin was covered in purple velvet, firmly sealed.
Sorry, but it has to be asked, with all due respect. Did she really remain the ‘Virgin’ Queen? Discussion of the men in her life. Specialist historians offer their opinion.
From her coronation on 15 Jan 1559 to her death on 24 Mar 1603, she ruled for forty-four years. This post skims the surface of the main personal events and lifestyle preferences in those years. Her motto was semper eadem or “Always one and the same.” Did she live up to it?
Under her reign, Spain launched five armadas against England. Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored the English colony of Roanoke, North Carolina, by 1585, but it did not last long. Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. And of course Shakespeare wrote many of his plays. Virginia was named after her, since she never married.
Did Elizabeth have to sign Mary’s execution warrant? A tense time when Catholics were hatching assassination plots against Elizabeth. A brief biography of Mary included.
This short post covers the coronation itself.
Now things get very complicated! Includes a side-by-side comparison.
Her older half-sister, Queen Mary, imprisoned her in the Tower of London. She asked if the scaffold was still up, where Lady Jane Grey, the Queen of Nine Days, was beheaded. Terrifying for her.
Born on 18 Feb 1516, crowned on 1 Oct 1553, married on 25 July 1554, dying 17 Nov 1558, she was the first female monarch who ruled over all of England. She acquired the epithet “Bloody Mary.” The number of her executions she ordered in her brief reign is included here.
She was young and easily manipulated. Tragic.
Born on 12 Oct 1537, crowned on 19 Feb 1547, and dying on 6 July 1553, son of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, Edward lived only fifteen years and eight months. He never ruled in his own right, but his godfather Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, did push through religious reforms with the boy-king’s approval.
He was born on 28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace. He succeeded to the throne on 21 Apr 1509, after the death of his father Henry VII. He was crowned 23 June 1509. He died at two o’clock in the morning, on 28 Jan 1547 at Whitehall, London. He was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. His tomb was opened and his body was examined in 1813 …. Includes basic facts on his wives and children
These policies seek to kick Rome’s influence out of England and ensure his grab for church property. How did Rome, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Spain react?
He dragged England towards the Reformation–or at least towards diminished papal authority in his realm. The names and classes of those whom he executed are listed.
After he divorced Queen Catherine of Aragon, his personal life and even the whole nation took unexpected turns. Includes basic facts about his wives after the divorce.
This area has national, ecclesiastical, and international repercussions, but these areas are still influenced by Henry’s personal desire for a divorce with popular Queen Catherine. Includes basic facts about her and Henry’s children.
He was a Lancastrian who was born in 1457; ascended the throne on 22 Aug 1485 with the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth; crowned on 30 Oct 1485; and died in 1509. He supposedly ended the War of the Roses, but not domestic rebellions launched by the Yorkists. He was the father of in/famous Henry VIII.
This article is divided in two parts: (1) the basic facts about his life (2) and a discussion of his (possible) involvement in the death of his two nephews, the Princes in the Tower.
This article is a quick, uncluttered review of the basic facts. He succeeded to the throne when his father King Edward IV died in 1483, but he was never crowned. He reigned—not ruled—for only 77 days, until his uncle Richard usurped the throne.
This post is quick review of basic facts.
Succeeding his father at nine months young in 1422, and growing up extra-pious, Henry was a Lancastrian who was not fit for the hard-hitting politics of fifteenth-century kingship. He suffered from bouts of mental illness. He died (was killed) in 1471.
Henry (b. 1386) was the eldest son of Henry IV. Crowned in 1413, how would Henry V govern and fight as the second Lancastrian king, by the time he died young in 1422?
Born in 1367, Henry forced Richard II to abdicate in 1399 and then was crowned shortly afterwards. He was the first Lancastrian king. He died in 1413.
