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Use the padlet to research knowledge & religion (and the other elements of the course) in a real-world context, via a huge range of articles, videos, and podcasts from media sources all over the world.

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You can use the resource to develop a clearer understanding of this optional theme, grasp how TOK concepts manifest in the real world, and gather examples to support arguments in the essay and exhibition.

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We have arranged the media sources by 'Big Question' (one of our ways of structuring TOK - see this page of the site for more details). You can also apply them easily to the knowledge framework: Section 1 links to nature and scope; Section 2 links to ethics; Section 3, 5, 6 links to methods & tools; Section 4 links to perspectives.

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The 12 key terms are highlighted - and feature in separate Padlet here.

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A Conversation article, looking at the ‘battle’ over the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. 

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A Conversation article, looking at the ‘battle’ over the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE How do Buddhists view consciousness and ‘rebirth’, and how do their beliefs contrast with Communist party doctrine? Why will a Communist party-appointed ‘Panchen Lama’ have no authority as a religious leader? Why do you think governments throughout history have often tried to control the way religion is practiced? To wrap up: Who or what should be in charge of the way people practice their religious beliefs?

KEY TERMS Appropriate beliefs and practices, Sole legitimate arbiter, Rival ideologies, Revere

LINKS TO Religion, Politics, Human sciences

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In China, a group of atheists (the Chinese Communist Party) has long dictated how the country's religious groups should practise their faiths.

Chinese Christians are told to reject salvation by faith and the Resurrection; their core beliefs should be patriotism and love of the party. The party has also published several pamphlets detailing appropriate beliefs and practices for Buddhists and ordered them to adjust their thoughts accordingly.

Communist officials are particularly concerned with one politically sensitive element of Buddhism: the succession of the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, whose reincarnation lineage began in the 16th century. He will be 88 years old in July and has reportedly experienced health problems, though he claims he is in good health.

In official news outlets like the Global Times, the party maintains the Chinese government is the sole legitimate arbiter for all reincarnations of Buddhist lamas, regardless of where they are born or their traditional regions of influence.

The Chinese state is deeply suspicious of religious believers and the potentially persuasive power of rival ideologies, which is why it insists on appointing and educating all prominent religious figures. They learn the propaganda of Chinese patriotism and become adept at parroting the party line, but they generally have little knowledge of their purported religion. True believers recognise this.

The Dalai Lama highlighted the absurdity of the party's stance earlier this year when he recognised an eight-year-old Mongolian boy as the tenth Jetsun Dampa, the most influential reincarnation lineage in Mongolia.

Read more: Dalai Lama identifies the reincarnation of Mongolia's spiritual leader - a preview of tensions around finding his own replacement

The move angered Chinese officials because it demonstrated the Dalai Lama's continuing authority among Buddhists in the region. It also showed that despite decades of persistent claims the Communist Party exercises sole authority in these matters, it is merely an official fabrication.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama issued a proclamation that a Tibetan boy named Gendün Chökyi Nyima was the Panchen Lama, the second-most prominent reincarnate lama in his order, the Geluk. The party responded by arresting the boy, then six years old, along with his family. They have not been seen since.

The Golden Urn

Tibetan Buddhists believe that after death a person's consciousness transmigrates to a new body. For most people, this happens involuntarily, but advanced masters can choose their life situations. These are referred to as "tulkus" ("emanation bodies"). Traditionally, tulkus have exercised ultimate authority over their own successions. Many lamas issue predictions regarding the circumstances of their rebirths, including place and timing.

The Dalai Lama, hoping to counter Communist Party plans to name his successor, has declared he will not take rebirth in any region under Chinese control. He argues the main task of a new tulku is to carry on the unfinished work of their predecessor, and this would be impossible in occupied Tibet.

The party cites precedents, mostly invented or exaggerated, that it claims give it a historically determined right to adjudicate all matters of tulku succession.

Many of these hinge on the " Golden Urn", which was sent to Tibet in 1792 by the Qianlong Emperor, along with instructions on its use. The names of prospective tulkus were to be inscribed on lots and placed in the urn. The officiating lama would then choose one at random as the successor tulku.

Despite claims by party officials that the urn has been used in all tulku selections since it was delivered to Tibet, historical sources indicate it was only used sporadically.

Moreover, I have not seen any Tibetan document that presents the urn as the sole factor for determining tulku succession. In every case I've examined, traditional tests were administered first.

For instance, a prospective child was presented with two sets of items - one belonged to the predecessor, the other did not but appeared similar. The real successor should be able to correctly identify the ones owned by his predecessor.

Lots were then drawn from the Golden Urn as one of a series of measures to ensure the correct candidate was selected - or to placate Chinese officials.

The Dalai Lama has indicated he is open to a process that includes lots drawn from the urn, but also insists on the standard succession methods developed under Tibetan Buddhism.

Clashes over philosophy

Most public discussions of succession focus on historically based claims and counterclaims, but the underlying logic of both sides is seldom mentioned.

Tibetan Buddhism holds that as death approaches, the coarser levels of consciousness drop away. At the moment of death, the most subtle one, the "mind of clear light," manifests. After this, one enters the "intermediate state" ( bardo) and is reborn in another body.

The main basis for rebirth is consciousness, which is compared to a river. It flows from moment to moment, with each moment conditioned by those that preceded it. It is not like a soul or self because it is impermanent and changing.

Most Buddhists believe that rebirth is determined by their past karma, but tulkus can consciously choose their next life situations.

One of the core absurdities of the Communist Party's claims to authority over this process is its members adhere to a Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism, which rejects the idea of rebirth or consciousness being transferred between bodies.

So, when the party designates someone as "Dalai Lama," it is similar to naming a postmaster: it is a position overseen by the government, and it can be conferred on anyone.

Tibetan Buddhists, however, believe that the recognition of a Dalai Lama is much more than this. It is the end result of a series of rigorous tests designed to determine one unique person, whose consciousness is the continuation of his predecessor's.

What's at stake for Tibetan Buddhism?

After the disappearance of Gendün Chökyi Nyima in 1995, the government held a ceremony to anoint another boy as Panchen Lama. Panchen Lamas have often played key roles in the recognition of Dalai Lamas, and the party has declared it plans to use its Panchen Lama to choose a Dalai Lama who will be under its control.

The Dalai Lama has declared on a number of occasions the Tibetan people will reject China's choice. And Tibetan exiles plan to employ traditional methods to identify Tenzin Gyatso's successor.

Inevitably, other countries will be drawn into this arcane conflict, based on centuries-old religious precedents, which few will understand.

Read more: There's a religious revival going on in China -- under the constant watch of the Communist Party

So, after both sides have announced their respective Dalai Lamas, what effect will this have on Tibetan Buddhists in Tibet and their religious practices?

Probably very little. The party's Panchen Lama is viewed by Tibetans as a high-ranking government official and is treated with the appropriate respect. But he has no authority as a religious teacher.

And despite government attempts to promote him as one, he lacks the training, knowledge and charisma that would be required for him to function as a tulku. He rarely visits Tibet, and has shown no aptitude for the religious aspects of his role.

The future Dalai Lama born in exile will receive traditional training from the most esteemed figures in Tibetan Buddhism, while his or her Communist Party rival will be trained in a government-run school and become a mouthpiece of the party.

