I had for some time wanted to create a web site honouring God and to publish some of the things He has taught me, but every time I tried to plan it nothing worked. His appetite for glory and merciless tactics in battle won him acclaim from his superiors and fear from his legions of foes, and over time he gathered his own army under the banner of Sparta. Over the next decade, as fans of the 2008 PSP entry God of War: Chains of Olympus well know, Kratos performed various labors for the gods of Olympus, including defeating the basilisk and rescuing the god of the sun, Helios, from the escaped Titan Atlas. Gaia told Kratos that as a Titan, she viewed the Olympian gods as arrogant and complacent, and encouraged him to return to Olympus and end Zeus’s reign once and for all. Since Kratos was no longer a god, however, Gaia urged him to seek out the Sisters of Fate to turn back the clock to before his demise and claim the Blade of Olympus for himself. Though Kratos had taken back his oath, breaking free of Ares wasn’t so simple: He would have to find the “oathkeeper” who held the link between him and the god, and somehow pry it from the keeper’s grasp.

However, once Kratos defeated the dreaded Hydra in the memorable opening sequence of the original God of War, Athena finally agreed that it was time for the Ghost of Sparta to make a move against Ares, who was raising his armies against her city, Athens. After defeating a great number of Greek heroes, including Perseus and Theseus, and killing the Sisters himself, Kratos shuffled backward in time to battle Zeus once more, this time with the Blade of Olympus at his side. As revealed in 2007’s God of War 2 and the 2010 PlayStation Portable entry God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Kratos was born in the Greek city-state of Sparta, the demigod spawn of one of Zeus’ many dalliances with mortal women. With newfound vigor, Kratos began to carve a swath through the Greek pantheon at an unprecedented rate, murdering Hades, Helios and Hermes with ease. Even as Kratos slew these gods, the world around him began to collapse. The second half of the book provides detailed prophecies about the various world kingdoms that would follow after the death of Daniel. Unfortunately, this rescue mission incurred Thanatos’ wrath, and though the two brothers fought bravely to seal Death himself into his own realm, Deimos didn’t survive the battle.

After finally remembering Ares and Athena’s role in robbing him of his brother – the latter having stripped him of that memory at some point, likely so she could continue to use him as a pawn – Kratos led Deimos out of the Domain of Death. However, death is no impediment to a man of conviction, and Kratos escaped the underworld like Orpheus before him to face Ares in one-on-one combat. Lost in the murk, Kratos eventually found the spirit of Athena, who beseeched him to take revenge on Zeus, claiming that her death had brought her a new perspective on the conflict. Soon after battle between the Titans and the Olympians began in 2010’s God of War 3, Kratos almost immediately found himself betrayed once more, this time by Gaia, who dismissed him as nothing more than a useful tool and cast him into the River Styx for the third time. Taking office for only 132 days after Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announced his retirement, Kim Campbell made Canadian history for her time as prime minister. Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor, and serves as Co-Director for the Program on Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion.

Druze is another religion which emerged from Islam in the 11th century, and hence is sometimes also considered an Abrahamic religion. How Islam spread into sub-Saharan region of West Africa, and the great civilizations it established there, taking its inhabitants out of paganism to the worship of One God. In Faith Versus Fact, his overarching argument is that religion and science both make claims about the universe, but only one of the two institutions is sufficiently open to the fact that it might be wrong. Realizing that they would have to fight a war on two fronts thousands of miles from their mainland, America’s military leaders were determined to conquer Axis nations by creating and strengthening their supply lines across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Even new faiths originating in countries with tolerant and non-repressive governments have a difficult time gaining significant traction. When the spooks have a midnight jamboree, they break it up with fiendish glee.