ReligionDispatches.org

Henry Jenkins and Salman Hameed.

This week’s episode asks big questions about psychology and religion, and reminds us that a dog is a robot’s best friend.

Diane Winston, Henry Jenkins, and Anthea Butler.

In the ever more dystopian world of Syfy Channel’s Caprica, teenage girls inhabit robot bodies, or live eternally without bodies at all, human bodies are marked by memories, and all the while there is blood flowing in the virtual streets. 

Diane Winston, Salman Hameed, Anthea Butler, and Henry Jenkins.

Tamara, the girl who is dead but doesn’t know it, who exists only within the “magic circle” of a virtual game, takes center stage in this week’s episode, and in our commentary. 

Henry Jenkins, Diane Winston, and Anthea Butler.

Among other clues to this sci-fi opera, our Caprica watchers took particular note of a bobbleheaded bull on the dashboard of a Tauron killer. What can we learn from the possibility that Capricans can be as kitsch-obsessed, cigarette-addicted, and as reckless with civil liberties as earthlings can be? 

Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Henry Jenkins, and Salman Hameed.

More on the sci-fi TV show that imagines monotheists rebelling against a polytheist society, speculates about the nature of the human soul, and asks, “Can you be free if you’re not real?”

Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, Henry Jenkins, and Diane Winston.

Welcome to the first installment of our ongoing coverage of television’s latest contribution to the cultural intersection of science and religion, with bonus themes to include: the body, artificial intelligence, paganism, original sin, immigration, and race. Join Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, and Henry Jenkins every week as they delve into deep exegesis of Caprica.

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

Christian conservatives won't hear of it.

Dagmar Herzog.

Is American sexual culture schizophrenic? Yes, and this has everything to do with the sexual politics of the religious right. Sexual opportunity is everywhere, but sexual rights have, at the same time, been concretely eroded.

V. Henry T. Nguyen.

In light of a recent finding that evangelical Christians are more likely, statistically, to support the use of torture, a scholar proposes an approach to nonviolence based on the teaching of Christianity’s first theologian.

Kate Childs Graham.

Men sin with sex, food, and laziness; women are vain, jealous, and filled with rage. But this has nothing to do with culture, of course.

J. Terry Todd.

There’s something about American evangelical life that tends toward the production of these sex sagas and tonight’s HBO documentary on Haggard airs just as new dimensions of the sex scandal emerge.

Candace Chellew-Hodge.

Instead of looking to earthly things and earthly power to bless us, we are to be a blessing in the world. Instead of caring so much that we become overwhelmed by the wicked ways of the world, we are to live our lives as a blessing to others. It is up to us to create a secure world.

Tom Davis.

A standard misconception of the religious right is to privilege sexual “sins” over the sin of, say, a lack of economic justice for women. A story from Genesis 38 retold...

Rosemary R. Ruether.

Reverend Wright’s condemnation of the United States made waves, but right-wing preachers have been railing against America’s sins for years.

Diane Winston.

The Vatican’s latest edit engages the contemporary world in a collective reconsideration of systemic and personal sin, including the environment and genetic engineering.