https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to science and religion en https://religiondispatches.org/2025/08/18/chatgpt-cant-teach-us-about-religion-or-anything-else-matter This article includes analysis of ChatGPT use in classrooms. With due respect to the author: given its devastating and demonstrably racialized environmental impact, its replication of white supremacy and other forms of injustice, and its specious contributions to knowledge creation… Mon, 18 Aug 2025 02:58:48 EDT Beatrice Marovich 9c1c9057-7047-4921-9aae-82f8c059d0d7 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/07/10/monkeys-and-men-100-years-scopes-trial-and-still-missing-bigger-picture-science-v A century ago today, America fixed its attention on a Dayton courthouse. Tennessee was prosecuting John T. Scopes for violating a 1925 law forbidding public schools and universities to teach the theory of evolution. One of the first true media… Thu, 10 Jul 2025 02:24:05 EDT Donovan Schaefer e8ed9d7f-5a22-4e80-a420-a8feec52c417 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/06/27/fool-took-palantirs-fascism-campus This week it was revealed that White House deputy chief of staff and avid White nationalist Stephen Miller , the man behind the brutal escalation of ICE raids all over the country, owns between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of stock… Fri, 27 Jun 2025 04:50:53 EDT Annika Brockschmidt, Thomas Lecaque b4a95374-5507-4cd6-91bc-8c4a0a6eb799 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/05/07/white-mans-blunder-why-rfks-obsession-chemtrails-and-terrain-theory-wont-make-america Another day, another series of alarming claims from Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the current head of Health and Human Services. This week, on Dr. Phil Primetime (currently available on YouTube or his own streaming channel, Merit TV), RFK announced his… Wed, 07 May 2025 05:05:34 EDT Susannah Crockford 521ff243-dfda-45ae-8684-50b289c18f83 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/02/26/even-rfks-more-benign-sounding-rhetoric-rooted-dangerous-ideology-set-guide-us-health Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Measles-dismisser, nepo-baby, bear cub-dumper , and vaccine skeptic, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was one of the president’s more questionable nominations. This is a significant achievement in itself when compared with other dangerously… Wed, 26 Feb 2025 05:05:25 EST Susannah Crockford 179e83dc-e2e8-4b46-aec3-0d029093213e https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/03/why-we-defend-con-artists-trump-nominee-dr-oz-long-after-theyve-failed-us Remember Dr. Oz? Remember when he was dragged in front of Congress for selling a “magic weight loss cure for every body type” — his green tea “miracle” pills that “burn fat fast”? If confirmed, he will be Trump’s head… Tue, 03 Dec 2024 03:28:34 EST Alan Levinovitz 247a3a80-2d9a-4ccc-8433-f73caeffc142 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/07/01/closed-door-conference-poland-shows-how-us-conservative-christian-networks-export On an October night in 2023, Focus on the Family’s Glenn T. Stanton stood on a small stage in a windowless conference room in Warsaw, Poland, and gave a fierce lecture titled “How ‘Trans’ Reality is Dramatically Shifting.” For almost… Mon, 01 Jul 2024 03:56:56 EDT Antonia Gross, Rina Nikolaeva 397ea5b5-c164-4a52-a212-81f1421ce739 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/09/12/civil-rights-liberals-new-age-conspiracy-theorists-what-betty-and-barney-hills-alien In 1961, driving back from a short vacation, Betty and Barney Hill encountered a bright cigar-shaped light on the highway that moved erratically before appearing to chase them. They fled and then told their story, which later became the first… Tue, 12 Sep 2023 01:54:38 EDT Susannah Crockford 11b2bf80-dbd8-4c33-bf9e-8b545dd57b77 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/07/12/bible-youll-love-lets-go-brandon-t-shirt-how-ai-marketing-shapes-identity Over the past several months, lawmakers on both state and federal levels have worked to pass legislation regulating social media algorithms (especially TikTok ). Among other things, the debates have revealed (or reminded us) that a lot of folks fail… Wed, 12 Jul 2023 02:34:42 EDT Lauren Horn Griffin f6a4441d-ddbc-4280-9298-4ec32fc68dc5 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/03/17/how-ancient-story-renegade-rabbis-caught-black-market-technology-can-help-us-navigate The promise — and the threat — of artificial intelligence is that the world as we know it is ending. Even Sam Altman, the creator of ChatGPT, recognized that behind economic promise glows an apocalyptic aura: “AI will probably most… Fri, 17 Mar 2023 01:36:21 EDT Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld 973b2679-1190-411a-a45b-b8b12ad14c52 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/02/06/jokes-chatgpt-chooses-which-religious-traditions-and-figures-deserve-respect-and ChatGPT is all the rage. It even drives some people into a rage. It does some remarkable things, it does some outrageous things, it does some absurd things. Most things it does badly, such as tell you how to build… Mon, 06 Feb 2023 12:28:42 EST Robert M. Geraci 1855ed91-1864-4e29-9194-89b56ce07424 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/12/22/dont-worry-be-happy-how-amazon-google-neuroscience-threaten-american-buddhism Contemporary American Buddhism has a problem; thankfully, unlike Christianity, it has little to do with the politics of the nation state. Buddhism’s problem is with our state-within-the-state, corporate capitalism—especially high-tech companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google. The situation is basically… Thu, 22 Dec 2022 01:57:02 EST Curtis White 006fc8b2-12a8-4f99-9cad-f331ab54690a