Where does moral law come from? What lies behind our sense of right and wrong? For millennia, there have been two available answers. To the devoutly religious, morality is the word of God, handed down to holy men in groves or on mountaintops. To moral philosophers like Kant, it is a set of rules to be worked out by reason, chin on fist like Rodin’s thinker. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
In most surveys, nine out of ten Americans respond in the affirmative to the question “Do you believe in God?” The other 10 percent provide a variety of answers, including a favorite among skeptics and atheists. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
There’s a struggle inside the brain of David Eagleman for the soul of David Eagleman. That is, there might be such a struggle if Eagleman’s brain believed that Eagleman had a soul, which he is not sure about. In fact, Eagleman’s brain is not completely sure that there is an Eagleman-beyond-Eagleman’s-brain at all—with or without a soul, whatever that term might mean. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
For someone so obviously self-conscious, the consensus runs, Christopher Hitchens is quite parsimonious in giving a piece of himself. Even from laudatory reviews come a mildly clucking sound: It’s all well and good that you’re chums with Martin, Salman and Ian, but you haven’t really put yourself on the couch or “opened up,” have you? Rather hostile to psychoanalysis for a self-described “orthodox Freudian,” aren’t we? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
The ethics of risk is not as straightforward as the rhetoric of “paramount importance” suggests. People talk of the “precautionary principle” or “erring on the side of caution” but governments are always trading safety for convenience or other gains. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
His workshop was in Swamimalai, near Tanjore, from where the Chola dynasty once ruled the southern half of the subcontinent. There he and his two elder brothers plied their trade, making gods and goddesses in exactly the same manner as their ancestors: “The gods created man,” he explained, “but here we are so blessed that we—simple men as we are—help create the gods.” <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Those lines by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written while she was being courted by Robert Browning, and among the most famous in all of poetry, open one of 44 of her love poems that are collectively known as Sonnets From the Portuguese. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
How do Americans spend their leisure time? The answer might surprise you. The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends, participating in sports, or relaxing with the family. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
From hero of the left to neocon turncoat, and still battling on: Christopher Hitchens talks to Decca Aitkenhead about old arguments and his new memoir. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Can one believe in evolution and God? Some people of faith and some scientists agree: “No.” They are wrong. The theory of evolution says that organisms are related by descent from common ancestors. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
John the Baptizer—as some like to call him, to give a better sense of the original Greek’s flat-footed active form—baptized Jesus. They believe it because it seems so unlikely, so at odds with the idea that Jesus always played the star in his own show: why would anyone have said it if it weren’t true? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
For almost 400 years, the residents of the Bavarian village of Oberammergau have performed their world-famous Passion Play, a reenactment of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. But the play’s avant-garde director, who is determined to erase traces of anti-Semitism from the piece, has left locals at odds over how to reconcile modern Christianity and tradition. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
I think I am very close to concluding that this whole “New Atheism” movement is only a passing fad—not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Many people see the decline of embarrassment as a good thing. “Why shouldn’t I be able to do X?” People often say this after having done something outrageous or transgressive. But this misunderstands the distinction between embarrassment – a mild but necessary correction of inappropriate behavior – and shame, which is a stronger emotional response usually involving feelings of guilt about more serious breaches of conduct. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Like many scientists and humanists, I have long been fascinated by the capacities and inclinations of babies and children. The mental life of young humans not only is an interesting topic in its own right; it also raises — and can help answer — fundamental questions of philosophy and psychology, including how biological evolution and cultural experience conspire to shape human nature. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism are so self-evidently at odds that their differences hardly bear mentioning. The same goes for democracy and monarchy. Yet scholars continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Christianity are, by some miracle of the imagination, both essentially the same and basically good. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
When it comes to religion, the connection between believing and belonging is a tangled one. The notion of an established church or credo representing the nation at prayer stretches back through history and lingers on, to almost everyone’s dissatisfaction, in the current Church of England. For, in Britain at least, alongside all the other privatisations of recent decades, there has been a privatisation of faith, with people exploring religion in their heads and hearts but increasingly rarely in houses of God. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
