Craig Martin is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He has published several articles (links below) and a recent book, Masking Hegemony: A Genealogy of Liberalism, Religion and the Private Sphere. Craig is also active in the blogging community and is editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion.
I [...]
Tags:Anderson University·Anthony Giddens·authenticity·authority·binary·Bruce Lincoln·Bulletin for the Study of Religion·Craig Martin·discourse·disparity·domination·essentializing·Foucault·functionalism·legitimation·Marxist·Masking Hegemony·Pierre Bourdieu·Platonic forms·power·private·public·religious studies·Russell McCutcheon·social construction·St. Thomas Aquinas College·stratification·Syracuse University
In his paper purporting to show that a beneficial, baby-making “religion gene” will sweep through a population and eventually make everyone religious, Robert Rowthorn ignores this inconvenient fact: nearly everyone in the world is already religious. Here is how it breaks down:
Because fifty percent of the “Non-Religious” group is theistic but not “religious,” we can [...]
Tags:alleles·atheists·belief gene·believers·brain·brain gene·demography·dual inheritance·faith gene·fertility·fixation·human universal·materialists·neurology·religion gene·Robert Rowthorn·selective sweep·supernaturalism·unbelievers·world religiosity
We should thank Tom Rees over at Epiphenom for posting a much needed “rant on the evolution of religion.” What has Tom so worked up? The claim — first made by Michael Blume and now accepted by Jesse Bering — that “religion” evolved because it promotes fertility. Although the press loves the story, Tom correctly [...]
Tags:differential fitness·evolution of religion·fertility·historical error·hunter-gatherers·Jesse Bering·Jonathan Leake·logical fallacy·Michael Blume·Nick Spencer·Paleolithic·reproduction·social construction·Tom Rees
In the NYT’s Art & Design section, Nicolai Ouroussoff has a fascinating report (and nice slideshow) on the controversial construction boom in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. The Saudi royals seem so impressed by Sin City’s overwhelming and kitschy architecture, they have imported Vegas sized and styled buildings to better serve the (very rich) [...]
Tags:architecture·capitalism·class·class conflict·commerce·consumerism·Grand Mosque·hajj·Islam·jihad·jihadists·kaaba·Las Vegas·Mecca·modernity·Muslims·Nicolai Ouroussoff·pilgrimage tourism·pilgrims·Saudi Arabia
The recent release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks has had several salutary effects, not the least of which is to demonstrate there is no such thing as a unified or essentialized “Muslim world” in which various countries whose citizens call themselves Muslims subordinate their conflicting interests to idealized religious goals. The “Muslim world,” in [...]
Tags:American Muslims·Christian world·Egypt·essentializing·idealized·Iran·Islam·Muqtedar Khan·Muslim nations·Muslim world·Pakistan·reified·Saudi Arabia·WikiLeaks
Having just finished Robert Lowie’s classic Indians of the Plains (1954), I thought it appropriate to comment briefly on chapter six, which is titled “Supernaturalism.”
Lowie begins by noting that Indians did not recognize the physical/metaphysical dichotomy that characterizes Western thought, but they “can and did react vehemently to perceptions that are wholly out of the [...]
Tags:Ake Hultkrantz·Apsaroke·Crow·ethnohistory·Indians·Indians of the Plains·Lakota·manitou·maxpe·Plains Indians·Raymond DeMallie·Robert Lowie·Sioux·supernaturalism·wakan·Winnebago
Our friend Lexington is pleased and puzzled by a new book on American religiosity which argues that despite great diversity, religion is a unifying force in America:
[I]t is pleasing to report that two social scientists, Robert Putnam of Harvard University and David Campbell of the University of Notre Dame, have just written a book that [...]
Tags:American Grace·American religion·American religiosity·Aunt Susan effect·Christianity·David Campbell·denominations·faith tradition·Lexington·nationalism·religious diversity·Robert Putnam·The Economist
Over at the Atlantic, Kenneth Brower has written a superb article on the brilliant iconoclast and physicist Freeman Dyson. He undoubtedly qualifies as a genius and one of the world’s leading scientists, which makes his anti-position on global warming either puzzling or quixotic.
One explanation for Dyson’s contrarian stance is that he sees environmentalists as religionists [...]
Tags:Avatar·David Brower·ecology·environmentalism·Ernesto Zedillo·Freeman Dyson·Gaia Hypothesis·global warming·James Lovelock·Kenneth Brower·nature worship·Sierra Club·Vatican·William Nordhaus
Few things are more critical, or boring, than arriving at a satisfactory definition of “religion” before embarking upon a study of the subject. Despite this seemingly obvious fact, most studies of “religion” commence without any discussion of definitions, thus leaving us with the mistaken impression that the issue is somehow settled and obvious.
There are two [...]
Tags:essentialism·family resemblance·hard core pornography·I know it when I see it·Jacobellis v. Ohio·language games·Les Amants·Louis Malle·Ludwig Wittgenstein·Max Weber·obscenity·Potter Stewart·Reification·Resemblances Among Religions·The Lovers·The Sociology of Religion
Over at Religion Bulletin, the always informative Craig Martin alerts us to the work of Aaron W. Hughes and conducts a thought provoking interview with Hughes. Their topic is “Islam” and I encourage everyone to read it as a palliative to the kind of glib talk about essentialized “Islam” that dominates the news, blog posts [...]
Tags:Aaron Hughes·apologetics·authenticity·Craig Martin·discourse·ecumenical·essentializing·historical Muhammad·Huffington Post·identity·Islam·Islamic Studies·liberal·Muslims·redaction history of Koran·Situating Islam·social construction·tradition·William Chittick