The former will probably follow in the footsteps of Tenzin Gyatso and become an internationally prominent Buddhist spokesperson. The latter will emulate the party's Panchen Lama and repeat whatever messages his overlords command him to deliver to Tibetan Buddhists.

The question of Tibetan Buddhism's future survival is by no means assured. Tibetans overwhelmingly identify as Buddhists, and most deeply revere the Dalai Lama despite decades of propaganda demonising him.

The government is increasingly imposing restrictions on religious practice. There are also economic disincentives for those who want to retain their traditional religious commitments. This struggle between tradition and Communist Party control is likely to play out over the course of the next few decades, and the future looks increasingly grim for those who want to resist.

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Succession on the Tibetan plateau: what's at stake in the battle over the Dalai Lama's reincarnation?

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Tibetan Buddhists may face a future of duelling Dalai Lamas: one born in exile who will receive traditional religious training, the other a mouthpiece of the Communist Party.

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A Big Think article, exploring why Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein believed that science is a source of spirituality.   

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A Big Think article, exploring why Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein believed that science is a source of spirituality.   

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE What is Bobby Azarian’s definition of spirituality, and how similar is it to the students? Do students agree with Einstein when he said, “the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”? How does developing a ‘cosmic perspective’ help bring different peoples together? Overall, give students the final line of the article - “You are not a cosmic accident. You are a cosmic imperative.” - what responsibilities does this suggest we have as knowers?

KEY TERMS Incompatible, Sense of connection, Supernatural, Genuine religiosity, Rational knowledge, Immanent entities, Meta-awareness, Interconnected whole, Cosmic perspective

LINKS TO Religion, Natural sciences, Technology

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Why Carl Sagan believed that science is a source of spirituality

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Science will lead us to universal morality and cosmic religion. By becoming aware of our emergent purpose, we can live more meaningful lives.

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A Conversation article, looking at why some people are asserting that Bitcoin is similar to a religion. 

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A Conversation article, looking at why some people are asserting that Bitcoin is similar to a religion. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE What is the ‘dirty secret’ of religious studies, and how does this impinge on how we understand the nature of religion? What links does the article make to rationalism? How do we use categorizations as a way of setting up ‘comparative frameworks’? Finally, do you think Bitcoin is a religion - and how would you justify your opinion?

KEY TERMS True religion, Political interests, Irrational, Comparative framework, Salvation

LINKS TO Religion, Human sciences, Knowledge & the knower

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Why are people calling Bitcoin a religion?

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With mantras, a mysterious founder and promises of societal salvation, there are echoes of religious traditions in the cryptocurrency.

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A Conversation article, questioning the popular perception of Buddhism as a religion devoted solely to peace. 

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A Conversation article, questioning the popular perception of Buddhism as a religion devoted solely to peace. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE You could begin an exploration of this story by thinking about students’ perceptions of Buddhism, and the extent to which they are based on first hand knowledge, or knowledge gained by any degree of study. Then discuss the aspect of Buddhism that most of us would focus on - its non-violent outlook, and how this distinguishes it from other organized religions. Then look through the article. Are they surprised by its links to violence - such as the large number of Buddhists in the British army? How has our understanding of Buddhism been shaped by colonization and the ‘framing’ of its identity? Thinking more broadly, is our understanding and awareness of world religions based on image or reality? Is this a problem - and if so, how can we overcome it?

KEY TERMS Reputation, Framing, Stereotype, Generalisations

LINKS TO Religion, Human sciences, History

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When teaching an undergraduate class on "Buddhism and Violence", I usually start by asking students to rank religious groups in the order of how many followers they have in the British army. Typically Christians are at the top of students' lists and Buddhists at the bottom.

This reflects an unconscious bias many of these students have regarding Buddhism - they assume that all Buddhists are peaceful and that a Buddhist isn't likely to embrace a career that may well involve violence at some point.

So they're always surprised to find out that there are more Buddhists in the British Army than Muslims and Sikhs put together - despite the relatively small number of Buddhists in Britain.

But why do so many people in the west associate Buddhism with peace?

According to historian Professor Jonathan Walters, the roots lie with colonialism and Christian missionaries. In encountering different beliefs among colonised peoples, missionaries adopted a strategy of framing other religions in such a way that Christianity could be presented as superior and attractive.

In their eyes Islam was too aggressive and focused on strict adherence to rules. Buddhism was too other-worldly, pacifist, and passive to the point of stagnation. Christianity was placed in the Goldilocks spot between the two.

The framing still has serious traction and leads to a certain cognitive dissonance when, for example, Buddhists make the headlines for the wrong reasons.

Avoiding "onslaught on living beings" and instead cultivating loving-kindness towards them is at the heart of Buddhist ethics; it's the first of five moral precepts, and the one that you have to take if you opt to take any of them at all. The Buddha discouraged violence and counselled kings to find alternative ways of resolving problems. Selling weapons is considered an inappropriate livelihood for a Buddhist.

Buddhist violence

But Buddhists have been involved in violent conflicts pretty much since the religion first emerged. Justifications for such actions have typically been based on defending the Dharma (the Buddhist teachings), occasionally demonising or dehumanising the enemy to make it less karmically wrong to kill them.

A particularly uncomfortable example of this is found in the fifth century Sri Lankan quasi-mythological Mahavamsa chronicle, in which monks reassure a king that out of the millions he'd just slaughtered only two were Buddhists and the others were more like animals than humans.

When it comes to "Buddhist violence", as with any perceived religious conflicts, religion is only one factor in a complex situation. Often ethnic identity is the real issue - it just happens that one of the ethnic groups in question has historical Buddhist affiliations, the others do not.

At one point the Sri Lankan conflict of 1983-2009 saw three different civil wars playing out at once, as much as anything along ethnic and political lines: Sinhalese vs Tamils, Sinhalese extremists vs the Sinhalese government, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam vs other Tamil militant groups.

While it was not as simple as Buddhists, Muslims, and Tamil Hindus fighting each other, the conflict nevertheless saw the rise of Jathika Chintanaya or "Nationalist Thought" which promoted an exclusively Buddhist vision for Sri Lanka which is influential today in organisations such as the Bodu Bala Sena ("Buddhist Power Force").

Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim ethnic groups in Rakhine State in Myanmar spilled over into riots in 2012 and eventually led to the displacement of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to neighbouring Bangladesh. While it explicitly describes itself as non-violent and not responsible for these events, the Buddhist nationalist 969 Movement has nevertheless stoked anti-Muslim sentiments in Myanmar and framed Muslims as a threat to national identity. It's important to note, meanwhile, that these nationalist movements do not speak for all Buddhists - lay or monastic - in either Sri Lanka or Myanmar.

Buddhist monks actually bore arms and fought in the Korean defence against Japanese invasions of the late 16th century. While military service is not prohibited in Buddhist texts, a soldier's life is considered problematic because of the likelihood of dying in battle, psyched up for killing and fixated on violence. Ideally, a Buddhist wants to die with a calm mind which is more likely to be attracted to a positive rebirth. A violent mind could lead one to Buddhism's realms of hell.

It's not only war and external threats that provide examples of Buddhist violence. Corporal punishment was a feature of the pre-modern Tibetan legal system. In 1997 three Tibetan monks were murdered in Dharamsala - the police linked the suspects in the case to an ongoing controversy within Tibetan Buddhism. Thailand retains the death penalty, last using it in 2018.

