Religion and Spirituality in Society

By Stanley Fish via The New York Times

The topic this past Sunday on the show “Up w/ Chris Hayes” (MSNBC) was the statistical correlation between deniers of global warming and religious believers. Participants included such luminaries as Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion,” and Steven Pinker, author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” a new book arguing that the world has gotten less violent as the tide of fundamentalist faith has receded and given way to the dictates of reason. It was no surprise that the panel’s default position, stated almost explicitly by Susan Jacoby, was that religion clouds the mind of those who, if they were only sufficiently educated, would arrive at the conclusion supported by the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence and reject the blind adherence to revealed or ecclesiastical authority that characterizes religious belief.

The self-congratulatory unanimity that presided over the discussion was challenged at one point by Hayes, who posed the following question: If you hold to the general skepticism that informs scientific inquiry — that is, if you refuse either to anoint a viewpoint in advance because it is widely held or to send viewpoints away because they are regarded as fanciful or preposterous — how do you respond to global-warming deniers or Holocaust deniers or creationists when they invoke the same principle of open inquiry to argue that they should be given a fair hearing and be represented in departments of history, biology and environmental science? What do you do, Hayes asked, when, in an act of jujitsu, the enemies of liberal, scientific skepticism wield it as a weapon against its adherents?  More…

Via Huffington Post

News that Adolf Hitler’s racist manifesto, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) would be republished in Germany was met with mixed reactions from Jewish groups. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that many German Jews welcomed the news.

“If it is going to be released, then I prefer seeing a competent annotated version from the Bavarian state than profit-seekers trying to make money with Nazis,” head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann said. He also called the reprinting a “good idea.”

The new version of Mein Kampfwill include commentaries condemning Hitler’s arguments.  Even so, some Jewish groups are not happy about this latest development.

“Holocaust survivors are appalled at the insensitivity and crass commercialism that would motivate the publication of Hitler’s hate-filled book in the historic cradle of the Nazi terror regime,” Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, told AFP.  More…

By Kimberly Winston via USA Today

Stripped of its supernatural elements, does religion have anything to offer atheists? What can nonbelievers borrow from the organizations, practices and rituals of believers — without borrowing a belief in God?

According to Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton, a lot.

In his new book, Religion For Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion he outlines an array of things he contends religions get right and that atheists can adopt to create a better, richer secular society.

“The starting point of all religions is that humans are weak and vulnerable and needing direction,” de Botton said shortly after arriving in the U.S. from his home in England to promote the book.

“But as I look at secular society, I see how we’ve been abandoned to make our own way through life and how challenging that is.”

Religion, de Botton writes, has a lot to say about how to live and love, caring for others, handling suffering, dealing with death and all the other universal experiences that make us human.  More…

By Bob Smietana via USA TODAY

The Bible tells its readers to obey the law, but it also tells them to welcome strangers and foreigners. That has left some Christians divided over the issue of immigration reform.  Members of Clergy for Tolerance, based here, say new immigration laws have to mix justice with compassion.

But supporters of measures such as Alabama’s say the Bible teaches that the government’s job is to enforce the law, and those who break it should be punished. The American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group, filed a brief in federal court supporting the Alabama law.

That measure, which the Obama administration is challenging, prohibits undocumented immigrants from entering into “business transactions” with the state, requires police to check immigration status during traffic stops and makes it a crime for U.S. citizens to knowingly assist undocumented immigrants.

“The whole heart of the Gospel is in Matthew 25, where Jesus said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me,’ ” said Randy Hoover-Dempsey, pastor of All Saints Episcopal Church in Smyrna, Tenn., whose congregation includes about 200 Burmese immigrants.  More…

By Kim Lawton via PBS

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: On any given weekend, some 15,000 people worship with the evangelical Northland Church, but about a third of them never set foot in the building here in Longwood, Florida. They’re worshiping online via the Web and Facebook and Smartphones.

MARTY TAYLOR (Northland Church, Director of Media Design): We call ourselves a church distributed because we don’t want to be confined to this space. We want to be everywhere, every day, and technology is a great tool for us to be able to do that.

LAWTON: On site, worship leaders always welcome the online participants. On this Sunday that includes a small gathering at a nearby prison and people from as far away as Japan. As the main service progresses, online minister Nathan Clark connects with his virtual flock.

NATHAN CLARK (Northland Church, Online Minister): I provide pastoral care. I provide direction and really help them connect to other people around them as well, ultimately to connect them to God while they are in the worship environment.   More…