ReligionDispatches.org

Henry Jenkins and Salman Hameed.

This week’s episode asks big questions about psychology and religion, and reminds us that a dog is a robot’s best friend.

Diane Winston, Henry Jenkins, and Anthea Butler.

In the ever more dystopian world of Syfy Channel’s Caprica, teenage girls inhabit robot bodies, or live eternally without bodies at all, human bodies are marked by memories, and all the while there is blood flowing in the virtual streets. 

Diane Winston, Salman Hameed, Anthea Butler, and Henry Jenkins.

Tamara, the girl who is dead but doesn’t know it, who exists only within the “magic circle” of a virtual game, takes center stage in this week’s episode, and in our commentary. 

Henry Jenkins, Diane Winston, and Anthea Butler.

Among other clues to this sci-fi opera, our Caprica watchers took particular note of a bobbleheaded bull on the dashboard of a Tauron killer. What can we learn from the possibility that Capricans can be as kitsch-obsessed, cigarette-addicted, and as reckless with civil liberties as earthlings can be? 

Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Henry Jenkins, and Salman Hameed.

More on the sci-fi TV show that imagines monotheists rebelling against a polytheist society, speculates about the nature of the human soul, and asks, “Can you be free if you’re not real?”

Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, Henry Jenkins, and Diane Winston.

Welcome to the first installment of our ongoing coverage of television’s latest contribution to the cultural intersection of science and religion, with bonus themes to include: the body, artificial intelligence, paganism, original sin, immigration, and race. Join Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, and Henry Jenkins every week as they delve into deep exegesis of Caprica.

Philip Clayton.

You have to look long and hard in the public-square discussion today to find bilateral calls for complementarity and partnership. Yet why should the relations between evolution and creation constitute a zero-sum game?

S. Brent Plate.

RD columnist S. Brent Plate crosses disciplinary boundaries to show us how film creates worlds, just as religion does; through incantation or special effects anything is possible.

Nathan Schneider.

A philosopher connects the dots between mysticism and modernity, arguing that technology—human invention—is not in opposition to an idealized state of nature, but is part of an ever-evolving created world.

Arri Eisen.

Comedian Ben Stein’s new documentary on the persecution of Intelligent Design advocates in schools is rife with errors and distortions, but there’s much to learn about the failure of science teaching.