Tag Archives: religion

Religion & the state of Laïcité

Posted on September 4, 2010 by David Hume

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on the rise of evangelical Protestantism among French Gyspies, and how that differentiates them from eastern European Roma in their anti-social tendencies: The Gypsy Evangelicals in Chaumont, France counter any stereotype. They … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Beliefs as descriptions, and beliefs as identities

Posted on July 17, 2010 by David Hume

Stephen Prothero has a piece up, Hinduism’s caste problem, out in the open. Prothero points out that religionists often use logical constructs to play word games which reinforce their in-group. Caste is not a problem with Hinduism per se, but … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Gray vs. Grayling

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

It’s worth spending some time on this devastating review by British philosopher John Gray of a new book by British philosopher A.C. Grayling. Neither man is a religious believer, but, after reading this review, it’s difficult not to think that … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged , , , | 27 Comments

The rise of the irreligious Left, the reemergence of Republican religious neutrality (?)

Posted on January 25, 2010 by David Hume

Over at ScienceBlogs I have a post up where I explore the differences by state between the American Religious Identification Survey in 1990 and 2008. I then compare these data to the national election results in 1988 and 2008. Here … Continue reading →

Posted in data | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Mrs. T and the Evolution of Religious Tradition

Posted on January 24, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

In an earlier post, Heather argued that it was a touch difficult to reconcile the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount with the notion of Christianity as an ideology of the free market. In the comments, I noted that the … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Nicholas Wade & Razib Khan on bloggingheads.tv

Posted on January 2, 2010 by David Hume

Here. Or embedded: We talk about The Faith Instinct.

Posted in culture | Tagged | 5 Comments

The nation-state as idol

Posted on November 11, 2009 by David Hume

Rod Dreher & Daniel Larison discuss the intersection of religion and patriotism. The issue of course isn’t adherence to a higher law vs. the nation-state; even those without explicitly religious motivations can reject loyalty to a state whose actions they … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged , | 7 Comments

American, a dissenting Protestant nation?

Posted on November 5, 2009 by David Hume

In my post Religious diversity & its discontents I referred to America as a “Protestant nation.” This caused some confusion because as regular readers know I’m not too focused on theology, as opposed to historical and evolutionary continuity. For example, … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Religious diversity & its discontents

Posted on November 1, 2009 by David Hume

Over at ScienceBlogs I’ve put a comment up about tensions in New York City between a mosque & an establishment across the street which serves alcohol. The issues around public displays of religion, and the norms which are enforced around … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 32 Comments

Why are Catholics Democrats?

Posted on October 30, 2009 by David Hume

Norman Podhortez just came out with a book, Why Are Jews Liberals?. It seems that this as intellectually interesting as writing a book, “Why are blacks Democrats?”, would be. You can tick off specific reasons, but in ethnic terms American … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged , , | 24 Comments