Peaceful at its core

At the end of the class I always fear that students will fixate on the more sensationalist and violent material covered: that one extreme view will replace another. However, the pacifist stereotype of Buddhism is not without foundation.

Witness the Dalai Lama's continued opposition to violence when it comes to the issue of Tibetan independence, the peace activism of Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, or the efforts of Navayana ("Ambedkarite") Buddhists in relation to social justice in India, lifting millions of Dalits out of the structural violence of the "caste" system.

But then Buddhism is at least as internally diverse as Christianity or Islam - and, as such, we should be wary of making generalisations. After all, few Christians would like the perception of their religion to be based solely upon images of the Quakers or of the Westboro Baptist Church.

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Where did Buddhism get its reputation for peace?

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When teaching an undergraduate class on "Buddhism and Violence", I usually start by asking students to rank religious groups in the order of how many followers they have in the British army. Typically Christians are at the top of students' lists and Buddhists at the bottom.

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An Independent article which reports on the reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s assertion that representations of Jesus shouldn’t always be white. 

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An Independent article which reports on the reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s assertion that representations of Jesus shouldn’t always be white. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE A very short article that looks both at what Justin Welby said about the way we portray the ethnic identity of Jesus, and the reaction (from white Westerners) of his assertion. This prompts us to ask how our cultural perspectives influence the way we produce religious knowledge. Why were people offended by what he said? Do gods make us in their image, or do we make them in ours?

KEY TERMS Cultures, Ahistorical, Erasure of history

LINKS TO Religion, History

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White people are furious because the archbishop of Canterbury suggested that Jesus, a Middle Eastern man, shouldn't be portrayed as white.
Archbishop Justin Welby said on the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that he would be reviewing statues in Westminster Abbey and Canterbury cathedral in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Asked whether the "way the western church portrays Jesus needs to be thought about again", he said that when you enter churches around the world:

You see a black Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a Middle Eastern Jesus, which is of course the most accurate, you see a Fijan Jesus.

Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings.

And I don't think that throwing out everything we've got in the past is the way to do it, but I do think saying 'that's not the Jesus who exists, that's not who we worship' is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.

Welby also said that he would review monuments in Westminster Abbey and Canterbury cathedral.

Some will have to come down, some names will have to change.

We are going to be looking very carefully and putting them in context and seeing if they all should be there.

He stressed, however, that he would not be tearing statues down, and nor does he have the authority to.

Some people reacted with fury to his comments, calling Welby a "disgrace".

But others pointed out that portraying Jesus as white is ahistorical.

It's important to note that Welby appears to want to review the monuments in Church of England buildings, in order to potentially offer a context where the church feels it is needed.

He "very carefully didn't say" that statues should be torn down.

The myth that Jesus was a white man is itself erasure of history, as the historical figure of Jesus was a Jewish Middle Eastern man no matter how he has since been portrayed.

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White people are furious that the archbishop of Canterbury said statues of Jesus shouldn't be white

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White people are furious because the archbishop of Canterbury suggested that Jesus, a Middle Eastern man, shouldn't be portrayed as white. Archbishop Justin Welby said on the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that he would be reviewing statues in Westminster Abbey and Canterbury cathedral in light of th...

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A Conversation article*, exploring the difficulties of reconciling the moral obligations of a religious faith with the laws of the society in which it exists.  

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A Conversation article*, exploring the difficulties of reconciling the moral obligations of a religious faith with the laws of the society in which it exists.  

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE What examples does it offer of tensions between immigration policies and religious groups’ commitments to humanitarian care? What arguments do some religious leaders accused of breaking immigration laws present to defend their actions? What does this story indicate about the different priorities for governments and religious traditions? Overall, which perspective should take precedent when we form our moral outlooks on the world: the religion, or the state, to which we belong? How can they be reconciled when they clash?

KEY TERMS Religious freedoms, Violated, Motivations, Cultural, Globalizing world

LINKS TO Religion, Human sciences, Politics

*We're proud to work in partnership with The Conversation. To sign up for their newsletter, which we draw on widely to create TOK lesson material, follow this link.

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Many religious traditions preach the need to care for strangers. But what happens when caring for the stranger comes into conflict with government policy?

After Title 42 restrictions at the U.S. border ended on May 11, 2023, debates about immigration have heated up again - focused mostly on reform, border security or refugees' needs.

But the treatment of immigrants is deeply intertwined with religious freedom as well. As a scholar of religious ethics who studies immigration, I am interested in recent cases that highlight growing tensions between immigration policies and religious groups' commitments to pastoral and humanitarian care.

Ministry at the border

One high-profile example centers on Rev. Kaji Douša, senior pastor at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, who traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, in 2018 to provide pastoral care to asylum seekers.

Her work was flagged by Customs and Border Protection after a Honduran woman allegedly said that Douša told migrants that marrying each other would make it easier to receive legal papers in the U.S. As Douša later testified, she did perform religious ceremonies, but only for couples who were already in common-law marriages and without claiming to provide any legal status.

Douša's name and photo were added to a Department of Homeland Security watch list that included lawyers, journalists and activists, and she was detained and questioned by CBP officers upon her return to the U.S. A CBP official also sent an email to Mexican authorities asking them to ban Douša from entering Mexico because she lacked proper documentation - which the official later acknowledged had no basis in fact.

Douša filed a lawsuit accusing DHS of unjust surveillance and retaliation, and in March 2023 a federal judge ruled in her favor. Judge Todd Robinson agreed that DHS had violated Douša's right to freedom of religious expression by instructing Mexican authorities to detain her.

Both Douša and the United Church of Christ, which ordained her, argued that her actions were based in her religious commitments. Douša previously stated, "To reject a migrant is to cast away God's angels, which I am unwilling to do."

Shifts in the legal landscape

This is not the first time religious leaders or groups providing pastoral and humanitarian care to migrants have come under scrutiny.

One famous example is the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, an informal network of up to 500 churches whose members provided safe haven to undocumented asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America.

Several members of the movement were convicted of conspiring to smuggle immigrants into the U.S. They appealed, arguing that their work was inspired by their religious convictions and that the government was violating their First Amendment rights. Yet their claims were largely unsuccessful.

Over the past few decades, however, religious freedom claims have often found more favor in U.S. courts.

In part, this is because of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which has made it easier for people and institutions to claim religiously based exemptions from generally applicable laws. One of the best-known examples is the 2014 Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the court, citing the owners' religious convictions, exempted the national chain of crafts stores from providing employee health insurance that included contraception coverage.

Help on the ground

This shift has opened new lines of defense for religious actors, including humanitarian groups.

No More Deaths is a nonprofit associated with a Unitarian Universalist church in Tucson, Arizona. Members leave supplies along desert routes traveled by migrants, provide first aid and occasionally offer services such as temporary shelter to migrants who are suffering from exposure.

In 2018, volunteers were charged with littering, driving on protected lands and, in one case, harboring undocumented immigrants.

Four volunteers were initially convicted, but their charges were dismissed after they argued that they were compelled by religious convictions and that the government had violated their freedom of religious expression. The appeals court judge cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the Hobby Lobby case in holding that the volunteers were protected under U.S. law.

