Stephen Asma offers a well-worn and reasonable defense of religious belief in The Stone–but ironically enough, in a plea for more tolerance, strikes a rather dogmatic note himself. The defense of religious belief and ritual is a familiar one: religion may be an opiate but it is an effective painkiller as a result. Asma offersContinue reading “Science And The Provision Of Existential Comfort”
Tag Archives: religious beliefs
A Conversation On Religious Experience
A couple of summers ago, a friend and I waited at a parking lot by Cottonwood Pass in Colorado for a ride back to Buena Vista. Bad weather had forced us off the Colorado Trail, and we now needed transportation to the nearest lodging venue. A pair of daytrippers, a middle-aged couple, appeared, walking backContinue reading “A Conversation On Religious Experience”
The Supposed Heritability Of Religion And Nationality
I am, supposedly, ‘Hindu’; my wife is similarly ‘Muslim.’ The scare quotes are there because we both regard our supposed ‘religious identities’ as ambiguous; we are not observant, but we were born into Hindu and Muslim families, and thus raised and acculturated into certain norms and cultural rites of passage–and their associated loyalties. (Such looseContinue reading “The Supposed Heritability Of Religion And Nationality”
Samuel Bagenstos On The Mistaken Decision To Jail Kim Davis
Over at The New Republic Samuel Bagenstos offers some spot-on analysis of the decision to jail Kim Davis, ” the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who defied a U.S. Federal Court order requiring that she issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples” and concludes: To many observers…the drama is the point. By making a prominent example of those who obstinately refuseContinue reading “Samuel Bagenstos On The Mistaken Decision To Jail Kim Davis”
Samir Chopra 