The cognitive revolution and the decline of monotheism
To appreciate the cultural impact of the “cognitive revolution” discussed by David Brooks in his New York Times op-ed column “The Neural Buddhists” (May 13, 2008), we need to be clear about what has...
View ArticleThe Buddha according to Brooks
On Sunday May 25, 2008, the New York Times published an article entitled “Superhighway to Bliss” about Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who suffered a stroke in 1996. After she regained the ability...
View ArticleMedical materialism revisited
A century ago, in “Religion and Neurology,” the opening chapter of The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James argued against a “medical materialism” that would reduce religious experiences to...
View ArticleThe aesthetics of neural Buddhism
The first three postings in this series remind us how complex the individual topics of cognitive science, Buddhism, and religious experience can be. Certainly there are many interpretations of...
View ArticleWhich cognitive revolution?
David Brooks, in his New York Times op-ed column “The Neural Buddhists,” offers speculations about how the “cognitive revolution” will impact religious belief. He goes on to cite studies by Andrew...
View ArticleLet’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 up, although the widespread nature of some of these confusions says...
View ArticleIs 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” religions by citing recent philosophical and scientific scholarship....
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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 a recent comment, brain research does not have a direct effect on...
View ArticleObama, Christian realism, and Just War theory
In a hagiographic op-ed piece in today’s New York Times, David Brooks lauds the ethical theory adumbrated in Obama’s recent Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which he sees as falling squarely within the...
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David Brooks outdoes Pat Robertson
A number of blogs recently have criticized David Brooks for his response to the earthquake in Haiti. In his January 14 column, Brooks noted that Haiti’s extreme poverty has turned an unexceptional...
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Spirituality, entangled: An interview with Courtney Bender
Courtney Bender is an associate professor of religion at Columbia University and co-chair of the SSRC’s Working Group on Spirituality, Political Engagement, and Public Life. As a sociologist of...
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