Born 6 Jan 1367, in Bordeaux, France (baptized 9 Jan 1367 in Bordeaux Cathedral), he succeeded to the throne on 21 June 1377 and was crowned 16 July. He was forced to abdicate on 30 Nov 1399. He died 14 Feb 1400 at Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire. He asserted his royal power beyond his abilities.
Born in 1312, crowned 1327, and dying in 1377, Edward III was king of England for fifty years. He was highly regarded by the people of his times and for centuries after.
Born on 25 April 1284, he was the first heir in English history to be given the title Prince of Wales. He succeeded 7 July 1307 and was crowned 25 February 1308. He was deposed 24 January 1327—the first king to be so since the Conquest in 1066—and died or was murdered on 21 September.
Born in about 1241 in Castile, Spain, she married Edward I of England in 1254. He became king in 1272 and was crowned in 1274. She died in 1294 after giving birth. She had fourteen to sixteen children, after all.
He lived from 1239 to 1307. He married Eleanor of Castile. Included is the opening of Edward’s tomb in 1774.
Born probably in 1223 in Provence, southern France, she married English king Henry III on 14 Jan 1236 and was crowned queen on 20 Jan 1236. After living an exciting life in support of her husband against the baronage and in her support of her own rule, and that of her son Edward I, she died on 24 June 1291.
Son of King John, born in 1207, crowned in 1216 in a rush after his father died (and again in 1220), and dying in 1272, he was super-devout, developing his veneration of Saint and King Edward the Confessor. Did his extra-piety get in the way of an effective kingship? The birth of Parliament happened on his watch.
Throughout English history, there is only one King John because no king after him took his name. Why would that be?
Born in 1157 and ruling from 1189 to 1199, he is called Lion-heart because of his prowess in battle, during the Third Crusade.
Living eighty years, she was the wife of the King of France when she was thirteen, then at twenty-eight wife of the King of England, and mother of three English kings. She lived from 1124 to 1204, eighty years.
He lived from 1133 to 1189 and began his kingship in 1154. This post also looks into his grandfather Henry I, his uncle King Stephen, and Henry II’s wife Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Great by birth, greater by marriage, greatest in her offspring, she lived from 1102 to 1167 and was the daughter of Henry I and mother of Henry II. She fought King Stephen for her son Henry. She was indomitable, as seen particularly in her two Great Escapes.
He was born in about 1092, hastily crowned king of England in 1135 and died in 1154. His reign was so tenuous that he was challenged from every side. Of his reign it was said that it seemed Christ and his saints slept. A real-life game of thrones.
Born about 1068-69, he was the fourth son of William the Conqueror. He was not expected to become the King of the English, but he did at his coronation on 5 Aug 1100. How did that happen? He died on 1 Dec 1135. Basic family facts are included..
Rufus means “red,” which indicates his complexion. This nickname distinguishes him from his father William I, the Conqueror. He ruled from 1087-1100. The most widely known fact about Rufus is his death under suspicious circumstances, while he was hunting. Accident or murder?
Born probably at the end of 1031, married Duke William of Normandy in 1049-50, and dying in 1083, she was duchess of Normandy and queen of England and wielded her power with class and dignity.
This “illegitimate son,” the duke of Normandy, forever changed the course of English history. .
He was the father of William the Conqueror and ruled over Normandy from 1027 to 1035. Continue reading
He was the grandfather of William the Conqueror and as duke ruled Normandy from 996 to 1026. Richard’s son Richard III (the Conqueror’s uncle) is included in this post since he ruled only from 1026 to 1027, about twelve months.
He was William the Conqueror’s great-grandfather and ruled over a developing Normandy or Northmen for fifty-one years, from 945 to his death in 996.
Born in latter half of the 800s and died around 928, he was the Viking leader who became the count of Rouen, capital of Normandy. Some say he was the duke of the Normans. He was the first in the House of Normandy and the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror.
The last and fourteenth king of the Capetian dynasty, he was nicknamed the Fair or Handsome because supposedly he was just that (le Bel in older French). He was born in 1294 and reigned from 1322 to 1328. His first wife was accused of adultery. Would she survive?
