Search for "cheap airline tickets for des moines ia to phoenix az phone number 1-800-299-7264"

The Fragility of Our Reality: A Conversation with the Brain Behind PBS Miniseries on Neuroscience

By Michael Schulson

…otice, the ways we respond. In terms of religion and cosmic belief, you’ve described yourself as a “possibilian.” What does that mean? How is that different from an atheist or an agnostic? My personal view is that we know far too much at this particular moment in history to buy into the details of anybody’s particular religious story, and yet we know far too little to commit to a version of strict atheism, where we pretend like we have it all figu…

“We Blew it” on Climate Change, But May Survive Anyway: An RD Discussion with the First Transhumanist Candidate

By Andrew Aghapour

…nherent progress so much as endless variation. A small fraction of that variation includes human history, which is great, but we shouldn’t endow that random walk with a sense of purpose. So transhumanism offers a teleological cosmology and eschatological visions of a utopic future where we’ve escaped our bodies into a new holographic reality, where we may even have unlimited happiness and health and personal power. At the risk of being pedantic: t…

Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…ening? Plenty of ministers are scrambling to get their congregations on social media: is it making a difference? I have no idea—the church I attend lately has its own app, but that’s not why I picked that church. I picked it because the pastor actually started a conversation with me the first time I attended, and because it has a social justice message that it actually lives out in the local community through action. So technology might be a great…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…ng persecution around the world. And it will require symbolically potent action, like President Obama’s recent visit to a Baltimore mosque (which, incidentally, was also reported in national Indian media). For those who truly care about religious freedom in India (and the United States), such efforts are not only justified. They are absolutely necessary….

Under Water: Waiting for the Flood (of Awareness) in Louisiana

By Drew Konow

…the flood with wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics, the ongoing presidential sideshow, and the riots in Milwaukee. Having your suffering ignored or cast aside only intensifies the pain you feel. And, yet, comparing one’s suffering with the suffering of others, calculating them according to hierarchies of pain, reinforces the logic of oppression. In other words, the standards that determine what belongs on the news (so-called “news values”) are d…

Trump, Islamophobia, and the Philly Pig’s Head Incident

By David Krueger

…our nation’s interfaith relations. We can only hope that his rise as a messianic politician will soon come to an end. Although there are real threats that the Islamic extremists pose, it must be remembered that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings in the U.S. have been carried out by non-Muslims. Americans have many misconceptions about Muslims in the U.S. and the public needs to be better educated. However, the key to overcoming suspicion…

Reporting from Paris: A Prayer for Polluters

By Donna Schaper

…lly for wisdom. I wish I could be optimistic about COP21, the climate negotiations coming to an end in Paris. I can’t. Even if the world’s countries keep their promises — known, in the mind-numbing argot of the UN as Intended Nationally Determined Commitments — the climate reductions they are promising don’t go far enough. . . . These unenforceable “commitments” are, at best, a step in the right direction and, at worse, a way for government leader…

A Portrait of Islamophobia?

By Mariam Durrani

…, anti-immigrant campaign just being the most blatant example. When the media descended on the home of the San Bernardino shooters, it clearly lacked any restraint or sensitivity. I don’t recall a similar situation following the Charleston massacre or other white terrorist mass shootings. Sarsour was simply calling out this double standard as a marker of the ways that racist and xenophobic ideologies saturate the media cycle, and yet this was met…

Oprah, Terrorist Cells, and the Meaning of Life: An Interview with Paul Froese

By Andrew Aghapour

…ncept of the supernatural, whereas the secular person will use either material or social terms to frame their moral reality, and so that’s a difference in terms of language. Religious systems of meaning can tend to drift towards extreme ideas of absolute truth, but I also think that secular moral systems of belief can do that too. Nationalism, with no reference to the supernatural, can create a very black and white dichotomy of good and evil, and…

Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…me with siblings – Honor: the desire for upright character – Idealism: the desire for social justice – Independence: the desire for self-reliance – Order: the desire for structure – Physical Activity: the desire for muscle exercise – Power: the desire for influence or leadership – Romance: the desire for beauty and sex – Saving: the desire to collect – Social Contact: the desire to have fun with peers – Status: the desire for respect based on soci…