https://religiondispatches.org/2022/11/10/psychedelics-experience-renaissance-emorys-new-center-psychedelics-and-spirituality For years, in addition to writing about it numerous times for RD , I’ve included a section on psychedelics and religious experience in my Introduction to Religion course. When I first began to teach on the topic, my students, for… Thu, 10 Nov 2022 12:38:18 EST Hollis Phelps 43175669-52f5-46dc-92c4-c740c3db3932 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/07/10/meditation-sickness-everyone-talking-about-how-nobody-talking-about-risks-meditation There are some visible signs that particular Buddhist communities in the United States are beginning to see a greater need to respond to what are often today called “challenging” or “adverse” meditation experiences. For a few decades now, meditation practices… Sun, 10 Jul 2022 12:47:39 EDT Ira Helderman c25ccb12-3b04-41e9-bb34-400829e97d24 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/07/07/when-religious-freedom-means-freedom-religious-violence Religious freedom has long been a rallying cry of the religious and political right. In recent years, it’s been used to provide a rationale for exemptions from a variety of civil right laws. But at least since January 6 th… Thu, 07 Jul 2022 03:51:18 EDT Frederick Clarkson 290d1d1c-03e0-4adb-99f3-0f1ca77df92b https://religiondispatches.org/2022/07/05/what-role-do-feelings-play-conspiracy-racism-and-climate-denial-welcome-phoning-it Welcome to “Phoning It In,” a gameshow I made up because I am tired and busy but also like to learn about new books! I’m claiming to have made up this game, but if you’ve ever showed up for class… Tue, 05 Jul 2022 01:56:24 EDT Megan Goodwin 684afc69-6ced-475d-bb99-00eed85f9edf https://religiondispatches.org/2022/04/05/demons-held-responsible-these-days-everything-covid-lgbtq-rights-take-visual-tour During our season of political madness , it took a lot to trigger a double-take, and yet a pro-Trump, Covid-denialist pediatrician named Stella Immanuel declaring that illness was caused by the semen of demons was an exemplary case. Dr. Immanuel… Tue, 05 Apr 2022 06:41:18 EDT Ed Simon b56f739c-c520-476b-9177-4d7c90f59b69 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/03/30/metaverse-hero-we-need-rescue-us-suffering-and-enchant-world After a few years hiding in the basements of techno-enthusiasts, virtual reality is back in the limelight. Just in time for a new Matrix movie, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta and tried to take ownership of the entire concept of… Wed, 30 Mar 2022 05:26:53 EDT Robert M. Geraci 9e5a0c4a-ffd4-4928-9bd4-2a14d7c8a255 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/03/04/one-hundred-years-anti-evolution-legislation-are-more-enough In a famous 1958 address commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Russel Wallace’s essays on evolution by natural selection, the distinguished geneticist Hermann J. Muller lamented the neglect of evolution in American education. “It… Fri, 04 Mar 2022 12:52:33 EST Glenn Branch 04eeb76d-22b5-4ae2-b12f-697964bc9838 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/02/23/turn-news-some-abortion-opponents-may-opt-new-vaccine-behind-their-skepticism-its-often In my younger, snottier days, I would have made short work of this piece by Jack Jenkins for Religion News Service: Q: Could Novavax win over some religious vaccine skeptics? A: No. This has been another edition of ‘Simple Answers… Wed, 23 Feb 2022 05:52:18 EST Daniel Schultz e75359f3-9a2d-4847-9369-8df339555f79 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/01/27/no-more-pencils-no-more-books-ultimate-goal-all-those-anti-education-bills-nobodys There’s an important element missing in our national conversation about the flood of legislation attacking critical race theory , banning books, muzzling teachers, and opening public schools to legal liability for teaching about the realities of race in America and… Thu, 27 Jan 2022 02:16:46 EST Andrew L. Seidel 915e2207-de72-49ee-9f4b-746f6547eaa0 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/10/11/welcome-war-what-creationist-conference-can-teach-us-about-evangelical-vaccine When I signed up to attend a 3-day conference at the flagship young-Earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis, I assumed I would be the only person wearing a mask. I was right—kind of. Although none of my fellow attendees was… Mon, 11 Oct 2021 03:30:52 EDT Caroline Matas 1cbf7793-acb3-4b87-994e-056f8be677b3 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/10/08/vaccine-mandates-are-constitutional-religious-exemptions-are-unnecessary-and-harmful The Spirit of 1776 was as much about science as it was about freedom. George Washington required the entire Continental Army to get inoculated against smallpox—the first army-wide vaccination in history . Mortality dropped from 30% to 1%. Mandatory vaccinations… Fri, 08 Oct 2021 01:38:49 EDT Andrew L. Seidel 4e35e6a1-86ac-4dd6-8bd7-8436038e120a https://religiondispatches.org/2021/10/01/vaccine-holdouts-cave-whats-lesson-liberals-authoritarians-require-force Monday was the deadline here in Connecticut for state employees to get vaccinated, per order of the governor, Ned Lamont. The state press corps spent last week speculating about the number of workers who’d walk off the job before being… Fri, 01 Oct 2021 01:51:29 EDT John Stoehr d128e2bc-177c-488a-aee7-8b73087d926e https://religiondispatches.org/2021/09/24/setting-low-bar-religious-entities-praised-treating-covid-religious-exemptions Last week, AP published a small, albeit important article, “Many faith leaders say no to endorsing vaccine exemptions,” noting that the leadership of certain Eastern Orthodox churches, Catholic dioceses, mainline Protestant denominations, Mormon leadership, Orthodox Jewish and Muslim organizations, and… Fri, 24 Sep 2021 05:33:39 EDT Chrissy Stroop 349470be-0d05-4a42-aa0c-1e22d313d648