The famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it.
Sam Harris | Home of the Making Sense Podcast
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores some of the most pressing and controversial questions of our time.
When "yang" goes wrong — LessWrong
On the connection between deep atheism and seeking control.
Sacralizing Dominion: The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and the Religious Nationalist Imagination
White Christian nationalism presents itself as restoration—of a Christian nation, a moral order, a rightful hierarchy. This article argues that what it restores is the world-making rhetoric of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (DoCD). Reading the fifteenth-century papal bulls, their sedimentation into United States law, culture, religion, and contemporary dominionist discourse as a single rhetorical formation, we show that the bulls’ vocabulary of discovery, vacancy, and civilization did not describe a world but constituted one: a moral-legal order in which Christian identity conferred sovereignty and racialized peoples appeared as obstacles to salvation and property. That order persists as hegemonic common sense, carried by legal precedent, curricula, and popular culture, and it is re-performed today in the territorial rhetoric of the New Apostolic Reformation and white Christian nationalism. Following Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape), repudiating the doctrine’s documents without dismantling its embeddedness within language and cognition leaves religious nationalism’s deepest resource intact. Against the discovery template, we set three counter-rhetorics—Indigenous theologies, Black theology, and womanism—and argue that desanctifying dominion requires conciliation, not reconciliation.
'A reckoning for our species': the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene
The long read: Timothy Morton wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs, from the fantasy that we can control the planet to the notion that we are ‘above’ other beings. His ideas might sound weird, but they’re catching on
Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the allure of race science
This is not “forbidden knowledge.” It is America’s most ancient justification for bigotry and racial inequality.
The Ghosts Of New Atheism Still Haunt Us | Defector
This week, Defector has turned itself over to a guest editor. Brandy Jensen, former editor at Gawker (RIP) and The Outline (RIP), and writer of the Ask A Fuck Up advice column (subscribe here!), has curated a selection of posts around the theme of Irrational Attachments. Enjoy! New Atheism feels today like Livestrong bracelets or Animal Collective: an embarrassing relic of…
How Tommy Robinson Disguises White Supremacism In the Coded Language of Anti-Islam Politics
Robinson repeatedly uses “native” for white, “invader” for non-white and “African” and “Somali” for black across 140 posts examined by Byline Times
I have forgotten how to read
For a long time Michael Harris convinced himself that a childhood spent immersed in old-fashioned books would insulate him from our new media climate, but he was wrong
New Atheism: The Godlessness That Failed
Thucydides predicted that future generations would underestimate the power of Sparta. It built no great temples, left no magnificent ruins. Absent any tangible signs of the sway it once held, memor…
Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruism delusion
Will the idealist philosophy survive the conviction of its crypto king?
Can Religions Be Reborn? | Over The Mountains to Civilizational Renewal #9
CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT
This call for papers invites work on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring how belief, media, conspiracy, identity, and power shape struggles over reality, interpretation, and life in an age of disinformat
Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Polarized” and the Drawbacks of Explainer Journalism
A Darwinian reading of American politics leaves little room for the motivations of conscious, rational agents.
The New Resonance Of Ram Dass
We took a pilgrimage to Hawaii to visit the 87-year-old spiritual teacher who transformed hippie America with ‘Be Here Now’—and whose message is now more potent than ever.
The X-Files and the Demon-Haunted World
Ari N. Schulman on why we want to believe
Footnotes by Jemar Tisby | Substack
Truth-telling at the intersection of faith, history, and justice Focus on white Christian nationalism + the Black Christian tradition. Click to read Footnotes by Jemar Tisby, by Jemar Tisby, PhD, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
