Religion Dispatches
…hat which is foretold by the stars (via newspaper columns, paperbacks, and websites). It is this depth of feeling—this vigorous use of the system of star signs as a means of making sense of one’s life—that Adorno lamented as a mark of the lack of individual liberty and that the avowedly capitalist insurance company Allstate is now lamenting in the wake of their press release. Maybe some Virgos out on the road today will have reason to pay less att…
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…anizations have formed around the most prominent sightings and hundreds of websites are devoted to interpreting Marian prophecies. Generally, the Church is dubious of such claims. Only a handful of apparitions have met the Church’s standards for approval and even this has been conditional. Major sightings in places like Lourdes and Fatima have been deemed “worthy of belief”—meaning that their veracity is not a point of Catholic doctrine—but that t…
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…whole conversation underscores the complex relationships between vendors, websites, consumers, and advertising platforms like Google Ads (as was the case in this example). But this particular example highlights yet another layer to the conversation: those users reacted not only to the algorithmic profiling, but also to their perceptions of advertising, AI, and the online platforms involved. In this example, the pastor initially reacted to the (in…
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…to physical sites in London and throughout the United States and India, on websites and in publications, and to other contemporary areas of cultural production, such as yoga studios and public parks. The result was a comparative study of modern yoga, its popularization, and its intersections with consumer culture. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? Unfortunately, pop culture varieties of postural yoga are often dismissed from…
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…t too many are not. The 30th wedding anniversary calls for pearls, various websites say. And yet, we have no weddings really, from the federal point of view. So what does the 30th mean? Is it the beginning of the end? The end of the beginning? The eschaton? For some, AIDS/HIV is one of the mythic horsemen of the apocalypse. The Salvation Army writes of the “three horsemen of the Russian Apocalypse—AIDS” Others write of the “hybrid horseman of the…
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…he’s feeding into a clearly-defined narrative that exists among right-wing websites on the Internet, one that views a clash between conservatives and liberals in almost prophetic terms. I think Holley means “apocalyptic terms” here, implying a final battle between good and evil. No matter, the point is made: the worldview of this video is stark, antagonistic, and manicheaen, drawing sharp and exclusive boundaries between those on the NRA’s side an…
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…divided over their trusted sources, forming rival camps according to which websites they are willing to read and which channels they are willing to watch. Along the way, the possibility of knowledge seems to have fallen into a fog of beliefs. In his new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, Kurt Andersen situates this state of affairs atop five centuries of American belief and imagination, tracing this legacy all the way back to its religio…
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…edly of her personal tragedies and triumphs, challenges and commitments on websites and in books, television specials and magazines, in universal terms that many find deeply relevant to their own non-celebrity, ordinary lives—not quite hagiography in the traditional sense, but clearly sacred stories so familiar, so edifying, so archetypal for Americans of all stripes that they simultaneously personalize and canonize Oprah in the popular imaginatio…
Read More…of The Late Great Planet Earth and frequent commentator at far-right-wing websites not known for their grounding in reality. As it happens, wondering whether Obama is the anti-Christ is something of a cottage industry. On top of the “usual” chatter about Obama’s supposed messianic effect on his supporters, there’s at least one blog dedicated entirely to the anti-Christ question. Then there’s the requisite chain e-mail making the rounds. (Hilariou…
Read More…month, Vocativ reported on rumors circulating on Twitter and some Islamic websites that a baby born with a rare birth defect known as cyclopism is actually the Muslim anti-Christ. According to this speculation, the baby is the Masih ad-Dajjal, a one-eyed false prophet described in certain hadith (sayings attributed to the prophet) whose arrival signals a final battle that leads to Judgment Day. Some analysts believe the rumor is a recruitment tac…
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