FROM THE FOOTNOTES2PLATO ARCHIVE
Category: Religion
Explore the evolving conversation, or begin with a guide to its central questions.
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Immanent Law, Transcendent Love, and Political Theology
I’m going to attempt to clarify my own position in relation to that of Levi Bryant’s on the issue of the potential role of religion in revolutionary politics. Bryant has…
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Another Critchley interview…
I’m almost done with Faith of the Faithless. Critchley is really clearing up a lot of my own thinking, confirming some intuitions I’ve had and really fleshing out what had…
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Simon Critchley’s “Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology”
Just ordered his newest book Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology (2012) after watching Critchley and Cornel West’s recent discussion. There are many reviews of the book around, but…
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The Poetics of Cosmogenesis, or Cosmopoiesis
Jason/Immanent Transcendence has asked me to offer a Whiteheadian take on his recent posts (two examples are HERE, and, especially relevant, HERE) concerned with such ideas as purpose, process, form,…
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Fragments of a Romantic Theory of Evolution
Darwin is supposed to have discovered something nowadays called “evolution” and to have laid to rest something nowadays called “creationism.” But if this is so, what are we to make…
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The Americosmos by Darrin Drda
Below is a mandalic depiction of the shadow side of the American way of life, drawn by my friend Darrin Drda, author of The Four Global Truths: Awakening to the…
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Cosmopolitical Reflections on Economy, Society, and Religion
When was the day that money became an idol instead of an instrument? Was it August 15, 1971, when to pay for the Vietnam War Nixon shocked the world by…
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William James on the Philosophy of Religious Experience
I must begin by quoting that “adorable genius” (as Whitehead called him in Science and the Modern World), William James. This from The Varieties of Religious Experience: “In all sad…
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American Academy of Religion in San Francisco: My schedule
The AAR is here in San Francisco this year. It has been difficult to weed out my schedule this weekend, since there are very few weeds! There are at least…
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Thinking with Latour and Bellah: Religion beyond Nature and Culture
I’m giving a brief presentation in a course on Christianity and Ecology with Prof. Jacob Sherman on Thursday. In what follows, I’ll try to sketch out what I’d like to…
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research papers for graduate courses on Ernst Cassirer and Jean Gebser, and Christianity and Ecology
I’m enrolled in two courses this semester here at CIIS. The first is taught by Prof. Eric Weiss; the second by Prof. Jacob Sherman. We’re well into the second week…
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What is Enlightenment? – a response to Levi Bryant
Bryant posted recently about how he would define the notion of “Enlightenment.” I agree with part of what he has to say, in that clearly Enlightenment does concern the bursting forth…
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Work and Play in Human Evolution
At the center of Robert Bellah‘s 700 page account of the axial turn in the evolution of religion (Religion in Human Evolution, 2011) is a theory of play. The relaxed field generated…
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Religion and Reality in the University: Thinking with Robert N. Bellah
A quote from Bellah’s recently published book Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. I’ve just started this massive tome, but thus far I think I’m going…
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Speculative Philosophy and Incarnationalism in Whitehead and Meillassoux
I’ve just finished Whitehead’s lectures on the philosophy of religion, published as Religion in the Making (1926). He intended these lectures to “show the same way of thought” displayed in…
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Response to Knowledge-Ecology about Dawkins, Evolution, and Creationism
Knowledge-Ecology recently posted his lament about the scientific ignorance of GOP presidential candidate Gov. Perry, who denies both evolution and climate change. Adam also mentioned his support for Richard Dawkins’…
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The Democratization of Initiation at Burning Man
As religious scholar Lee Gilmore argues in her book Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man, the annual Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, NV…
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Stephen Hawking explains the universe over on PZ Myers’ blog
I’ve jumped into a thread over at Pharyngula to offer my opinion of Hawking’s attempt to explain the Universe positivistically.
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God and Religious Experience in Whitehead: another response to Levi Bryant
Levi Bryant has problematized my attempt to clarify Whitehead’s position on the function of divinity in the universe. He writes: “You make the claim that without God there would be…