A more recent dustup between a religious humanitarian organization and government officials occurred in December 2022. A group of Republicans in Congress sent a letter to Catholic Charities, a humanitarian nonprofit affiliated with the church that provides food, shelter and bathing facilities on both sides of the border.

In U.S. border cities, the organization also provides transportation from shelters to bus stops and money exchanges. The representatives' letter cited this work as a reason to suspect Catholic Charities of encouraging illegal border crossings and required staff to preserve records of their work.

The organization argued that the charges were " both fallacious and factually inaccurate." Caring for people in need, "including vulnerable people on the move," leaders wrote, "is a part of the fabric of the global Catholic Church and is mandated by the gospel."

Yet another sticking point between religious groups and immigration law has emerged in Florida in recent weeks. A bill recently signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis was modified after religious groups protested against its proposed criminal penalties for knowingly transporting or concealing an undocumented immigrant. Religious leaders argued that this would violate their religious freedom by preventing them from providing rides to religious services or from finding aid for people in need.

National vs. universal mandates

It is not surprising that these conflicts keep happening, considering the U.S. government's and religious organizations' different motivations around migration.

One main driver for politicians is simply that many voters are nervous about newcomers, especially if they have different cultural, religious or racial backgrounds. The nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute has found that while 55% of Americans think immigrants strengthen American society, 40% believe a growing number of newcomers "threatens traditional American customs and values." In the past few years, multiple Republican politicians have even embraced some version of the "great replacement" conspiracy theory. Once limited to extremist and antisemitic groups, replacement theory alleges that immigrants are either replacing native-born American citizens or are intentionally being used to facilitate electoral and social change.

Political scientist Seyla Benhabib has argued that another reason some leaders focus on border policies is that national sovereignty has been weakened in a globalizing world. Multinational corporations, for example, are sometimes influential enough to shape government policies, such as lobbying for weaker labor laws and environmental protections.

But whereas sovereignty and citizens are priorities for governments, many religious traditions teach adherents to care for people regardless of what community they belong to. Religious thinkers do argue over whether their traditions encourage greater attention to people in their own communities. Still, when it comes to people's most basic survival needs, most emphasize that care should know no borders.

For the foreseeable future, these priorities will continue to clash - and some religious people may push back by claiming a First Amendment right to freedom of religious expression.

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When faith says to help migrants - and the law says don't

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As governments crack down at their borders, religious groups' teachings to help the stranger remain unchanged.

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A Big Think article, exploring whether there can be an ethical basis for right and wrong without a divine authority. 

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A Big Think article, exploring whether there can be an ethical basis for right and wrong without a divine authority. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE Can we establish objectively the moral basis of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?

KEY TERMS Divine command theory, the Euthyphro dilemma

LINKS TO Religion, Human sciences

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If there is no God, can anything be objectively good?

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Apart from divine authority, is there an ethical basis for right and wrong?

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A Guardian article, looking at a recent report which concluded that religious intolerance is more prevalent and damaging than intolerance related to ethnicity or nationality. 

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A Guardian article, looking at a recent report which concluded that religious intolerance is more prevalent and damaging than intolerance related to ethnicity or nationality. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE Students can analyse this story on two levels: first of all, what does this report reveal about the way in which our negative perceptions lead us to judge other people’s religious affiliations? How does this mislead us when it comes to understanding religion in general? Second, how do you measure things like religious intolerance - and compare it to the level of intolerance related to ethnicity or nationality? Can such comparisons be made in an accurate way? How important are studies such as this in helping us to understand religion and other aspects of society?

KEY TERMS Negative perceptions, Prejudice

LINKS TO Religion, Human sciences

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Religious intolerance is ‘bigger cause of prejudice than race’, says report

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Attitudes to faith said to drive negative perceptions more than nationality or ethnicity

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A New Humanist article, analyzing how the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster helps us fathom the relationship between religion and the state.

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A New Humanist article, analyzing how the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster helps us fathom the relationship between religion and the state.

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE Why was the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster established? In what ways have ‘Pastafarians’ tried to gain recognition around the world? How do opinions differ on whether the Church of the FSM is a religion - and how does this depend on whether the state is secular or more religiously-inclined? Do students agree with Paul CIteur that, “If all humanity were Pastafarians – people with a sense of humour and a relaxed attitude towards their religious convictions – that would be a tremendous improvement”? Overall, why is it so difficult to reach a consensus on what constitutes a religious belief system?

KEY TERMS Religious privileges, Pseudo-scientific rants, Parody, Protest, Legitimate, Religion vs. freedom to think

LINKS TO Religion, Politics, Human sciences

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A Big Think video, in which Sasha Sagan talks about the 23.4° tilt of the earth - and how that impacts on beliefs and ceremonies around the world.

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A Big Think video, in which Sasha Sagan talks about the 23.4° tilt of the earth - and how that impacts on beliefs and ceremonies around the world.

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE What problem does Sagan identify that humans have related to time? How does this link to the 23.4° tilt of the earth? What need does she say secular thinkers share with those who hold theistic views? Overall, what does this indicate about the scope to combine both a scientific and a spiritual worldview?

KEY TERMS Disparate cultures, Wonder, Traditions and ceremonies, Secular, Celebrate

LINKS TO Religion, Indigenous societies, Natural sciences

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Many of humanity's cultural traditions are based upon the movement of our planet around the Sun. The summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes take on special significance.

The reason these special days exist is because our planet tilts at an angle of roughly 23° on its axis. Without this tilt, there would be no seasons.

The religious and philosophical themes of rebirth and resurrection, therefore, are partially the result of our planet's axial tilt.

SASHA SAGAN: There's no refuge from change in the cosmos, but we're not really good at processing time passing. It's very mysterious. It's very confusing. Throughout time, we earthlings have all sort of come to the same points in the year, and the same points in life to mark. Disparate cultures, who had no way of communicating, found the same moments to create ceremonies and traditions around. Birth, coming of age, death- and also the solstices and equinoxes. So many of our rituals and traditions are about processing change and coming to terms with who we are on this little, particular planet.

My dad, Carl Sagan, was an astronomer and together with my mom, Ann Druyan, they really communicated wonder and awe about the natural world as revealed through science. And they found ways to carry on traditions to connect to our place in the Universe without compromising what they really believed about the world and what we're all doing here. So many of our celebrations around the world are tied to four points in the year, which are a function of how we move around our star, and the axial tilt that the planet has. So, our planet rotates on its axis, but we do it at a little angle- it's about 23 degrees and change. And because of that, we have seasons. Without it, we would still have weather, but we would not have seasons. And the length of days wouldn't change.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, our summer solstice is around June 20th, and at that same time, it's the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Six months later, we switch. The points in between those extremes are the autumn and spring equinoxes. Holidays like, for example, Easter, Passover, Nowruz, are all tied to the spring equinox. So many holidays around this time of year are connected. Rebirth, resurrection, and this theme of overcoming darkness. There's this underlying story that says, "Wow, that was close. That looked really bad. We almost didn't make it, but now it looks like it's gonna be okay." And we see that in so many different places around this time of year, so many different traditions, because that's spring itself. There's so much symbolism in traditions and ceremonies.

