Rationale’s top reads of 2024

Published: Tue, 12/31/24

Updated: Tue, 12/31/24

Hi ,

From the challenges of leaving cult groups, to the issues at the heart of the Israel-Hamas conflict, and discrimination in faith-based schools – we covered a lot of important topics in our Rationale magazine in 2024.

Check out the top 10 articles that resonated most with our readers – according to our readership data.

Among the top reads of 2024

Clare Heath-McIvor

Ian Robinson

Paul Monk

James Fodor

Rhys Hagan

What to expect when leaving a cult or toxic group (August 2024)

By Clare Heath-McIvor

There’s a lot they don’t tell you about leaving a cult, a high-control religion or toxic group. They don’t exactly warn you that you could freeze up in the cereal aisle at the supermarket, wondering if it’s really okay to buy that brand you’ve been told is tied up with a rival cult. Since my exit from a now-notorious group, I’ve spoken with many high-control group survivors. They’ve recalled freezing up when buying duvets, cars, toothpaste or approaching romantic relationships.

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If you want peace in Palestine, don’t start from here! (January 2024)

By Ian Robinson

There is an oft-told joke about someone lost in a rural area who finally encounters a local and requests directions to their destination. The local thinks for a few moments and then replies: “If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.” Some of us who care deeply about the state of the world are fearful that the situation in Palestine might have passed the point of no return and that there are no viable, mutually acceptable paths back to a compromise.

Read the full article

Jordan Peterson, Greg Sheridan and the Christian myth (March 2024)

By Paul Monk

If we grant Peterson’s primary premise (that human beings derive their value orientations from stories about heroes) and even his secondary one (that the Jesus story of sacrifice and redemption has had such an impact because it is a paradigmatic hero myth), we can at least engage in an intelligent conversation about Christianity, myth and human character. But for that conversation to get anywhere worth going, it has to be agreed that the myth – like all myths, however edifying – is empirically and historically not true.

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Anzac Day: Misconceptions and the real meaning of commemoration (April 2024)

By James Fodor

Anzac Day, correctly understood and commemorated appropriately, is exceptionally important. It is a day to remember those who fought and died, for Australia and for other countries, for causes good and bad. They were, most of them, ordinary men and women who, for various reasons, found themselves in horrific circumstances. They fought, they suffered, and they died. They were just people like you and me. They don’t have to have died for a noble cause in order for their lives and experiences to be worthy of our commemoration.

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When my church joined an international cult (April 2024)

By Rhys Hagan

It had been a year since I saw my family. In the Army, it was a year of obeying orders, marching routines, weapons drills, fire and movement, and making beds my non-commissioned officers (NCOs) could bounce a coin on. Still, the wide eyes and strange rumours that passed to me from family and friends piqued my curiosity — I’d missed something big. I returned to a church that had joined a radical, international network spurred to indoctrinate the broader community: the ISAAC Network.

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Editor, Rationale

Executive Director, Rationalist Society of Australia

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