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The Sex Scandal Following Whole Foods’ Guru

By Michael Schulson

…h an uncharacteristic and self-serving separation of his individual conduct from that of his company. In this case, the capitalist corporation seems awfully selective about the extent of its consciousness. Also on The Cubit: Has science proven that Deepak Chopra is bullshit?…

Polygamy, Genius, and the Origin of Religion

By Michael Schulson

…plural marriage is probably a terrible idea. Out of Eden isn’t just a book about polygamy, though. It’s a thesis about gender, genes, and human nature. Barash imagines his book as one entry in a larger debate over nature versus nurture—between those who argue “that ‘human nature’…is merely a social construct” and those who accept that “like it or not…biology matters.” That’s a narrow way to frame the debate. You can acknowledge that male and femal…

“What’s the Relationship of Technology to God?”: A Q&A with Wired Co-Founder Kevin Kelly

By Shannon Trosper Schorey

…umans are caught up in technological systems. Kelly recently spoke with me about God, humanity, and our relationship to technology. ___________ Shannon Schorey: You argue that there are a dozen technological forces that will be “inevitable.” What is it about these technologies that gives them so much agency? Could we stop them if we wanted to? Kevin Kelly: I think the agency is buried in the actual physics of the technology itself. It is a natural…

From Engravings to Ultrasounds: The Politics of Imaging the Womb

By Elizabeth Yale

…chnology’s impact on our views of fetal and maternal personhood is as much about the surrounding political and scientific context as it is about the technology itself. It’s easy to focus on the butchery in Hunter’s engravings—but that would mean disregarding his efforts on behalf of women—his “trust in the powers of nature.” For example, he advocated against the practice, common in France, of attempting to ease obstructed labors by cutting the pub…

The World’s Most Influential Yoga Teacher is a Homophobic Right-Wing Activist

By Andrea Jain and Michael Schulson

…ban flavor of conservatism. It is not traditional. It thrives on nostalgia about the rural world and fear of lost cultural norms, as well as modern narratives about self-care, personal improvement, and the value of pleasure. In other words, in an urbanizing world with a growing middle class, it is a flavor of politics that may be uniquely suited to global trends. An entrepreneur-guru like Ramdev might seem exotic to many American onlookers. But in…

Where Trump and Climate Deniers Seem Very Far Away: COP22 in Marrakech

By Donna Schaper

…soon. We just have to find the resources.” She made my point twice. First about Africa, then about women. I had preached on Sunday after our election that we don’t need to do more. No one can do more, especially women. We need to do different. My friend and I the first night talked about putting ourselves on personal carbon budgets. We talked about our own ecological debt and the debt of the planet. That was social and cultural thinking. Yes, we…

Come Hell or High Water: How the Melodrama of Disaster Leaves Us Vulnerable

By Noah Berlatsky

…nation with apocalypse and disaster itself. Clarke and Dercon tell a story about how our love of disaster is itself a kind of quiet, but dangerous, disaster. We need less “emotions, and adrenaline,” the authors insist, and “more tutorials on the principles of insurance.” We need actuaries to save us from the heroic saviors. We need, with all the fervor of melodrama, to expect, and demand, more boredom from our disasters. * * * Also on The Cubit: T…

Free Will, Fate and FiveThirtyEight: The Theology of Election Polls

By Alan Levinovitz and Michael Schulson

…body. MHS: So Nate Silver is like the Michael Phelps of nerds? AL: We’ll see how many medals Silver wins in this next prediction Olympics. *** Also on The Cubit: Lying about religion, and other problems with polling Follow The Cubit, RD’s religion and science portal, @TheCubit…

Faith in the Market Is Our National Religion, Says Theologian Harvey Cox

By Alan Levinovitz

…ork. Is The Market like the pope, or like God? Which market are we talking about? This latter question is particularly vexing, because Cox’s understanding of the The Market veers from one definition to another throughout the book. At times, when Cox writes about “the market,” he seems to be referring to modern capitalism writ large (though exactly how modern depends on the chapter). Other times, he means the world as seen by economists, or, even m…

How a Group of Catholic Pacifists Took on the Nuclear State

By Eric C. Miller

…rules of the courtroom prevent Plowshares defendants from speaking freely about nuclear weapons and about their motivations. As much as they are an immediate hindrance, though, the limits placed on Plowshares defendants enable them to present an alternate conception of justice than the one the courts represent. They regularly defy the courtroom’s conventions (and their judges’ direct orders) by turning their backs on their judges, refusing to par…