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Modern Mindfulness, Continued: Chade-Meng Tan Follows Up

By The Editors

…frustration with the past in a way that sounded like a sweeping statement about Asian Buddhism today. I apologize for that. One way I could have expressed it: in my part of Asia, when I was growing up, Dharma could often be found in high concentrations, but only in small areas. Perhaps the opposite is true in America today. 3. I think the most important point in this discussion is that we have to hold teachers to a different bar than normal pract…

Teaching World Religion in the Dumpster Fire

By Kate Blanchard

…s unpopular in some religious studies circles to admit that one cares more about helping humankind than about debating definitions of “religion,” I have always been clear that in my job I am on a mission to plant seeds that might eventually help a few young adults in the Midwest be a little more self-reflective about their assumptions, a little more critical of media messages, a little less credible about Western supremacy, a little less Islamopho…

6 Overlooked Takeaways From a Reviewer of Controversial Texas Textbooks

By David R. Brockman

…14,” p. 3. URL: http://tea.texas.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=25769818836&libID=25769818945 12 “Involuntary conversions and the establishment of an organized church followed Charlemagne’s military victories over the Saxons (beginning in 772), but Saxony was for years beset by bloody and destructive rebellions. Nevertheless, the monastery of Fulda, the bishopric of Würzburg, and new settlements such as Paderborn became centers…

Muslim Women “Warriors”

By Frances Kissling

…en have organized for ordination, and these are increasing. Thai Theravada Buddhism, which is linked to the state, has been most resistant to these ordinations, and Tibetan Buddhism under the Dalai Lama has been considering reviving the tradition, but as of today, no final decision has been made. Muslim women—and feminists—are following a different and complicated path. This was brought home last month when I participated in a five day internation…

Think Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools Are a No-Brainer? Think Again

By Candy Gunther Brown

…and voluntarism are essential. Students and parents need to know, not just about the benefits of yoga and mindfulness, but also about potential religious effects, health risks, and alternatives. Children shouldn’t feel pressured to join in or have to opt out to avoid participating. Rather, if schools choose to offer yoga or mindfulness outside of regular instructional hours it should be on an opt-in basis. And yoga and mindfulness shouldn’t become…

Science Denial Can’t be Cured by Education

By Emma Frances Bloomfield

…aith, deniers of current scientific knowledge present theirs as the “true” science. They portray themselves as fighting hegemonic elites who wish to silence minority opposition. Anti-vaxxers claim the right to abstain, equating scientific practice with replacing parental control, while creationists point to gaps in scientific research and claim that science requires a greater leap of faith than religious explanations. Morrison’s original compariso…

Should Faith Healing ‘Do Business’ with Modern Medicine?

By Beatrice Marovich

…of evolutionary theory. But there are also some wild fusions of faith and science—in the guise of, say, the Intelligent Design movement—that work to recruit a specific kind of science in order to combat another. “When you look at medicine,” says Harrington, the relationship between religion and science becomes “vastly more complicated, in part because medicine and religious faith traditions both have a claim to healing as their business. Both cla…

Beloved Immortals: Science, Miracles and ‘Jellyfish Time’

By Beatrice Marovich

…elings about something like immortality. There’s something a little madcap about a science that gets biological with its immortality. I’m a little uncomfortable about what this does to (and with) our actual world. What is biological immortality? To be fair, it’s not the promise of a paradisiacal garden. Neither is it the ultimate, or final, defeat of death. Instead, biological immortality has to do with aging. An organism that is biologically immo…

Hagee’s New Film Uses Jews and Science to Prove Christian, Pro-US God

By Michael Schulson

…g, logically or theologically. But for Hagee that isn’t cause for concern. Science sounds authoritative; astronomy is science; therefore astronomical events have authority. QED. FBM treats Jews in much the same way that it treats the moon: as something distant, abstract, and faintly inscrutable, that can be used to confirm a fragile thesis. It takes a rather determined theology, or a selective lens, to see Jewish history as a straightforward, triu…

It’s the Water! And Other Lowlights from Presidential Science Debate

By Michael Schulson

…ebate.org has asked presidential candidates to answer a series of question about—good guess!—science. The prompts touch on everything from vaccination to climate change to the state of STEM education in the United States. Yesterday, the organization released responses from Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, has yet to respond). The Cubit read the document so you don’t have…