“Yes,” I say, “my wife and I are at the grandparent stage,” and then pause and ask the person to whom I’ve just said it if he or she knows that the reason grandparents and grandchildren get on so well is that they share a common enemy. All the world, like the man said, is a stage. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Let’s suppose that Martin Marty and Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong are always utterly forthright when they hold forth in churches, “speaking truth to power,” challenging the conservative “common Christianity” that they have moved beyond, but how often–if ever–have they had to face a congregation that could ruin their careers if pushed too hard? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
In eminent particle physicist, John Polkinghorne helped make one of the breakthroughs that transformed modern physics: the discovery of the quark (an unseen but fundamental constituent of matter). He held the prestigious post of Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge, but in 1979, Polkinghorne surprised many with the announcement that he planned to become an Anglican priest. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
The Ten Commandments were set in stone, but it may be time for a re-chisel. With all due humility, the author takes on the job, pruning the ethically dubious, challenging the impossible, and rectifying some serious omissions. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Last year was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The anniversary was marked by conferences the world over. I will not tell you how many I attended; ecologically sensitive readers of The Chronicle might start whining about carbon footprints and that sort of thing. Let me just say that I found myself going no fewer than three times through the Quad City International Airport, in Moline, Ill. Moline! <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Every dog owner knows a pooch can learn the house rules—and when she breaks one, her subsequent groveling is usually ingratiating enough to ensure quick forgiveness. But few people have stopped to ask why dogs have such a keen sense of right and wrong. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
On valentine’s day two years ago, Paul Wagner, a 40-year-old Philadelphia purchasing manager, gave Gail Tomas, a total stranger, his left kidney. Wagner met Tomas, a 65-year-old former opera singer, on the internet, at MatchingDonors.com. Her daughter had posted an ad asking some magnificent stranger to save her mother. “It was there that I read about a lady in my city, Philadelphia, who was desperate for help,” Wagner said. “It has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.” This story had a happy ending. Yet it unfolded amid controversy over whether ethical norms were violated. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Once upon a time, the United States had a president known for a peculiar facial display. In an act of controlled emotion, he would bite his lower lip and tell his audience, “I feel your pain.” Whether the display was sincere is not the issue here; how we are affected by another’s predicament is. Empathy is second nature to us, so much so that anyone devoid of it strikes us as dangerous or mentally ill. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
The pluralism and diversity that has defined spiritual life on the Indian subcontinent for centuries, Pankaj Mishr writes, continues to transcend the divisive politics of religion and preserve the possibilities of coexistence. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Many people who feel passionate about saving the planet justify their intense feelings by pointing to the seriousness of the problem and the high stakes involved. No doubt they are right about the seriousness. There are indeed environmental challenges, and steps must be taken to ameliorate them. But there is another way to understand the unique passion surrounding our need to go green. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Hardly anyone noticed this summer when former president Jimmy Carter explained why he had decided to leave the Baptist Church. Considerably more attention was generated some months earlier by another story about how religion conceives and enforces its view of a woman’s place. The horrific attack on two Afghan girls en route to school—the young women were severely disfigured by acid allegedly thrown by Taliban fighters—was widely reported and discussed. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Believers have got into a tangle trying to fend off the likes of Richard Dawkins. And then there’s the problem of the horticultural parable. Anthony Gottlieb does some digging … <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
The surprise Swiss vote last month to ban new minarets triggered the expected gnashing of teeth from those who believe Islam, the least tolerant of faiths when administered by autocrats and absolute monarchs, should not only be tolerated, but encouraged. “It is an expression of intolerance, and I detest intolerance,” commented French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. “I hope the Swiss will reverse this decision quickly.” <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