He was the thirteenth Capetian king, reigning only from 1316 to 1322. He was nicknamed the Tall or the Long because … well … he was tall. His wife was accused of concealing adultery. Would she survive?
The twelfth Capetian king, he reigned from only 1314 to 1316. His father accused Louis’s wife of adultery on the flimsiest of grounds. Did she survive it?
The eleventh king in the Capetian dynasty, Philip IV the Fair or Good Looking (le Bel in the French of that day) was born in 1268 and ruled from 1285 to 1314. Was he able to destroy the Knights Templar?
The Bold in English and le Hardi in French, he was born in 1245 and reigned from 1270 to 1285. He was the tenth in the line of Capetian kings.
The ninth Capetian king, he was born in 1214 and ruled from 1226 to 1270. He was an extra-pious king and was soon declared a saint after his death. Pope Boniface VIII called him a “superman,” religiously speaking.
He was born in 1187, the eighth in the dynasty, and ruled only from 1223 to 1226. He and his father Philip II Augustus were kings when Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III were kings of England. Fireworks!
Philip, the seventh Capetian, born in 1165, reigned from 1179 to 1223 and was nicknamed Augustus (why?). On a personal note, he had a strange wedding ceremony with the young princess Ingeborg of Denmark (some say it was witchcraft). But politically, he expanded his royal domain to the detriment of the English Plantagenets.
For those who care about the triangle of Louis – Eleanor of Aquitaine – Henry of Anjou (later King Henry II of England), this post is for those readers. Yet Louis had to depend on the church to annul (divorce) his wife Eleanor.
He is the fifth Capetian of that dynasty, ruling from 1108 to 1137. He had the help of Abbot Suger, a superior administrator and the famous architect of the basilica of St. Denis.
The fourth Capetian king of France, he was born in 1052 or 1053 and began his reign as a minor in 1059 (or 1060) until his death in 1108. He came of age when the William the Conqueror was strong, so Philip’s reign was overshadowed.
He was the third Capetian king and born in 1008 and ruled from 1031 to his death in 1060. His reign was overshadowed by William of Normandy, future duke there and the Conqueror of England in 1066.
Nicknamed the Pious, Robert (b. c. 972-1031) was the son of Hugh Capet, the namesake of the Capetians, father of Henri, King of France, and father of Adela (or Adelaide), the mother-in-law of William the Conqueror.
Hugh (c. 939-996) is the namesake of the Capetian dynasty, the first king. The Capetians reigned in an all-male succession to 1328. Through collateral lines his descendants ruled up to and after the French Revolution. Text of the oath he swore at his coronation is included.
Hugh (d. 956) was a transitional figure between his father Robert I and mother Beatrix (female descendant of Charlemagne) and his son Hugh Capet, after whom the Capetian dynasty is named. Continue reading
Robert (865-923) was of the Robertian line in France, which feeds into the Capetians.
Herbert (880 to 943) was the count of Vermandois. His line is called the Herbertines or the House of Vermandois.
Herbert I was a great-great-grandson of Charlemagne, and his daughter Beatrix married Robert I, grandfather of Hugh Capet, the namesake of the Capetian dynasty.
This post may be the shortest one yet! Here are the known vital statistics.
Living from about 797 to 818, he was the grandson of Charlemagne and king of Italy. He also had his eyes gouged out by his uncle.
There are several Pippins among the Carolingians. This Pippin (773-810) was Charlemagne’s son and the father of Bernard, king of Italy.
He lived from 748 to 814. He was the greatest ruler in the Medieval Age in his known world and surpassed the conquests and glory of many kings for centuries.
This is a handy, quick reference to terms and concepts of class structure, offices, units of land measurements, taxes, and so on. Great for students and researchers. Good for research in earliest colonial America, too, since many of the terms survived to then.
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