Religion Dispatches
Philosopher Simon Critchley on evangelical atheists, the ‘supreme fiction’ in politics or love, and why the debate over whether you believe in a god is massively irrelevant.
Read More
Is the human drive for immortality, from the Alexander the Great to Frankenstein to the latest technology-driven movements, just an illusion?
Read More
When it comes to the consumption of meat, our human hands have long been dirty. This isn’t a discouragement to stop striving for the good. But a moral proposal that promises to wash our filthy fingers spotlessly clean—in seconds flat—is suspect. Because they will still be dirty. The pressing moral question, of meat, becomes: given that human hands are obviously soiled, what can be done with these polluted tools?
Read More
We humans are, today, animals like any other. We always have been. Our culture, however, appears designed to culminate in a magnificently human apex. This has long been a problem when it comes to legal rights. I know I don’t have to explain that the fight for animal rights has fanned the flame of much heated political controversy. And I won’t take an ethical position on that now. Because I’m pointing to something else that, I think, is increasingly under fire: the powerful, dreamlike, quasi-trance state driven by that powerful myth of being human.
Read MoreIt’s all about destabilizing our certainties, whether theological or scientific.
Read More
“We are constituted, in every moment, by our relations. Some of them we compose, but they comprise the conditions in which we are composed. Theological entanglement is a form of what’s called ‘relational theology.’ Entanglement is meant to give a more physical, and spooky edge to our interconnectedness. This isn’t just about the apophasis of an infinite God, but about the element of unknowability in all of us—as creatures made in the image of the unknowable.”
Read More
Borrowing generously from old school humanists like Rousseau, and deploying scientific data, Brooks’ new book argues for a more heartfelt humanism. Aren’t there more interesting lessons on human life that we might cull from scientific research?
Read More
Mark Salzman’s latest work tells the story of an optimistic, but highly anxious, seeker whose sense of enthusiasm and adventure dried up when the chaotic monotony of domestic life intervened with a vengeance.
Read More
Although medicine should stay in the business of being evidence-based, says Harvard historian of science Anne Harrington, other healing communities don’t necessarily need to follow that model. There’s a place for data, but you need to know what data can’t tell you.
Read More
Humanity may be a mystery, but what about the human who virtually enters a spec of dust and is able to learn the mysteries of dustness? Doesn’t this kind of leap require us to adopt a kind of awe and reverence for the mysteries outside the human as well?
Read More