It’s no secret that conservative Christians dominate the U.S. military, but when higher-ups start talking about conversion missions, it’s time to worry. The author meets a group of soldiers who aren’t having it. Christopher Hitchens on Church and State. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Where I intend to be divisive is with respect to the argument that religion, and moral education more generally, represent the only — or perhaps even the ultimate — source of moral reasoning. If anything, moral education is often motivated by self-interest, to do what’s best for those within a moral community, preaching singularity, not plurality. Blame nurture, not nature, for our moral atrocities against humanity. And blame educated partiality more generally, as this allows us to lump into one category all those who fail to acknowledge our shared humanity and fail to use secular reasoning to practice compassion. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
For close to two decades Cass Seltzer has all but owned the psychology of religion, but only because nobody else wanted it, not anyone with the smarts to do academic research in psychology and the ambition to follow through. But now things had happened — fundamental and fundamentalist things — and religion as a phenomenon is on everybody’s mind. And among all the changes that religion’s new towering profile has wrought in the world, which are mostly alarming if not downright terrifying, is the transformation in the life of one Cass Seltzer. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Before Facebook, few of us asked others, explicitly, to be our friends. We didn’t monitor how many friends we had as an indication of our status or scroll through listings of friends of friends to pad our own list. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Killing the Buddah Magazine
Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series of sixteen novels (so far!) represents everything that is most deranged about religion. If I had to choose companions to take my chances with in a lifeboat, and the choice boiled down to picking Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, or Christopher Hitchens, I’d pick Hitchens in a heartbeat. At least he wouldn’t try to sink our boat so that Jesus would come back sooner. He might even bring along a case of wine. Frank Schaeffer explains. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
What makes economies grow? It’s a question that has occupied thinkers for centuries. Most of us would tick off things like education levels, openness to trade, natural resources, and political systems. Here’s one you might not have considered: hell. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
“Ardi Refutes Darwin’s Theory,” Al Jazeera announced, in an Oct. 3 article not available on the English version of the website. “American scientists have presented evidence that Darwin’s theory of evolution was wrong,” the article opened. “The team announced yesterday that Ardi’s discovery proves that humans did not evolve from ancestors that resemble chimpanzees, which refutes the longstanding assumption that humans evolved from monkeys.” <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
My view of wisdom in medicine, perhaps ironically, comes not from a scientific treatise or clinical tome. Rather, it derives from words that I have heard and repeated since childhood but only after decades of clinical practice realized how they apply to the care of patients. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Wisdom plays it safe, avoids occasions of sin, sits home on Saturday night with an improving book. Elvis used to croon that “Wise men say, ‘Only fools rush in.’” But like the king he was, he knew that a brokenhearted clown understood more about the heart than any cautious Polonius. What would love be without impetuousness? Who can love and then be wise? “The heart has reasons that the reason doesn’t know.” This is why computerized dating seems repulsive to so many people; you just know the machine would be happier working on a spreadsheet. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Absurdist literature, it appears, stimulates our brains. That’s the conclusion of a study recently published in the journal Psychological Science. Psychologists Travis Proulx of the University of California, Santa Barbara and Steven Heine of the University of British Columbia report our ability to find patterns is stimulated when we are faced with the task of making sense of an absurd tale. What’s more, this heightened capability carries over to unrelated tasks. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
What is perhaps surprising is that Consolmagno is also a Jesuit brother, that many of his colleagues are ordained priests, and that they’re scanning the heavens with the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope or, more affectionately, the “Pope scope.” The state-of-the-art facility is part of the Vatican Observatory, established behind St. Peter’s Basilica in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII at least partly to show that the Roman Catholic Church was not anti-science — an allegation that has persisted since Galileo was dragged before the Inquisition for claiming that the earth moves. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Inspired by the high profile of its Christian American counterpart, Muslim creationism is becoming increasingly visible and confident. On scores of websites and in dozens of books with titles like The Evolution Deceit and The Dark Face of Darwinism, a new and well-funded version of evolution-denialism, carefully calibrated to exploit the current fashion for religiously inspired attacks on scientific orthodoxy and “militant” atheism, seems to have found its voice. In a recent interview with The Times Richard Dawkins himself recognises the impact of this new phenomenon: “There has been a sharp upturn in hostility to teaching evolution in the classroom and it’s mostly coming from Islamic students.” <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Frans de Waal’s book title, “The Age of Empathy”, has a double-meaning: empathy is both very old and freshly topical. It is as ancient as the entire mammalian line, he argues, engaging areas of the brain that developed in our distant ancestors over 100m years ago. And we are also entering a new age of empathy, he thinks, brought on by the financial crisis (the product of a selfishly oriented system), and marked by America’s election of President Barack Obama, who has re-emphasised the importance of compassion and helping one’s neighbour. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Children everywhere stew in the same pot of family conflict, with different cultural seasonings added for flavor. When parents restrict behaviors that children regard as personal choices, such as what clothes to wear or which friends to hang out with, disputes inevitably arise. Parental restrictions on behavior that kids view as morally wrong or as a violation of conventional social rules are often accepted, even if grudgingly. Charles Helwig explains how universal concerns, not cultural values, may shape kids’ developing notions of right and wrong. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Perhaps I may begin with a few words about the title. There is too much nuance and variety to make such sharp distinctions as theirs-and-ours, them-and-us. And neither I nor anyone can presume to speak for “us.” But I will pretend it is possible. There is also a problem with the term “crisis.” Which one? There are numerous very severe crises, interwoven in ways that preclude any clear separation. But again I will pretend otherwise, for simplicity. Noam Chomsky explains. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
The financial bust reminds us that free markets require a constellation of moral virtues. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville worried that free, capitalist societies might develop so great a “taste for physical gratification” that citizens would be “carried away, and lose all self-restraint.” Avidly seeking personal gain, they could “lose sight of the close connection which exists between the private fortune of each of them and the prosperity of all” and ultimately undermine both democracy and prosperity. How is it that Tocqueville became right? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
This fall, evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins — most recently famous for his public exhortation to atheism, “The God Delusion” — returns to writing about science. Dawkins’ new book, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” will inform and regale us with the stunning “evidence for evolution,” as the subtitle says. It will surely be an impressive display, as Dawkins excels at making the case for evolution. But it’s also fair to ask: Who in the United States will read Dawkins’ new book (or ones like it) and have any sort of epiphany, or change his or her mind? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Optimists called the first world war “the war to end all wars”. Philosopher George Santayana demurred. In its aftermath he declared: “Only the dead have seen the end of war”. History has proved him right, of course. What’s more, today virtually nobody believes that humankind will ever transcend the violence and bloodshed of warfare. I know this because for years I have conducted numerous surveys asking people if they think war is inevitable. Whether male or female, liberal or conservative, old or young, most people believe it is. For example, when I asked students at my university “Will humans ever stop fighting wars?” more than 90 per cent answered “No”. Many justified their assertion by adding that war is “part of human nature” or “in our genes”. But is it really? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
World War II concentration camps, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq, and many other times and places have been seared into our collective consciousness. These images have led to a common belief that technology, centralized nation-states, and modern values have brought about unprecedented violence. But now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
After all the arguments for subordinating women have been shown to be self-serving lies, what are misogynists left with? They have only one feeble argument that is still deferred to and shown undeserving respect across the world, even by people who should know better: “God told me to. I have to treat women as lesser beings, because it is inscribed in my Holy Book.” <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Robert Wright has carved out a distinct niche in American journalism. While his essays range freely across the political landscape — from foreign policy to technology — it’s his meaty, book-length forays into evolutionary psychology and the sweep of history that have set him apart. Now his latest book goes after bigger game: God Almighty. In an interview with something to offend everyone, Robert Wright explains why religion has given us a fickle deity. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
God has mellowed. The God that most Americans worship occasionally gets upset about abortion and gay marriage, but he is a softy compared with the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. That was a warrior God, savagely tribal, deeply insecure about his status and willing to commit mass murder to show off his powers. But at least Yahweh had strong moral views, occasionally enlightened ones, about how the Israelites should behave. His hunter-gatherer ancestors, by contrast, were doofus gods. Morally clueless, they were often yelled at by their people and tended toward quirky obsessions. One thunder god would get mad if people combed their hair during a storm or watched dogs mate. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
