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Sam Harris - Death and the Present Moment

Sam Harris - Death and the Present Moment

Promoting Hinduism? Parents Demand Removal Of School Yoga Class hide captionThird-graders at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., perform chair pose with instructor Kristen McCloskey last month. Kyla Calvert for NPR Third-graders at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., perform chair pose with instructor Kristen McCloskey last month. During first period at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., Kristen McCloskey leads about two dozen third-graders through some familiar yoga poses. "All right, so let's do our opening sequence A," she says, instructing the kids. "Everyone take a big inhale, lift those arms up. At the end of the half-hour class, 8-year-old Jacob Hagen says he feels energized and ready for the rest of the day. Schools across the country are focusing more on teaching students to make healthy choices; Encinitas Superintendent Tim Baird says yoga is just one element of the district's physical education curriculum. "We also have a nutrition program," he says. "Absolutely not — no.

46% Americans Believe In Creationism According To Latest Gallup Poll A new Gallup poll measures Americans' belief in the origin of human beings, and how this belief correlates with church attendance, political party affiliation and education level. The poll was conducted by interviewing a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The following question was asked to determine Americans' views on origin of human beings: Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings? 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process, 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. Overall, in the last 30 years, there hasn't been a significant shift in Americans' belief in creationism or evolution.

As Social Issues Drive Young From Church, Leaders Try To Keep Them : The Two-Way On Friday, Morning Edition wraps up its weeklong look at the growing number of people who say they do not identify with a religion. The final conversation in the Losing Our Religion series picks up on a theme made clear throughout the week: Young adults are drifting away from organized religion in unprecedented numbers. In Friday's story, NPR's David Greene talks to two religious leaders about the trend and wonders what they tell young people who are disillusioned with the church. According to the Pew Research Center, one-third of Americans under 30 have no religious affiliation. "I think the single most important reason for the rise of the unknowns is that combination of the younger people moving to the left on social issues and the most visible religious leaders moving to the right on that same issue." Take Melissa Adelman, 30, a participant in a roundtable about religion that Greene had with six young adults. In Friday's story, the Rev. "I'm full of hope indeed," says Surufka.

All Ethics Are Secular Ethics In an exchange at Slate with Will Saletan, Ross Douthat writes: [T]he more purely secular liberalism has become, the more it has spent down its Christian inheritance—the more its ideals seem to hang from what Christopher Hitchens’ Calvinist sparring partner Douglas Wilson has called intellectual “skyhooks,” suspended halfway between our earth and the heaven on which many liberals have long since given up. Say what you will about the prosperity gospel and the cult of the God Within and the other theologies I criticize in Bad Religion, but at least they have a metaphysically coherent picture of the universe to justify their claims. Whereas much of today’s liberalism expects me to respect its moral fervor even as it denies the revelation that once justified that fervor in the first place. If divine commandments are not supposed to be mere arbitrary rules we obey out of fear, then every question Ross thinks confronts the secular moralist reappears within a theistic framework.

Newtown Tragedy: Would A Good God Allow Such Evil? hide captionPeople gather for a prayer vigil at St. Rose Church in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14. In the aftermath of such tragedies, many people ask how a benevolent God and suffering can coexist. Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images People gather for a prayer vigil at St. When a human tragedy occurs on the scale of the Newtown shootings, clergy are invariably asked an ancient question: If God is all-knowing, all-powerful and benevolent, why does he allow such misfortunes? There's even a word for reconciling this paradox: theodicy, or attempting to justify God's goodness despite the existence of evil and suffering. A World Both Beautiful And Shattered Steven Folberg, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas, has been asked this question before. No small assignment. "I saw a bumper sticker once that said, 'God is good. "The idea was to say, if one accepts those three propositions as true, then they're logically inconsistent. You cannot wiggle your way out, the rabbi continues.

How I felt after coming to r/atheism Mormonism: A Scrutinized, Yet Evolving Faith hide captionThe historic Mormon Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City. George Frey/Landov Mitt Romney refused to mix religion with politics in this year's presidential campaign, but that didn't repress people's curiosity about Mormonism. His candidacy brought the homegrown faith into the spotlight. Patrick Mason, a professor and chairman of the Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University, says attention paid to his faith has been twofold. "South Park is a great example of this, The Book of Mormon musical is a great example of this, where people say, well, with increased attention comes increased scrutiny," he says. Mason says many people are skeptical of the church's origins, which involve the story of an angel directing Joseph Smith to golden plates and revealing a new Gospel. And yet, he says, many Americans don't think twice about Jesus walking on water or God sending Jews manna from heaven, because those age-old stories have become part of the culture. A Fluid Faith

BBC Nature - Birds hold 'funerals' for dead Humanism is an impossible dream | Andrew Brown Reading to the end of a recent press release I discovered that the British Humanist Association proclaims that it is "the national charity representing and supporting the non-religious and campaigning for an end to religious privilege and discrimination based on religion or belief. It exists to support and represent people who seek to live good and responsible lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." I realised that though I know what this means clearly enough, it's actually an entirely impossible dream. "Humanism" is, of course, a thoroughly contested word. The first point is that it is defined in a largely negative way. The humanism that the BHA stands for is quite clearly defined in opposition to Christendom. Christianity is not, of course, the only religion against which the BHA campaigns. But suppose this definition of religion is in fact quite wrong. This is a deeply unsatisfactory definition, but it's still better than any less vague alternative.

Psychology Professor sent this email to all of his students after a class spent discussing religion Republicans Or Democrats: The Choice Comes Down To Competing Myths : It's All Politics hide captionWhat does your vision of America look like? Loud Red Creative/iStockphoto.com What does your vision of America look like? Early in his acceptance speech last night, President Obama laid out the voters' task in these words: "On every issue, the choice you face won't be just between two candidates or two parties. It's a thought that emerges often in the Obama campaign, the idea of 2012 as a watershed election — "a hinge of history," as Vice President Biden called it at the convention in Charlotte, N.C. "So here we stand," said GOP nominee Mitt Romney. To some degree, all president elections might claim such historical significance. The incumbent speaks of vision, his challenger of destiny. On offer in Tampa was a depiction of America as an entrepreneurial paradise, a place where hard work, innovation and prudence are all that matters. There is validity in both of these depictions, to be sure, and each glows with that roseate certainty that signals a lack of realism.

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