here & there

Announcements, events, and opportunities related to topics of interest to TIF readers are posted here. Additionally you may find round-ups of news items and brief commentary on current events.

For a listing of all of the events announcements, click here.

For a listing of announcements regarding books, click here.

Mega New Atheism debate in Mexico

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For those of us who just can't get enough of this stuff, there's a new 2 hours+ debate from Mexico between Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris (in one corner) against Shmuley Boteach, Dinesh D'Souza, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (in the other). PZ Myers at Pharyngula offers snarky summaries.

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December 1, 2009

Secularity and prosperity

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At Miller-McCune, David Villano explores the recent publication in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology of a study by independent researcher, Gregory S. Paul, which indicates a correlation between prosperity and secularity at the national level.  Paul found that amongst a group of develped nations, those that were least religious were also the most prosperous.

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December 2, 2009

Swiss democracy

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With a Muslim constituency estimated to be between four and six percent of its total population, Switzerland is hardly in danger of being converted into a caliphate. Nevertheless, the country's Muslim communities were sent a clarion signal last week that their religion is perceived as a threat. While the ban on the construction of minarets, which was favored by 57.5 percent of the Swiss population in Sunday's referendum, may well prove inconsequential in itself, it occurred within the broader context of the recent political ascension of the Schweizerische Volkspartei, or Swiss People's Party, the country's foremost purveyor of less than thinly veiled anti-immigrant sentiment.

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December 2, 2009

Obama’s civil religion

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At U.S. Intellectual History, Raymond J. Haberski, Jr. appraises Barack Obama's implicit invocations of civil religion in this week's speech on the war in Afghanistan. In taking this interpretive approach, Haberski contributes to what has become a new academic tradition. Haberski's take on the speech in fact encapsulates the new tradition's range of opinions, for he identifies civil religion in Obama's language at the same time that he asks whether the concept of civil religion amounts to more than "hogwash."

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December 4, 2009

Regulating yoga

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As the Washington Post's Maria Glod reports, a group of yoga instructors in Virginia have asked a federal judge to kill the state's plan to begin regulating instructor training. Under the plan, the state would certify (for a fee) yoga instructors in the same way that it certifies other vocationally-trained professionals, including dog groomers and bartenders. Yoga enthusiasts have responded to the plan by gesturing toward yoga's supposed religious essence.

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December 4, 2009
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