Research On Religion | witch hunts

Posts Tagged ‘witch hunts’

Peter Leeson on Witch Trials and Human Sacrifice

Our annual Halloween special takes us back in history to the 16th century when Europe faced a wave of witchcraft trials. To learn why these episodes took place when and where they did, we consult with economist Peter Leeson who enlightens us as to how economics can be used to understand these questions. He also explains the seemingly irrational behavior of human sacrifice in India through the lens of rationality and connects it to an episode that happened in his apartment complex. To find out what that is, you will have to listen.

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David Bentley Hart on Atheist Delusions

Tags: Age of Reason, Antonio Marcello Barberini, churlish, Dark Ages, Edward Gibbon, Enlightenment, Friedrich Nietzsche, Galileo, H.L. Mencken, mercantile capitalism, modernity, New Atheists, scientific racialism, Serapium, Urban VIII, wars of religion, William James, witch hunts

By listener request, David Bentley Hart joins us to discuss his award-winning book, “Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies.” We cover who these “new” atheists are, how they differ from the old atheists, and Prof. Hart’s general reactions to more common claims by atheist scholars about the Christian past and the “Age of Reason.”

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