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The Vatican v. Protestant Free Thinkers

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…Early Modern period might seem to have been with the newly emerging modern sciences, this Library volume suggests a very different view of the period: namely, that the Vatican was less interested in science per se than it was in the ever-deepening gulf that threatened to separate Roman Catholics and Protestants in Europe forever. These Library publications suggest that the concerns of the magisterium at this time were focused almost entirely on th…

The Man of Science vs. The Man of Faith: Richard Dawkins Spars with Stephen Colbert

By Byron R. McCane and Dan Mathewson

…it all in and laughed loudly and often at our own unreflective assumptions about the so-called Man of Faith. These brief observations about the Colbert-Dawkins exchange dovetail with a much longer video presentation we’re currently preparing for publication on RD. In that video we will argue that people like Ken Ham and Ray Comfort – the most visible and outspoken of the creationist and intelligent designer lot – may think they’re engaging in crit…

Creationism Makes Its Mark

By Lauri Lebo

…they saw the mark as a religious emblem. But their first concern was less about religion and more about what they considered to be a case of a teacher injuring their son. Their accusations and their resulting lawsuit against the district have brought them criticism. A sign posted in a yard near their house read, “The student goes. We Support Mr. Freshwater. The Bible stays!” For all the unusual elements to this story, this part is the strangest….

RDBook: The Lost Scopes Archive

By Arri Eisen

…ctant to engage those who don’t agree with them; Those trying to bring non-science views into the science classroom are still losing in the courts; And science educators still are teaching evolution as if religion and the rest of life’s rich context doesn’t exist. Similarly, without excessive words, ironies glare out from LaFollette’s history like the Dayton summer sun. A contemporary example: this book was published in Kansas, site of one of the…

Bill Nye Gets Religulous with Bill Maher

By Michael Schulson

…unately Nye does just that when Maher explains, “…religion is the enemy of science. People say we can reconcile science and faith. No, we can’t.” It goes without saying, but there are many scientists who practice a religion (and still more who will chat happily with religious people), yet seem mentally fit. Clearly, they’ve found some way to reconcile these parts of their lives. Is that way philosophically valid? Useful? Honest? That’s another con…

Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…ees his lab. Lovin emphasized that the scholars will focus on “the way the science relates to society, the humanities, and religious questions.” Lovin emphasized that the inquiry was more concerned with questions of science and society than with specifically religious concerns. “What we want to encourage is the kind of thinking in theology that sees the political or the social or the natural order as whole,” Lovin said. I asked Lovin why it was wo…

Pigging Out: What ‘Radically Unkosher’ Jewish Foodies Like Michael Pollan Are Missing

By Jonathan Schorsch

…ed: When it comes to eating, we are choosing within competing rule systems about food. […] The proper question is: Which community’s rules about eating do you wish to accept? We grapple with this question when we consider whose foodways the food movement holds out to us. Pollan provocatively suggests that pig’s unkosher status should be reconsidered. As far as I can tell he hasn’t fleshed out this recommendation but it’s not hard to tease out impl…

Healed of the Sin of Religion: At Church with Sara Miles

By Lisa Webster

…urgy, or the “body” that is a well-functioning church. We spoke last month about about the problem with religion, about the ideas liberals and conservatives share when it comes to “doing good,” and about how to distribute eleven tons of free food in two and a half hours. __________________________________ Your first book was a memoir, the story of how you came to church for the first time, and stayed. But—and this might be because of your backgrou…

The Shared Assumption Behind Creationism and Anti-GMO in Europe

By Michael Schulson

…ts inserted into the tomato. It’s this kind of thinking. Another intuition about nature is that we think about purely natural processes in terms of purposes—that things exist or happen for particular purposes. For instance, that it rains to water the plants, so that’s the reason rain exists. There are a couple of anti-GMO activists that claim, for instance, that GMOs are not the result of natural selection. They have this idea that natural selecti…

Capricology: Week 3: Apotheosis, Anyone?

By Salman Hameed

…ries that point to core fault-lines in our culture, which allow us to talk about contradictory expectations about class, race, gender, generation, sexuality, and especially about power. So, I wonder if we could use the news stories to help figure out what are the fault-lines in the society being constructed on Caprica. We already have hints at ethnic differences (if we can use such terms to refer to contrasting planets), religious differences, and…