They're almost like these performance art pieces. And I don't mean that in a negative way- it's beautiful! It's this way we can communicate these larger ideas that everyone understands. I'm a secular, but I do love community, and I love getting together to carry on traditions. Those of us who are secular or agnostic or atheist or some combination of those things, we still need ways to mark time. In the wintertime, when it's really cold and dark, we have all these traditions in so many cultures to make ourselves feel joy and create light for ourselves; just around this idea that when the sun sets early, we need more light.

There's something about that that's very profound. So, talking about the winter solstice, because of the axial tilt, the days are gonna start getting longer little by little. It'll be summer before we know it, and no matter whether we believe in it or not, no matter what anyone does, it's definitely happening and the light is returning. It's coming back for sure. And that's something to celebrate.

NARRATOR: Get smarter, faster with videos from the world's biggest thinkers. And to learn even more from the world's biggest thinkers, get Big Think+ for your business.

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How Earth's 23.4° tilt makes life beautiful

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Rituals come as much from religion as they do from the way Earth spins around the Sun.

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A Big Think video, arguing that ‘supernatural thinking’ is an integral part of being a complete human being. 

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A Big Think video, arguing that ‘supernatural thinking’ is an integral part of being a complete human being. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE What is the usual view of the relationship between supernatural and rational thinking, according to Clay Routledge? Why does he argue that believing in the supernatural is entirely rational? Which three unique cognitive capacities does he identify that humans possess, and how does this link to being able to create new understandings about the world? How important is ‘intuitive thinking’ for him? Overall, do you agree that supernatural thinking is an important part of “being a complete human being”?

KEY TERMS Supernatural thinking, Transcends the material, Quest for meaning, Teleological thinking, Rational versus intuitive cognitive processes, Agent of meaning

LINKS TO Religion, Knowledge & the knower, Human sciences

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“Supernatural thinking is actually an important part of being a complete human being.”

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A Conversation article, looking at what constitutes a ‘miracle’ for the Catholic Church. 

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A Conversation article, looking at what constitutes a ‘miracle’ for the Catholic Church. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE It’s sometimes hard to identify concepts and ideas that are specific to religion, so this article, focusing on miracles, is useful for us in understanding this optional theme. Get students to understand how the Catholic church defines a miracle, and its role in canonization. Then think about some of the questions that miracles throw up: how does the Catholic church deal with the tension that exists between protecting the integrity of belief, and the need to avoid “mistakes or scandals”? What role do miracles play in a person’s religious faith? Are miracles undermined by scientific understanding? Are there different ways of interpreting miracles (such as Rudolph Bultmann asserts)? Can miracles exist within other areas of knowledge?

KEY TERMS Holiness, Divine power, Supernatural, Symbolic meaning vs. literal truth, Faith

LINKS TO Religion, Knowledge & the knower, Language, Natural sciences

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What’s a ‘miracle’? Here’s how the Catholic Church decides

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To qualify as a Catholic ‘saint,’ someone must have two miracles credited to them. But how does the church define a miracle in the first place?

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A Conversation article, in which a New Testament scholar outlines what ‘biblical inerrancy’ is. 

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A Conversation article, in which a New Testament scholar outlines what ‘biblical inerrancy’ is. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE Is religious knowledge based on certainties?

KEY TERMS Inerrancy, Final authority, interpreted

LINKS TO Religion

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In his farewell address at the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention, outgoing president J.D. Greear acknowledged the internal disputes but assured attendees that the Baptist faith continues to affirm "those doctrines most contested in our culture," such as "the authority, and the inerrancy, and the sufficiency of scripture."

Recently, other prominent Christians have touted a belief in inerrancy, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and former Vice President Mike Pence. Even if support for the doctrine has declined in recent years, nearly one in four Americans believes the Bible is God's literal word.

But what is "inerrancy," and why is it important to so many Christians?

I first encountered the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as an undergraduate at Biola University. The evangelical school's faith statement affirms that "the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are without error or misstatement in their moral and spiritual teaching and record of historical facts."

Now, as a New Testament scholar teaching courses at a university in the Bible Belt, I frequently interact with students familiar with - if not committed to - the doctrine of inerrancy.

Why the doctrine of inerrancy matters

The Bible itself does not claim to be inerrant. Perhaps the closest the Bible comes to claiming to be without error is in a New Testament letter known as 2 Timothy 3:16. In this letter, the apostle Paul states that "all scripture is inspired and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." In other words, the Bible is God's authoritative instruction for the church.

Biblical scholars are quick to point out that "all scripture" here does not likely refer to both the Old and New Testaments, and that the apostle Paul likely did not even write 2 Timothy. This verse, however, remains central to those who see the Bible as without error.

The doctrine of inerrancy is more post-biblical, even modern. And it has been particularly influential among U.S. evangelicals, who often appeal to the doctrine of inerrancy in arguments against gender equality, social justice, critical race theory and other causes thought to violate the God's infallible word.

The doctrine of inerrancy took shape during the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States. A statement crafted in 1978 by hundreds of evangelical leaders remains its fullest articulation. Known as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the statement was a response to emerging "liberal" or nonliteral interpretations of the Bible. According to the statement, the Bible speaks with "infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches."

In short, the Bible is the final authority.

As Southern Baptists and other American evangelicals attempt to articulate biblical positions on issues such as social justice, abortion, gender and sexuality, one thing remains certain: Even a Bible thought to be without errors still has to be interpreted.
The Conversation U.S. publishes short, accessible explanations of newsworthy subjects by academics in their areas of expertise.

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What is biblical inerrancy? A New Testament scholar explains

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The doctrine of inerrancy likely took shape during the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States, in response to the rise of liberalism within Christianity.

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A Conversation article that considers whether Creationism qualifies as a conspiracy theory. 

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A Conversation article that considers whether Creationism qualifies as a conspiracy theory. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE Get students to offer their opinions on what constitutes a conspiracy theory, perhaps drawing on the key terms mentioned above. Then ask them to read the article - does Creationism qualify as a conspiracy theory? How does Creationism compare to more mainstream religious beliefs? Is the key characteristic of conspiracy theories an agenda?

KEY TERMS Biblical infallibility, Rules of evidence, Unprovable assumptions, Fact-based criticism, agenda

LINKS TO Religion, Knowledge & the knower, Human sciences

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Many people around the world looked on aghast as they witnessed the harm done by conspiracy theories such as QAnon and the myth of the stolen US election that led to the attack on the US Capitol Building on January 6. Yet while these ideas will no doubt fade in time, there is arguably a much more enduring conspiracy theory that also pervades America in the form of young Earth creationism. And it's one that we cannot ignore because it is dangerously opposed to science.

In the US today, up to 40% of adults agree with the young Earth creationist claim that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve within the past 10,000 years. They also believe that living creatures are the result of "special creation" rather than evolution and shared ancestry. And that Noah's flood was worldwide and responsible for the sediments in the geologic column (layers of rock built up over millions of years), such as those exposed in the Grand Canyon.

Such beliefs derive from the doctrine of biblical infallibility, long accepted as integral to the faith of numerous evangelical and Baptist churches throughout the world, including the Free Church of Scotland. But I would argue that the present-day creationist movement is a fully fledged conspiracy theory. It meets all the criteria, offering a complete parallel universe with its own organisations and rules of evidence, and claims that the scientific establishment promoting evolution is an arrogant and morally corrupt elite.

