Courtney Bender is an associate professor of sociology at Columbia University and co-chair of the SSRC’s Working Group on Spirituality,…
Spirituality, entangled: An interview with Courtney Bender
David Brooks
David Brooks outdoes Pat Robertson
A number of blogs recently have criticized David Brooks for his response to the earthquake in Haiti. Noting that Haiti's…
Obama, Christian realism, and Just War theory
A round-up of some of the recent commentary on President Obama and the ethics of war, following the invocation of…
Always put one in the brain
Let me assure you. Ongoing neurological studies will not dramatically change religious belief or practice. As Robert Bellah notes in…
Is this anything or is this nothing?
The New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks, titled "The Neural Buddhists," drives a wedge between mystical and "revealed"…
Let’s get clear about materialism
David Brooks's op-ed, "The Neural Buddhists," is premised on a variety of conceptual confusions that are worth trying to clear…
Which cognitive revolution?
David Brooks, in his New York Times op-ed column "The Neural Buddhists," offers speculations about how the "cognitive revolution" will…
The aesthetics of neural Buddhism
The first three postings in this series remind us how complex the individual topics of cognitive science, Buddhism, and religious…
Medical materialism revisited
A century ago, in "Religion and Neurology," the opening chapter of The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James argued against…
The Buddha according to Brooks
On Sunday May 25, 2008 the New York Times published an article entitled “Superhighway to Bliss” about Jill Bolte Taylor,…