Religion Dispatches
…That’s right, there’s a picture of the Big Bang. I say I hope you’ve heard about this because I am surprised at how small a bang, forgive me, this story has made in the non-science press, at least not yet. Religion News Service noticed the discovery’s implications for the quickness of the origins of the universe. But I’ve seen little else about the human implications of this new snapshot of our human origins. Perhaps people are wary of overhyping,…
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…at my experiment and see if they get the same results. This method is what science is supposed to be about; this is scientific proof, this is what scientists believe in. The Decline Effect: Results are Not Replicable Over Time But, says Lehrer, it’s not that simple. He describes what he calls ‘the decline effect’: many experimental results that are strikingly positive and statistically significant are not replicable. Over time, the striking result…
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…. Semiotics is mostly dense philosophy and linguistics with a dash of neuroscience thrown in. The deep semiotics of health is an attempt to recognize the signs and symbols of health and to take control over the largely unconscious processes that affect our minds-brains-bodies. The mash-up of these terms is necessary in light of contemporary science. Let me explain. Psychosomatic effects are involved in all medical therapies, whether they are ortho…
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…It might be a cadre of New Atheists who are screaming for the elevation of science to religion, but it’s Keats who, in 2008, actually created a temple to science. Dubbed the Atheon, it was an installation at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, with stained glass windows patterned to show cosmic microwave background radiation. Keats has also patented his brain, sold real estate in the extra dimensions suggested by string theory, and, as part of…
Read More…that, said Joshua Rosenau, a project director for the National Center for Science Education, he began noticing that attacks on climate change science were being packaged with criticism of evolution in curriculum initiatives. Last week South Dakota passed a resolution calling for the “balanced teaching of global warming in public schools.” But a quick read of the original House version of the legislation reveals the woeful ignorance of lawmakers w…
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…ck Warren. For Warren and the New Atheist authors it is, as it were, never about “A” purpose driven life but always about “The” purpose driven life. While the term postmodernism is often used to describe an aesthetic, artistic worldview characterized by a distrust of theories and ideology, I think it usefully applies (or rather should apply) to the “certainties” on both sides in the religion vs. atheism debate. When it comes to the New Atheists pi…
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…cus on what they do (orthopraxy). So, what exactly is this mainstream talk about if it’s not about race? As the authors (one of whom self-identifies as a bi-racial Ashkenazi Jew) assert, their attempts at addressing diversity are complicated by the presence of Hebrew Israelites. Because ultimately this is a question not only of race but ortho-ethnicity (right people). Once again, Black people are not seen as the right type of Jews regardless of th…
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…them off? I see this book as setting a foundation for a larger discussion about TST and the questions they raise about religion, religious freedom, and religious pluralism. If people are entertained, it will be because TST is such an interesting phenomenon and has done some unbelievable things. I really didn’t set out to piss anyone off, although some of TST’s opponents on the religious right may regard anything positive or even neutral said abou…
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…nd one not weighed down by elitism. It means that people who never thought about metaphysics are thinking about it, and from a very young age. Cartoons provide a vehicle for philosophy that’s more playful and open-ended than the sort in sermons or journals, one that doesn’t attach “-isms” to itself, demand its audience take metaphysical sides, or even take the questions too seriously. Big questions are tough. Questions about the nature of reality,…
Read More…my children’s privacy. I tried to apply the same standards to what I said about them as I applied to what I said about myself: to only say what was necessary to promote understanding about the difficult issues I was discussing. I felt morally obligated to talk about the ways in which my ex-wife and children suffered as a result of my transition, because such suffering is widespread in families that go through gender transition. I felt obligated n…
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