This so-called elite supposedly conspires to monopolise academic employment and research grants. Its alleged objective is to deny divine authority, and the ultimate beneficiary and prime mover is Satan.

Creationism re-emerged in this form in reaction to the mid-20th century emphasis on science education. Its key text is the long-time best seller, The Genesis Flood, by John C Whitcomb and Henry M Morris. This provided the inspiration for Morris's own Institute for Creation Research, and for its offshoots, Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International.

Ken Ham, the founder and chief executive of Answers in Genesis, is also responsible for the highly lucrative Ark Encounter theme park and Creation Museum in Kentucky. As a visit to any of these websites will show, their creationism is completely hostile to science, while paradoxically claiming to be scientific.

Demonising and discrediting

These are common conspiracy theory tactics at play. Creationists go to great lengths to demonise the proponents of evolution, and to undermine the overwhelming evidence in its favour.

There are numerous organisations, among them Biologos, the American Scientific Affiliation, the Faraday Institute, and the Clergy Letter Project, which describes themselves as "an endeavour designed to demonstrate that religion and science can be compatible", that is, promoting evolution science within the context of religious belief. Even so, creationists insist on linking together the separate topics of evolution, materialist philosophy, and the promotion of atheism.

According to Answers in Genesis, evolution science is a work of Satan, while former US Congressman Paul Broun has described it as " a lie straight from the pit of hell". When he said that, by the way, he was a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Like other conspiracy theorists, creationists immunise themselves from fact-based criticism. They label the study of the past as based on unprovable assumptions, thus disqualifying in advance the plain evidence of geology.

They then attack other evidence by focusing on specific frauds, such as Piltdown man - a hoax skeleton purportedly of a missing link between humans and other apes that was debunked more than 60 years ago - or the dinosaur-bird amalgam "Archaeoraptor", discredited by sharp-eyed scientists before ever making it into the peer-reviewed literature (although not before making it into National Geographic).

One favourite target is Ernst Haeckel, whose pictures of embryos, published in 1874, are now considered to be seriously inaccurate. However, they do correctly draw attention to what most matters here: the features shared during development by different organisms - including humans - such as gill arches, a long tail, and eyes on the side rather than the front of the head, confirming they have a common ancestry.

Haeckel's name appears on the Answers in Genesis website 92 times. He is also the subject of a lengthy chapter in Jonathan Wells' Icons of Evolution; Science or Myth?. This book, which even has its own high school study guide, was what first convinced me, back in 2013, that creationism was a conspiracy theory.
More from The Conversation's Expert guide to conspiracy theories here.
It is a splendid example of creationist tactics, using long-rectified shortcomings (such as those in early studies on Darwinian evolution in peppered moths, in response to changing colours following reduced pollution) to imply that the entire science is fraudulent. Wells has a real PhD in biology, a PhD acquired with the specific goal of " destroying Darwinism " - meaning evolution science - from the inside.

Wells is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative thinktank which promotes creationism under the banner of " Intelligent Design", and is also linked to other conspiracy theories, such as claims that the consensus on climate change is bogus, and that last November's US presidential election was stolen. An article by a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute on the subject has now being removed from its website, but can be found here.

What next?

Conspiracy theories are always driven by some underlying concern or agenda. The theory that Obama's birth certificate was a forgery, or that the 2020 US election was stolen, are about political legitimacy and will fade as the politicians promoting them fade from memory. The idea that COVID-19 does not exist is proving a little harder to dislodge, but scientists, such as those behind Respectful Insolence, are organising to fight back on science denial and misinformation.

I fear that the creationist conspiracy theory will not be so short-lived. It is driven by a deep-seated power struggle within religious communities, between modernists and literalists; between those who regard scripture as coming to us through human authors, however inspired, and those who regard it as a perfect supernatural revelation. And that is a struggle that will be with us for a long time to come.

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Why creationism bears all the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory

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An inevitable part of the internet age, some conspiracy theories appear and then fade, but in the US particularly, creationism seems firmly embedded in religion, education and pseudoscience.

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Pope Francis has approved a change to the Lord’s prayer, outraging some of his followers, but pleasing others. This Christian Post article considers the reasons for both reactions, and what this says about the development of religious ideas over time.

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Pope Francis has approved a change to the Lord’s prayer, outraging some of his followers, but pleasing others. This Christian Post article considers the reasons for both reactions, and what this says about the development of religious ideas over time.

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE We’re perhaps accustomed to thinking that religious knowledge is static, and subject to few changes over time, so this is a helpful article to indicate that that isn’t always the case. Why has the Pope decided to change the wording of one of the most important elements of the Catholic Church? Does this reflect religious knowledge reacting to changing social conditions? What has been the reaction to the change - and why?

KEY TERMS Historical parallels, Representative democracy

LINKS TO Religion, Language

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Pope Francis approves change to the Lord’s Prayer despite opposition: ‘It’s deeply problematic’

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Despite opposition from traditionalists, Pope Francis has officially approved a change to the Lord s Prayer in Matthew 6 13 that replaces lead us not into temptation with do not let us fall into…

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This Big Think article looks at how our understanding of ‘Satanism’ has developed over time, and how this ‘religious’ entity is not what most people think it is.

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This Big Think article looks at how our understanding of ‘Satanism’ has developed over time, and how this ‘religious’ entity is not what most people think it is.

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE How do religious concepts develop over time?

KEY TERMS Religious interpretation, Traditionalism

LINKS TO Religion, Human sciences

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Imagine a Satanist. If you're like most Americans, that mental image comes ripped straight off an Iron Maiden album. Skull goblet filled with a wine-blood highball. Of course. Undulating dagger waved menacingly over a sacrificial infant. Naturally. A love for black robes and eye-catching accoutrements, like some monochromatic Liberace. Joking aside, that last one may check out. (We'll get to why later.)

Point is, popular conceptions of Satanism have as much in common with actual Satanism as a Chick tract does with critical thought. B-movies, rock albums, talk shows, the occasional moral panic, they have all colored our perception of this movement and its history.

Despite the intense amount of worry people have over Satan worship, the religion as we know it today has more in common with the counterculture of the 1960s than the covens and maleficia of the 1660s.

Of schisms and Satanists

The terms " Satanism " and "Satanist" can be traced back to the 1560s - not as a religious designation one ascribed to oneself, but as a way of describing someone with a "satanic disposition."

In Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism, religious historian Ruben van Luijk notes the term latched onto our cultural lexicon during the European Wars of Religion. During this series of conflicts, Christians fought other Christians for well over a century until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

To valorize their beliefs, Roman Catholics would label Protestants as Satanists. Not that they thought Protestants worshiped the devil, more that their heretical beliefs were align with Satan's plan for the world. Protestants, using the tried-and-true I'm-rubber-and-your-glue defense, lobed it right back at the Catholics for their heretical beliefs and graven images. Both censured the Anabaptists with the moniker.

As such, van Luijk points out, Satanism was originally an epithet, and it wouldn't come to describe the "intentional, religiously motivated veneration of Satan" until the end of the 19th century.

A poisoned dinner at deviant's palace

In time, people borrowed the Satanist label as their own, but it's still difficult to speak to a coherent, comprehensive Satanism until the 20th century. It wasn't a single movement bound by a shared institution or religious text. Satanists were and are highly individualized people with significantly different reasons and views on what their religion entailed. Still, there are themes that create historic trend lines to map out.

