June 19, 1623 —Blaise Pascal was born in France on this date (which worked out extremely well for him, as he wanted to grow up to be French). At the age of 17, he wrote a paper entitled Essay on Conic Sections, which quickly became the best-selling paper on conic sections in European history andContinue reading “You might as well believe”
Tag Archives: faith
Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum
Happy Easter, everybody! We’ve spoken about Ishtar before: there is an ancient story about Tammuz (also known as Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Orpheus, or Jesus—you get the idea), who was born of a virgin, died, and was reborn. He was the lover of Ishtar. The festival associated with Tammuz began as a day of bloodContinue reading “Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum”
St. Swithun
One day in the latter half of the ninth century, a poor young woman on her way to market dropped her basket of eggs – shattering all of them She knelt beside the broken mess and began to weep. As luck – or divine timing – would have it, the local bishop happened to beContinue reading “St. Swithun”
The Haus of Dcaligari 