Should a " scientific " meeting attempt to address questions of faith ? If so, what's the best way to do it? by David Munger from SEED "Scientists were asking three big questions about the Faith and Science panel at the World Science Festival last month. Should the panel be funded...

By David Berreby from BigThink. "Nick Kristof has an idea for fixing the Catholic Church: Turn it "upside down"! Take power away from the "old boys' club" at the Vatican, where a dark cloud hovers because of the way the old boys handle sexually abusive priests. Give the scepter...

By Mark Vernon from Gaurdian. "There is an intimate link between religion and morality. It's not fashionable to say so: many argue that talk of a link – and talk is all it is – should be stopped. After all, individuals can clearly be good without God, and religious individuals hardly stand much...

By Anindita N. Balslev from The Global Spiral. "When scholars approach a vital human emotion and shared value like compassion, they are confronted with a range of questions. First, how do we understand compassion? How has it been analyzed and interpreted in the cognitive discourses that are associated...

by John Tierney in The New York Times "Does religion have a future? Who looks more like an evolutionary dead end: the religious American or the agnostic European? Or will both give way to some sort of compromise — people bound by new institutions that provide the social benefits of religion without...

by Nathan Heflick in Psychology Today "Feeling a little bit less in control? Research suggests you are more likely to believe in the controlling power of your government, and God. Aaron Kay (professor at The University of Waterloo) and colleagues have recently tested a model of compensatory control...

By: Kathleen McGowan "Why does being bad feel so good? Pride, envy, greed, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth: It might sound like just one more episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, but this enduring formulation of the worst of human failures has inspired great art for thousands of years...

In February, Union University in Jackson, TN will host a conference called "Making Men Moral: The Public Square and the Role of Moral Judgment." The dates of the conference are February 25-27, 2009. Speakers at the conference will be professors known for their work in ethics and morality, including...

This Washington Post editorial uses information from various fields to argue that moral virtue does not have its origins in religion. Source: The Washington Post A growing sector of world civilization is secular; that is, it emphasizes worldly rather than religious values. This is especially true of...

Source: The University of Chicago Chronicle Using a $4.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, University scholars are seeking intellectual contributions from scientists and humanists for an interdisciplinary project on virtue. Project leader Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller...

By Thomas Ryan 'Compassion’—an engaging yet troublesome word? Recent studies on Thomas Aquinas prompt a reconsideration of the place of compassion as an emotion and a virtue in his treatment of the Christian moral life. Through an analysis of relevant texts in Thomas and in relation to contemporary...

By Roger Crisp This paper is a discussion of some themes from Justice: Rights and Wrongs , by Nicholas Wolterstorff. The paper begins with a discussion of Wolterstorff’s distinction between justice as inherent rights and justice as inherent worth. It is suggested that what especially distinguishes Wolterstorff...

By Paul M. Blowers While abundant recent studies have illuminated the social and cultural realities underlying Christian responses to poverty in late antiquity, the present essay investigates the unique challenges to Christian preachers in cultivating a moral psychology of compassion. Drawing on the...

By Virginia Burrus Shame and sanctity are intimately related in ancient "lives" of Jewish sages and Christian ascetics. Infinitely other , saints (from Eliezer to Eulalia) are also infinitely seductive in the audacity of their willful abjection. Drawing desire beyond law, hagiography evokes...

By Oliver Putz Recent advances in evolutionary biology and ethology suggest that humans are not the only species capable of empathy and possibly morality, suggesting that the concept of the imago Dei could be extended to accommodate moral species other than our own. Read the article . Image from Flickr...

By Noreen Herzfed Sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything. Few of us live the monastic life. We spend our days in a world of work filled with technologies that vie for our attention. And we return at the end of those days, not to a cell, but to an equally busy home and family. Yet the...

By Wioleta Polinska Whether compassion for all beings in Buddhism, or “love of enemy” in Christianity, unconditional love signifies one of the principal concerns of all world religions. The profound wisdom of various religious traditions has inspired many to embrace the ideal of universal compassion...

Abstract: The article presents a reflection on the consequences of European intellectual society abandoning its religious ideological history. It is asserted that the Europe of the 21st-century refuses to acknowledge its religious roots and that as a result its lack of ideological foundation could lead...

One of America's foremost political theorists explores the connections between our political and ethical convictions, changing forever the way we understand the notion of "sovereignty." Throughout the history of human intellectual endeavor, one concept has cut across arenas as diverse as...

Abstract: What role do religious communities, groups, and associations play – and, what role should they play – in our thinking and conversations about religious freedom and church-state relations? These and related questions – that is, questions about the rights and responsibilities of religious institutions...