Alain de Botton’s TED Talk: Atheism 2.0
Alain de Botton suggests a “religion for atheists”—call it Atheism 2.0—that incorporates religious forms and traditions to satisfy our human need for connection, ritual, and transcendence.
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New Definition of Autism Will Exclude Many
Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services. The results of a new analysis are preliminary, but they offer the most drastic…
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Krugman: How Fares the Dream?
“I have a dream,” declared Martin Luther King, in a speech that has lost none of its power to inspire. And some of that dream has come true. When King spoke in the summer of 1963, America was a nation that denied basic rights to millions of its citizens, simply because their skin was the…
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Simple Measures Could Reduce Global Warming, Save Lives
Simple, inexpensive measures to cut emissions of two common pollutants will slow global warming, save millions of lives and boost crop production around the world, an international team of scientists. The climate-change debate has centered on carbon dioxide, a gas that wafts in the atmosphere for decades, trapping heat. But in recent years, scienti have…
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Sleepless in Tehran
Through Metanexus Institute, I had helped to organize a delegation of Western scholars to participate in this International Congress on Religion and Science. This was the first conference of its kind to be held in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Universal Reason: Science, Religion, and the Foundations of Civil Societies
At a time of heightened alienation and conflict between Islam and the West, there is a need to promote a “dialogue of civilizations” as called for by President Khatami. The dialogue between science and religion provides an important point of departure.