War, what is it good for? A lot, it could turn out. Lethal warfare drove the evolution of altruistic behaviour among ancient humans, claims a new study based on archaeological records and mathematical simulations. If correct, the new model solves a long-standing puzzle in human evolution: how did our species transition from creatures interested in little more than passing down their own genes to societies of (generally) law-abiding (mostly) monogamists? <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
John Gray’s latest, Gray’s Anatomy, a selection of his articles and essays published over the past 30 years, will once again leave you poised, noose in hand, excitedly contemplating the sheer wretchedness of human existence. Gray believes there are far too many humans, that we are a plague on the planet and a rapacious horde, and that our desires for a better society will inevitably end in mass murder. What one must wonder is how can such a misanthrope can get out of bed every morning. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Today’s economists are unlikely to perceive, let alone solve, a moral crisis because, as Nudge admits, they are “pretty unsociable creatures.” They seek mainly their own advantage, and they expect others to do the same. The authors discuss Humans’ tendency to care about the views of others only as a violation of rationality, not a virtue. Yet without it, who would make deals with strangers? A lack of trust and civility is one reason markets fail to make societies rich in the less developed world. The ethos of modern economics is at war with the moral basis of capitalism. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Concerns over binge drinking — the habit of drinking large quantities of alcohol with the intention of getting drunk, usually in company but without the benefit of conversation of any kind — have brought into focus the great difference that exists between virtuous and vicious drinking. Our puritan legacy, which sees pleasure as the doorway to vice, makes it difficult for many people to understand this difference. If alcohol causes drunkenness, they think, then the sole moral question concerns whether you should drink it at all, and if so how much. The idea that the moral question concerns how you drink it, in what company and in what state of mind, is one that is entirely foreign to their way of understanding the human condition. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
“Can a machine read your mind?’ – the title of a recent (February 2009) article in the Times– is meant to be sensational but is similar to hundreds of other articles appearing with increasing frequency, and merely repeating a story that has been familiar for the last 50 years. ‘It’s just a matter of time’ is the assumption behind such articles – just a matter of time before the gap between physical brain-stuff and consciousness is bridged. The Times article plays up the social interest angle of its story by describing experiments in which people’s brain activity is taken as proof of their guilt or innocence of crimes, or in which a computer ‘could tell with 78 per cent accuracy’ which of a number of drawings shown to volunteers was the one they were concentrating on … <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Globalization is leading to more belief, not less. Caspar Melville talks to the editor of The Economist about his new book tracing the rise and rise of religion. The book considers the United States as it is both the most modern and one of the most religious countries in the world. The United States provides solid evidence of how religions can provide a commendable array of social services in the absence of an effective welfare state. But it is also a perfect example of how religion can be kept separate from the state. If we could all become more like America, the book argues, we could all get along famously. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
I think I love my wife. At least most of the time. (Not counting when she makes me go see Henry Jaglom movies.) But what does that mean — I love my wife? And how does my love stack up against other husbands’? For the first time in the history of human mating, scientists may have found a way to pin down this most ethereal of emotions. We’re on the verge of dissecting this butterfly. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>
Today’s prevailing social consensus about pornography is practically identical to the social consensus about tobacco in 1963: i.e., it is characterized by widespread tolerance, tinged with resignation about the notion that things could ever be otherwise. After all, many people reason, pornography’s not going to go away any time soon. Serious people, including experts, either endorse its use or deny its harms or both. Also, it is widely seen as cool, especially among younger people, and this coveted social status further reduces the already low incentive for making a public issue of it. In addition, many people also say that consumers have a “right” to pornography — possibly even a constitutional right. No wonder so many are laissez-faire about this substance. Given the social and political circumstances arrayed in its favor, what would be the point of objecting? <<<To read full article, click here.>>> | <<<To comment on article, click here.>>>
Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant. <<<To read full article, click here.>>> | <<<To comment on article, click here.>>>
Religulous, Bill Maher’s religion-baiting documentary, confirms what modern atheists hate most about religion: its humancentricity. <<<To read article, click here.>>>
For all the advances and wonders of our global era, Christians, Jews, and Muslims seem ever more locked in mortal combat. But history suggests a happier outcome for the Peoples of the Book. As technological evolution has brought communities, nations, and faiths into closer contact, it is the prophets of tolerance and love that have prospered, along with the religions they represent. Is globalization, in fact, God’s will? <<<To read article, click here.>>>