At times of hardship and despair, peasants would sometimes turn to Satanism as a means to defy the ruling class. Satan is, after all, the ultimate rebel in Christian mythology. With church and state intertwined for much of European history, Satanism was the ultimate anti-establishment party. Other times, upperclassmen would turn to Satanism as a means to break from society's rules and norms, perhaps wholeheartedly, perhaps for decadence and titillation.

But more often than not, Satanism remained an accusation heaped on others. During the Affair of the Poisons, the French people's imaginations combined anecdotal, yet high-profile, poisoning cases with a fear of witchcraft. The pursuing panic and investigation saw people of all classes denoted as witches and Satanists to be banished, imprisoned, or executed.

Even those close to King Louis XIV were not immune. Athénaïs de Montespan, the King's favorite mistress, was accused of holding "a bloody black mass" where she bewitched the King through demonic rites. She escaped further persecution, but others were not so lucky.

Sympathy for the devil

Contemporary Satanism took hold with Anton LaVey. In 1966, he founded the Church of Satan in - where else? - San Francisco. He would go on to publish The Satanic Bible in 1969, and it is his brand of Satanism that probably has the farthest reach on modern culture.

LaVey's Satanism is atheistic* and described as a "carnal religion." Followers believe that all gods are fictious and that ultimate importance is found in the self and pursuing self-interests. Like other gods, Satan is not a deity to venerate. He is instead a metaphor for the ultimate adversary of irrationality and religious beliefs. (The name " Satan " comes from the Hebrew for "one who opposes.")

But what about the hierarchies, the accoutrements, the symbols, and black masses? Isn't all that theater more than a little irrational? No, according to Peter Gilmore, high priest of the Church of Satan. In an interview with Point of Inquiry, he explains the reason behind these rituals:

"You can have secular symbolism, ritual, and pageantry, and it's very effective and something that is part of the nature of the human animal. [...] The ritual chamber can be a place where you can dramatically perform what I call 'self-transformational psychodrama.' We release the emotions that we find would be injuring us in the regular pursuit of our happiness so that we can then let them go."

But the Church of Satan isn't the only contemporary Satanist institution. The Satanic Temple has become well-known for its extravagant stunts of activism, such as unveiling an 8-foot tall statue of Bephomet at the Arkansas State Capitol building.

While the Church of Satan adds a ritualistic veneer to an Objectivist philosophy, the Satanic Temple sees social engagement and improvement as critical to its beliefs. Rather than evangelizing a devil-may-care attitude, they seek to find a balance between the individual and society. As Lucien Greaves, spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, explained to IndieWire:

It's not that we're just looking for disorder, chaos, and to undermine Western civilization. In fact, we're trying to really endorse for Enlightenment values, bringing reason and respect for science into bettering the human condition.

The Temple's seven tenets speak to this worldview. For example, they ask followers to act with compassion, to respect the freedom of others, and to take care that beliefs don't distort scientific facts. Hardly the creed of a cinematic bogeyman. They also view Satan as a metaphor for the ultimate rebel against tyranny.

For now, that's where we'll place the bookmark in this (short) look at Satanism's history. Satanists are not a group of people worshiping a cosmic villain for evil's sake. Today's Satanists are antiauthoritarian, albeit theatrical, freethinkers who see in Satan a mythical, heroic figure. If we can understand that, maybe we can save ourselves a future moral panic or two.

* However, much like Christianity, Satanism isn't one-size-fits-all. We explore atheistic Satanism here, but there are theistic Satanists, who believe in a spiritual being. And according to van Luijk, they can even worship deities alongside Satan, such as Loki, Set, or Kali.

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The origins of Satanism: A humanist history?

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Imagine a Satanist. If you're like most Americans, that mental image comes ripped straight off an Iron Maiden album. Skull goblet filled with a wine-blood highball. Of course. Undulating dagger waved menacingly over a sacrificial infant. Naturally. A love for black robes and eye-catching accoutrements, like some monochromatic Liberace.

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This History Today review of Ethan Shagan’s new book, The Birth of Modern Belief, considers that it isn’t just the concept of religion that has changed over time, it is also the concept of belief.

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This History Today review of Ethan Shagan’s new book, The Birth of Modern Belief, considers that it isn’t just the concept of religion that has changed over time, it is also the concept of belief.

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE First, students could consider the way in which religion has developed over time, based on the first paragraph of the article (plus their own ideas, and outside reading). Then get them to think about the meaning of belief. What are the implications of this in terms of how we understand and produce religious knowledge?

KEY TERMS Secularism, Belief

LINKS TO Religion, Knowledge & the knower, History

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'Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?' This question, posed by Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007), is popular with historians these days. Even as Christianity across the West continues its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, a nagging sense persists that its retreat is not all that it might seem to be. The roots of secularism in Christendom are too manifest for its founding myths to be taken wholly at face value. What could be more Christian, after all, than to boast of toppling the idols of superstition and of bringing a people that had walked in darkness to see a great light? The capacity of Christianity to evolve in unexpected ways is nowhere better demonstrated, perhaps, than the Enlightenment recalibration of fundamental Christian beliefs.

But what if the very notion of belief has evolved as well? This is the question posed by Ethan Shagan in his bracing new book, The Birth of Modern Belief. Signifiers in the history of religion - as anyone who has studied the prehistory of the word 'religion' itself will know - can be treacherous things. The challenge that this presents to historians is considerable. Indeed, it can sometimes be hard even to recognise it as a challenge. 'Secular historians of Christianity have needed a stable object called "belief" whose decline could be measured, while pious historians of Christianity have needed a stable object called "belief" to certify the identity of believers across time and space.' Both, though, Shagan argues, have been mistaken.

'Belief', which today signifies a private judgement, did not always have this meaning. In medieval Christendom, it signified, not an opinion, but rather the sum of the credenda of the universal Church - credenda which were guaranteed to be true. It allowed Jews, Muslims and heretics to be reckoned to lack belief: to be 'unbelievers'. Only with the Reformation did this change. To Luther, the knowledge of God was a given, imprinted on the souls of all humanity from birth - but belief, the absolute and certain conviction that salvation can indeed be obtained, was an altogether rarer bloom. A condition common to everyone in Christendom was transformed into a privileged experience. Perhaps only one person in a thousand, Luther wrote, ranks as an authentic Christian.

The consequence was the transformation of belief from a state of mind that most Christians had been able to take for granted into a practice that was challenging, exacting, hard. This, Shagan argues, was as true for Catholics as for Protestants. 'The Reformation and Counter-Reformation participated in parallel projects of religious discipline: while Catholics disciplined populations to believe, Protestants disciplined populations of unbelievers.' Belief in the modern sense of the word was bred of the resulting strain. The demands imposed on Christians by inquisitors and Puritans alike proved too much for many of them. Dissidents emerged in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions, who emphasised the subjectivity of religious conviction. Belief was to become opinion.

Shagan's mastery of the sources and his alertness to the shifting rip tides of signification make his book a thrilling read. Certainly, the answer it provides to Taylor's celebrated question is as convincing as any. Our opinions turn out to be even more relative than we might have suspected. 'Western modernity', as Shagan puts it, 'is characterised not by a decline of belief but by its boundless proliferation.'

