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State of the Union Stuck in that Olde-Time Semi-Niebuhrianism

By Ira Chernus

…the House chamber were any judge, the heart of the matter is that, in the best Niebuhrian “realist” fashion, a “contentious and frustrating and messy democracy” is proving its superiority to every other nation with its domestic “civility,” while at the same time sending its military forces to fend off a shadowy and (let’s be honest now) apparently rather ineffectual foreign threat. Whether the president truly believes his Niebuhrian rhetoric no…

“I Had No Intention to Write Atheistically”: Darwin, God, and the 2500-Year History of the Debate

By Edward J. Larson

…ist view of morals and human behavior then associated with a wide range of European social thinkers from Ernst Haeckel to Karl Marx. Materialism knew no ideological bounds. From the right wing of the political spectrum, for example, the widely read mid-nineteenth-century English social philosopher Herbert Spencer, already an evolutionist, freely worked Darwinian materialism into his progressivist philosophy of social development, which was dubbed…

You Are Being Organized by Something: 10 Questions for Kathryn Lofton on Consuming Religion

By Kathryn Lofton

…g imperative as those older ones. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the best voices in pop criticism are more diverse than the best voices in the American academy. The materials of mass culture are simply more accessible to a wider population, and when you create a fairer space for competitive possibility, you’ll find a more diverse set of people at the top. That said, I am a big fan of academic nerds, and I openly borrow from the creativity an…

Does Evolution Favor Religion?

By Mark Vernon

…human groups into an “organism-equivalent.” In fact, those religions that best encourage people to feel they belong to one another, tend to be the ones that last and grow. Far from being a mistake, religion may provide the best evolutionary explanation for humankind’s success. Of course, accounting for the origins of something proves nothing about its worth—philosophers call that the genetic fallacy. There are also reasons to question Wilson’s ev…

Pew: Atheists and Agnostics Best Informed on Religion

By Lauri Lebo

A study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that Americans who don’t believe in God scored better on a religious study quiz than those who identify with a specific religion. The U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, a nationwide poll of 3,412 Americans age 18 and older, found that out of 32 questions related to various religions, atheists and agnostics typically got the most correct responses. Jews and Mormons also scored higher than…

Mitt, Moochers, and Mormonism’s “Other” Legacy

By Mary Barker

…st as it does Tea Party platitudes, and the two are not unrelated; for the best of conservatism isn’t about astringent Calvinism, but rather the efficacy of private action. Even critics of Mormonism attest to this spirit of King Benjamin in their characterization of them as “unceasingly kind.” Matt Stone, co-creator with Trey Parker of South Park, whose episode on the Joseph Smith story is punctuated with the musical refrain “dumb, dumb, dumb, dum…

As Transition Looms, Jewish Studies is Mired in Controversy

By Shaul Magid

…to be serious problems in Jewish Studies more broadly. The question of how best to respond to this situation is not only a matter of discussing the best institutional policies in cases of sexual harassment; it pertains to the values at the very heart of Jewish Studies as an academic field, including its relationship to Jewish communal life and what it includes (and excludes) from its articulations of Jews and Jewishness. In conversation with their…

Paul Weyrich, “Godfather” of Modern Conservative Movement, Dead at 66

By Bill Berkowitz

…of times because we still live in the greatest nation on earth. It is the best of years because we have the freedom to speak our minds. It is the best of years because we can organize as we see fit to support the political candidates of our choice.” Frederick Clarkson, a longtime observer of and writer about right-wing movements, pointed out that Weyrich “was a catalyst for pulling together the disparate parts of the conservative movement into a…

2011’s Best Books—
Or Just a Great Reading List

By Haroon Moghul

…ally, Marable himself passed away only days before the publication of this bestselling work, but the impact it made—settling on the bestseller lists, for example—only underscores the scale of his scholarship, and the relevance it has to our world. Growing up, Haley’s Autobiography was profoundly influential in the formation of my own identity—along with Muhammad Iqbal’s own works, both sustained me when Maryam Jameelah and the Islam of ideology wa…

Some Of My Best Friends Are Nazi Reenactors! And Soft Porn Producers!

By Sarah Posner

Rich Iott, the Republican House candidate in Ohio’s 9th district who has been discovered to enjoy Nazi war reenactments in his spare time, has enlisted a Jewish friend to defend him on his campaign website. Coming to the defense of Iott, the tea party candidate who has apparently scared the bejeezus out of Republican whip Eric Cantor, is Richard Gabai, a Hollywood actor, writer, and producer known (or perhaps not) for titles such as Assault of th…