On April 2nd, Dallas District Court Judge Martin Hoffman ruled that it is legal to pray for God to harm someone as long as no one is actually threatened or harmed.
Posts Tagged ‘atheism’
February 2nd, 2012
Religion and state secularization
posted by Simon During
In discussing secularization, it has become conventional to note that the concept refers to various processes, of which three are particularly prominent. First, the gradual delegitimation of natural and revealed religion’s truth-claims in the face of rational critique. We can call this intellectual secularization. Second, the process by which some states have constitutionally disengaged from their citizens’ religious beliefs and institutions. We can call this state secularization. Third, the increase across society of knowledge, activities, values, tastes, and activities which lack religious content, as well as the extent to which, increasingly, people involve themselves with these non-religious forms. We can call this social secularization.
December 9th, 2011
Beyond reductive naturalism
posted by Yang Xiao
Future histories may report that the public discourse on religion was dominated by reductive naturalism until Robert Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution appeared in 2011. One of the most distinctive features of Bellah’s book is his extensive use of the latest developments in the natural sciences, such as biology, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and developmental and child psychology. One of his purposes is, as he puts it, “to show how deeply we are shaped by a very long biological history.” This might give the wrong impression that Bellah’s approach is similar to the New Naturalist approach. However, Bellah’s is better characterized as a non-reductive humanistic naturalism, which is a synthesis of the humanistic (interpretative, social, and historical) understanding of religion and the naturalist approach.
December 8th, 2011
Why some atheist scientists participate in religious institutions
posted by Brandon VaidyanathanA curious finding in sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund’s national study on the religious beliefs and practices of American scientists is that nearly one in five atheist parents participate in religious institutions.
November 10th, 2011
Trending atheism
posted by Amanda KaplanNona Willis Aronowitz at GOOD Magazine asks what changes might occur when “1 in 4 millennials don’t identify with any religion.”
October 3rd, 2011
Atheism and religious art
posted by Brandon VaidyanathanThe Guardian has been hosting a series of posts on the question of whether faith is necessary in order to appreciate religious art. A post by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin highlights the recent work of atheist artist David Mach to contest the assumption that religious art is necessarily made by believers
August 9th, 2011
Slavoj Žižek on radical politics and Christianity
posted by Sam HanOver at the Religion and Ethics blog of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Slavoj Zizek has written an opinion piece on what he views as the aspect of the Christian legacy that is most important for radical politics today—atheism.
August 4th, 2011
The WTC cross: a religious synecdoche?
posted by Amanda KaplanAtlantic columnist Wendy Kaminer discusses American Atheists’ suit to prevent the “World Trade Center cross,” an original cross-beam from one of the two towers that was recently moved from a lower Manhattan church to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. The move, American Atheists charge, identifies the United States with Christianity and excludes nonbelievers from the ranks of the aggrieved.
November 18th, 2010
Getting one’s atheism on the cheap
posted by Charles GelmanJacques Berlinerblau, on The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Brainstorm blog, enumerates some of the prevalent misconceptions that inform what he calls “Pop Atheism.”
November 17th, 2010
‘Tis the season for reason
posted by Aaron WeinsteinIn this age of overt commercialization of the holiday season—where no sooner have children returned from trick-or-treating than Christmas music is pumped through convenience store aisles on loop—Americans have become accustomed to the omnipresence of seasonal cheer. But, as Laurie Goodstein noted in The New York Times the this past week, there is a new band of interest groups wrangling for the holiday spotlight: “Just in time for the holiday season, Americans are about to be hit with a spate of advertisements promoting the joy and wisdom of atheism.”
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