The Birth of Modern Belief: Faith and Judgment from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
Ethan H. Shagan
Princeton
408pp £27

Tom Holland's Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind will be published by Little, Brown in September 2019.

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'Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?' This question, posed by Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007), is popular with historians these days.

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A Guardian article, looking at a £1 million challenge made to the British Museum to prove the Turin shroud was a fake. 

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A Guardian article, looking at a £1 million challenge made to the British Museum to prove the Turin shroud was a fake. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE What constitutes evidence for religious thinkers?

KEY TERMS Faith vs. rational thought, Evidence, Authenticity

LINKS TO Religion, History, Technology

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The $1m challenge: ‘If the Turin Shroud is a forgery, show how it was done’

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Expert on revered relic calls on British Museum to back up the results of its disputed carbon dating tests

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An Aeon/TED animation, looking at how Zen Buddhist ‘Koans’ help us to embrace uncertainty, rather than asking questions about the unknowable. 

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An Aeon/TED animation, looking at how Zen Buddhist ‘Koans’ help us to embrace uncertainty, rather than asking questions about the unknowable. 

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE A really nice animation, which outlines one of the key aspects of Zen Buddhism. First get students to understand what the ‘Koans’ were - perhaps focusing on how they help us to avoid binary thinking. Next think about what they tell us about the struggle to explain everything: is this a futile quest? Do they agree that enlightenment means resisting the urge to know the seemingly unknowable?

KEY TERMS Answer, Unexplainable, Interpretations, Grey area, Observable world vs. deeper knowledge, Binary thinking, Understanding

LINKS TO Religion, Knowledge & the knower

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Is seeking an explanation for life's deepest mysteries a worthy pursuit? Many scientists and theologians would say yes. Zen Buddhists practising in China from the 9th to 13th centuries CE, however, believed that it was important to embrace uncertainty instead of always seeking answers. For these monks, achieving enlightenment meant resisting the urge to know the seemingly unknowable. To foster this way of thinking, they meditated on paradoxical riddles called kōans to raise doubts about the very meaning of knowing and, through this, find deeper truths about existence. This playful animation from TED-Ed provides a brief history of kōans, and offers two rich examples from the roughly 1,700 kōans written to illustrate the key role of ambiguity on the path to enlightenment.

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What Zen Buddhist riddles reveal about knowledge and the unknowable | Aeon Videos

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To achieve enlightenment, resist the urge to know the unknowable with these unsolvable riddles from Zen Buddhist monks

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This Big Think story focuses on the assertion of Dartmouth physicist Marcelo Gleiser that labelling yourself an atheist - in other words, stating that something does not exist when you have no evidence either way - is incompatible with a scientific outlook.

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This Big Think story focuses on the assertion of Dartmouth physicist Marcelo Gleiser that labelling yourself an atheist - in other words, stating that something does not exist when you have no evidence either way - is incompatible with a scientific outlook.

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UNPACKING THE SOURCE Many people link a scientific approach to knowledge with the rejection of religious phenomena, and so call themselves ‘atheists’, but Geiser’s provocative remarks suggest that that is invalid. What do students think - should all ‘true’ scientists call themselves agnositics? After arriving at a conclusion about this RLS, students could think about the wider question, which is: where should the burden of proof lie - on those proving, or disproving an idea?

KEY TERMS Evidence

LINKS TO Religion, Natural sciences

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Dartmouth College physics professor Marcelo Gleiser has become the first Latin American to win the Templeton Prize in recognition of his "exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works."

Prior to winning the 2019 award on March 19, Dr. Gleiser had exhibited his spiritual side to the press, even arguing why he believes atheism is unscientific.

In an interview that will shock many atheists, Dr. Gleiser told Scientific American why he finds atheism to be a bridge too far for a scientific mind:

"I think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It's a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief. 'I don't believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don't believe.' Period. It's a declaration. But in science we don't really do declarations. We say, 'Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that.' And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim God? Which god is that?) But on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn't know about."

He further explains his stance on not trying to claim that we know everything in a well-reasoned defense of humility in science:

"I believe we should take a much humbler approach to knowledge, in the sense that if you look carefully at the way science works, you'll see that yes, it is wonderful - magnificent! - but it has limits. And we have to understand and respect those limits. And by doing that, by understanding how science advances, science really becomes a deeply spiritual conversation with the mysterious, about all the things we don't know."

In some ways, it is.

Dr. Gleiser reminds us that we are on an "island of knowledge" in the middle of an "ocean of the unknown." As knowledge advances, we become more aware of what we don't know. As he puts it:

The paradox of knowledge is that as it expands and the boundary between the known and the unknown changes, you inevitably start to ask questions that you couldn't even ask before.

His notion that we should not be too proud of what we know and open to the idea that we might discover something tomorrow that changes everything isn't without precedent. Lord Kelvin, a brilliant British scientist of the 19th century, claimed that flight was impossible and that X-rays were a hoax. Albert Abraham Michelson, an American physicist also working just before the relativistic and quantum revolutions in physics, suggested that the laws of physics had all been worked out and that the only task left was to improve accuracy in measurement.

If we listened to these two who thought we'd already figured everything out, we'd be stuck in the 1890s. It may well turn out that the claim "there is no God" could end up being similar to saying, "No balloon and no aeroplane will ever be practically successful" in 1902. Similarly, skepticism of the claim "X doesn't exist" is also important in science since "X" might show up someday.

While it remains true that humility can be a good thing, that we don't know what we don't know, and that it is impossible to prove the negative statement that "God doesn't exist," Bertrand Russell reminds us that we can still be rational while saying we don't believe in something we cannot disprove the existence of.

Famous for his well-reasoned atheism, Russell acknowledged that he was technically an agnostic and declaring there to be no God was a step too far. However, he pointed out why that step shouldn't bother anybody:

"I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely."

That quote refers to his famous teapot analogy, excerpted below:

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense."

What Russell is saying is that just because a point that is asserted without evidence cannot be disproved doesn't mean it is unreasonable to think it isn't true. Furthermore, Russell places the burden of proof on the person making the positive claim - God/the teapot exists - and not on the person questioning that claim.

Astronomer and science educator Carl Sagan made a similar point about the dragon in his garage:

"Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

'Show me,' you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle-but no dragon.

'Where's the dragon?' you ask.

'Oh, she's right here,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.'

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

'Good idea,' I say, 'but this dragon floats in the air.'

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.'

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

'Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick.'

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so."

Sagan, like Russell, is arguing that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Since there is no evidence of the dragon, it is hardly anti-scientific to say you don't believe the dragon is there.

Is it going too far to claim that God doesn't exist? That depends on where you want to place the burden of proof and how much evidence (or the lack thereof) is needed to make a claim. In any case, Dr. Gleiser makes a good point about not claiming to know more than you do and the need for a bit of humility.

I for one still won't believe you if you tell me you're off for a cup of tea on Mars with the dragon that lives in your garage.

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Atheism is inconsistent with science, says Dartmouth physicist Marcelo Gleiser

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Dartmouth College physics professor Marcelo Gleiser has become the first Latin American to win the Templeton Prize in recognition of his "exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works." Prior to winning the 2019 award on March 19, Dr. Gleiser had exhibited his spiritual side to the press, even arguing why he believes atheism is unscientific.