https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to philosophy en https://politicalresearch.org/2016/12/12/what-fascism Fascism is a form of extreme right-wing ideology that celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community transcending all other loyalties. Mon, 12 Dec 2016 04:46:47 EST Matthew N. Lyons ebbb7378-db23-444a-8073-896e56bd1491 https://politicalresearch.org/2016/11/14/social-movements-need-infrastructure-survive The political Right currently runs the country. That’s very annoying, but pretending it isn’t true is foolhardy. Mon, 14 Nov 2016 01:53:30 EST Chip Berlet c4a889da-7bba-45c1-adb2-95546afca4e8 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/02/29/5-reasons-cartoons-are-21st-centurys-great-metaphysical-playground Could we be living in a simulation created by an advanced civilization? Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that it’s possible, at least in theory, to create a program in which artificially conscious beings inhabit a simulated world. If that’s the case… Mon, 29 Feb 2016 05:45:11 EST Ilana E. Strauss 8bad5a7d-0fed-4ea9-8845-d0762b8b36b0 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/08/27/teaching-plato-palestine-can-philosophy-save-us-our-differences Imagine, for a moment, if, during the tense final hours of the recently concluded negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 world powers, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif decided to set aside their remaining… Thu, 27 Aug 2015 04:10:05 EDT Jerome E. Copulsky fa70d2f4-6ecd-40ba-a7cb-c5ac2de92571 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/07/16/white-supremacy-mental-illness-or-society-whats-blame-religious-violence This article is part of It’s Your Fault, The Cubit ’s series on blame in contemporary society. In this essay, RD associate editor Michael Schulson analyzes the patterns of blame that emerge in the aftermath of religious and ideological violence… Thu, 16 Jul 2015 04:16:31 EDT Michael Schulson 45eee1d1-63ce-4c30-b422-21ec0275d5c3 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/06/12/religious-roots-american-environmentalism What do the Mad Max franchise, protests of the Keystone pipeline, and the idolization of Theodore Roosevelt have in common? They all reflect attitudes towards environmentalism that, according to Mark Stoll, are steeped in Christian intellectual history. In Inherit the… Fri, 12 Jun 2015 01:20:27 EDT Lauren Sutton 86d1ef25-27b6-48c6-b39f-af51f7465da3 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/03/26/studies-confirm-your-steak-possessed-demons You will know them by their noxious emissions. Thu, 26 Mar 2015 12:41:12 EDT Travis Proctor b5fe0176-08d0-447b-896c-261ea937de4e https://religiondispatches.org/2013/11/12/ny-times-dumbing-down-religion TNR’s literary editor accuses the Times of “running promotions for praying in tongues.” Tue, 12 Nov 2013 01:11:38 EST Lisa Webster dec03f90-6a40-4e23-ae74-41adec27531a https://religiondispatches.org/2013/08/05/colin-mcginn-not-only-masturbating-philosopher While researching the history of philosophical arguments about the existence of God, it gradually became clear that my undertaking was in fact a study of masculinity, so shot through were these arguments with gendered assumptions and ideals. And, as a study of masculinity, it was also a study of patriarchy. Mon, 05 Aug 2013 04:31:46 EDT Nathan Schneider 3b55cffb-30dc-4c37-8121-bd20dd3e8726 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/07/08/evangelical-intellectual-takes-same-sex-marriage-grasps-straw-men Though Craig is correct that his argument is “simple,” he is wrong to believe that simplicity makes it good. Indeed, the suggestion that terms and concepts are immune to redefinition is simply… false. It demands an unflattering comparison to Rick Santorum, who once stumped around the nation declaring that a “ napkin is a napkin.” Mon, 08 Jul 2013 02:39:57 EDT Eric C. Miller b7c27bc6-976e-4cdf-8201-bd472f53bb75 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/06/03/only-good-die-young-moral-universe-game-thrones If Lord of the Rings was the epic for the Cold War era, then Game of Thrones is the epic for our time, with the disappearance of the clear oppositions that once enabled easy discrimination between friend and enemy. Mon, 03 Jun 2013 03:51:04 EDT George Schmidt 68149eaa-250b-48a1-8df9-14f82db5614b https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/18/francis-jesuit-philosopher-pope Amid the clamor to figure out who Pope Francis might be, observers never failed to mention that he is the first Jesuit pope. But what does that really tell us and, more importantly, as his decisions begin to come down the pipeline, what is most important to know about his Jesuit worldview? Thu, 18 Apr 2013 05:10:21 EDT J. Michelle Molina 30a3bb25-dd15-44ac-9498-6405f345e763 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/16/reasons-my-son-crying-and-suffering-children This is not just a dancing cat blog. Tue, 16 Apr 2013 06:35:53 EDT Jodi Eichler-Levine b65c0a2d-417f-4c9d-9db8-58a3549cd37b https://religiondispatches.org/2012/08/20/simon-critchley-atheist-religious-thinker-utopia-fiction-faith Philosopher Simon Critchley on evangelical atheists, the ‘supreme fiction’ in politics or love, and why the debate over whether you believe in a god is massively irrelevant. Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:18:49 EDT Beatrice Marovich 1e45ec18-9506-45a7-850f-53c9a707e3b7 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/06/06/profound-delight-being-remembering-john-hick John Hick, a celebrated theologian and philosopher who died earlier this year, was drawn to issues that transcend any particular tradition—the question of evil, the meaning of suffering, life after death, and religious diversity. Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:11:22 EDT Amir Dastmalchian 51f9e664-5a57-4271-b3a8-4e7cfa6bb041 https://religiondispatches.org/2011/11/17/talking-religion-30000-feet I lie a lot on airplanes. Not in any way that should upset the TSA or anything like that—just to the question “What do you do?” I don’t like admitting to strangers what it is I do. I’m a Ph.D… Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:42:43 EST Michael J. Altman a8b269d0-7282-4fa7-83ae-0166e7c535aa https://religiondispatches.org/2011/08/11/taking-economy-back-elites-blessed-are-organized Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed Are the Organized is arguably even more relevant now than when it was published last year. Even then, the United States economy had collapsed in on itself. Barack Obama’s role had fully shifted from community organizer to Beltway compromiser, and the grassroots was being overgrown by Tea Party “astroturf.” But now—as politicians wrestle our economy even lower to the ground at the behest of organized elites, and the voice of the majority seems to grow ever fainter in their ears—the kind of real grassroots organizing Stout writes about seems all the more to be what we need. Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:51:34 EDT Nathan Schneider aae64b48-2962-4e4a-9987-b44de70c04de https://religiondispatches.org/2011/05/05/were-you-born-selfish-interview-frans-de-waal Both the good and bad in our species come from our primate background, says primatologist Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy. Thu, 05 May 2011 08:38:21 EDT Benjamin Hale 7e5b12ee-42bd-4633-bbdd-cac27f75fe80 https://religiondispatches.org/2011/04/29/unreasonable-doubt-vincent-bugliosi-defends-agnosticism When he’s not writing bestselling books, Vincent Bugliosi is a legendary prosecuting attorney. As such, he is certainly well acquainted with the legal policy of presumption of innocence. His newest book, Divinity of Doubt, a treatise on agnosticism, would have been much better if Bugliosi had taken this principle into account in the context of his arguments for, and against, God. Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:34:47 EDT Eric Reitan 649914e9-8194-4696-95f5-4e4a68e8d07b https://religiondispatches.org/2011/04/14/debating-god-atheist-and-evangelical-face-notre-dame The University of Notre Dame had cause for its anxiety leading up to last week’s big debate between the New Atheist polemicist Sam Harris and the evangelical philosopher William Lane Craig. It’s said that all publicity is good publicity, but one needn’t strain too hard to find an exception—least of all in the history of God debates. Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:06:27 EDT Nathan Schneider 074ef7de-0314-4c24-a50a-9079f9191ff4 https://religiondispatches.org/2011/01/05/philosopher-religion-calls-it-quits Philosopher of Religion Keith Parsons hung up his hat a few months ago, after announcing that he believed the “case for theism” to be a fraud: “Theistic philosophers and apologists are almost painfully earnest and honest… I just cannot take their arguments seriously anymore.” It’s rare for a philosopher to renounce his or her own specialty—but Parsons’ rejection speaks to a broader dilemma. Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:38:58 EST Julia Galef b841c3fb-a194-4409-be50-70a78aa118e3 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/11/15/secret-sequel-new-age-mind-cure-misses-point The ancients were wise to life’s tragedies too. Some things do, apparently, go badly. (They could hardly think otherwise, living during that long period of history in which death was associated with the young, not the old.) So, their instruction was to ‘go with the flow’ even when that is hard to stomach. Theirs is not a relentless optimism, expecting everything, like Byrne’s. Rather, the Stoics advocated expecting nothing, but working at everything. Mon, 15 Nov 2010 03:48:50 EST Mark Vernon 99826189-5ce1-4a66-8fc0-252aed5c91cd https://religiondispatches.org/2010/10/26/little-value-new-harris-book Sam Harris latest, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, is undermined by poor scholarship, ad hominem attacks and an obsession with religion. Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:51:42 EDT Michael Ruse 485ebb9e-6a21-4d9a-96c2-4ae9cbbf3a3b https://religiondispatches.org/2010/05/21/miracles-rejects-disenchantment-not-science For two decades The Insane Clown Posse, a hip-hop group from Detroit, has cultivated an underground network of dedicated fans. The Posse, usually abbreviated to just “ICP,” consists of Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J. Their musical stylings are known as “horrorcore” because… Fri, 21 May 2010 03:54:25 EDT Joseph Laycock fbfd0e92-f9ad-40bd-8e03-934248663e66 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/05/20/sarah-palin-and-static-god In a recent interview on Fox News, commentator Bill O’Reilly asked Sarah Palin what she would tell an America that… Thu, 20 May 2010 09:20:02 EDT John Willingham 010528e6-2b6d-4dbd-a370-3fafde7489ca