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RD associate editor Hussein Rashid scrutinizes a cross-section of reactions to the Ft. Hood massacre, from those eager to blame Islam to a number of Muslim-Americans.
The author of a new book talks to RD about the radical that lies beneath our everyday practices, whether ethics requires religion, and the “education of desire.”
Peter Rodger traveled through twenty-three countries in three years asking the same question to everyone he met, and filming, gorgeously, the results. Turns out the question—“What is God?”—reveals more than a person’s faith.
A new documentary called <i>Collision</i> follows the collegial debate between new atheist Christopher Hitchens and conservative evangelical Doug Wilson. Spoiler alert: Neither budges and both gloat to the respective choirs they’d been preaching to. Is this the best we can do?
Chris Rock’s new documentary scrutinizes the politics and pathos of black hair care: from the beauty salon to the hair show, and from chemical relaxers to the Indian hair that fuels the hair weave industry.
Performance artist or man of God? Agitator or politician? The Church of Life After Shopping’s Reverend Billy has a choir and a congregation like a preacher—does he have to be a “real” clergyman to minister to the masses?
Von Trier’s terrifying rumination on the triad of “pain,” “grief,” and “despair” reminds us that, in contrast to the pronouncements of politicians on what is natural and normal, in nature eating one’s young is not too far out of the ordinary—especially in times of stress.
The Atlanta Falcons, defenders of the Georgia Dome, “fought, harassed, stuffed, smothered, and smacked” their way to victory last week. What is it about football that brings out such primal intensity in its fans?
Has the shift from sociability to social-networking left Garrison Keillor clinging to his Wobegone Lutherans of yesteryear? What of the glaring problems of those “simpler times?”
The characters in this adult, anti-fantasy novel of hope (and magic) lost appear to teach the lesson that Harry Potter probably ended up hating himself, and life, after the end of book seven. But would a less dour novel have been so highly praised?
Two eminent physicists have hypothesized that the Higgs boson might be hated by God to such an extent that if one occurred it would go back in time and stop itself from being made.
For the Greeks, museums were sacred places dedicated to the muses. How is it that the Catholic Church got into the pagan shrine business?
A new book reveals the historical roots and conservative uses of the positive thinking movement, showing how it encourages victim-blaming, political complacency, and a culture-wide flight from realism.
Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book on the dangers of Positive Thinking recalls Mark Twain’s obsession with the 19th century’s most famous mind-over-matter exponent: Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. Are critics just jealous?
In the great tradition of Socrates and Kierkegaard, Lars von Trier realizes that his role is to enable the audience to ask questions and confront themselves.
Some are familiar with Glenn Beck’s teary Mormon conversion story, but what many are not aware of is the extent to which Mormonism has given Beck key elements of his on-air personality and messaging—and how it may shape the future of American conservatism.
Despite resorting to demonization and dated paradigms, Max Blumenthal’s muckraking first book traces the fascinating history of the religious right and its web of gothic and aggressive conspiracy theories—making a convincing case that the Republican Party has been “shattered” by a right-wing religious movement.
In this lyrical excerpt, author Kim Chernin envisions a new solution that rises up from the Sinai desert nurtured by two little girls.
Has a hotly anticipated new horror film about a murderous cheerleader subverted the mythos of woman as the source of evil or just the opposite?
A powerful documentary, “Praying in Her Own Voice,” chronicles twenty years of struggle for religious equality at one of Judaism’s most sacred sites and asks: How can there be unity when half the population is silenced?
