Brief: Religion is Not Belief? (w/Blair Hodges)
Conspirituality4 Mai 2024

Brief: Religion is Not Belief? (w/Blair Hodges)

The late historian of religion James Carse (1932-2020) made a radical proposal in his 2012 book, The Religious Case Against Belief. He argued that beliefs, far from being central to or definitive of religion, are actually antithetical to religious community. A religion’s historical longevity, he argued, depends on its ability to absorb and neutralize beliefs—epistemological dead ends built on willful ignorance. “The challenge to religion,” Carse says, “is not its opponents from without, but its believers from within, and the real enemy of religion is belief itself.” What does this mean for a project like Conspirituality and other projects of disillusionment carried out in the shadow of New Atheism and other modern skeptical movements? Blair Hodges of the Fireside and Family Proclamations podcasts joins Matthew to discuss a potential casualty of the battle against religious extremism: a nuanced understanding of religion itself. Show Notes The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse Fireside with Blair Hodges Family Proclamations w/ Blair Hodges Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episoder(785)

Brief: Prospirituality Predictions for 2026

Brief: Prospirituality Predictions for 2026

If conspirituality names the ways religion and spirituality are weaponized to justify power, prospirituality points to religious traditions doing the opposite: grounding resistance, ethical clarity, a...

24 Jan 28min

292: Women of Jan 6 (w/ Noelle Cook)

292: Women of Jan 6 (w/ Noelle Cook)

Noelle Cook’s The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging is the first ethnography of conspirituality, and it comes via someone who was able to really embed themselves in a volatile...

22 Jan 1h 8min

Bonus Sample: Oil, Power, and Theocracy

Bonus Sample: Oil, Power, and Theocracy

In 1953 the CIA and MI6 participated in a coup d’etat in Iran. That true sentence (and what usually follows) can create an oversimplified distortion of history—and present. But Iran is in the news aga...

19 Jan 7min

MAHA’s Selective Skepticism

MAHA’s Selective Skepticism

Whole milk is back! The war on protein is over! Mainline meat! Derek investigates the new inverted pyramid and everything lacking in the new dietary guidelines. Show Notes The New Dietary Guidelin...

17 Jan 23min

291: My Chinese Buddhist Israeli AI Guru

291: My Chinese Buddhist Israeli AI Guru

“Train your mind gently, not to deny what is hard, but to see what is still good” implores the monk sharing spiritual messages to his 2.5 million Instagram followers. Clad in an orange robe—well, some...

15 Jan 1h 6min

Bonus Sample: Overwelled

Bonus Sample: Overwelled

From Andrew Huberman's Goop collab and Mel Robbins' protein shots to MAHA flipping the long-defunct food pyramid and making meningitis great again, the first full week of 2026 was off to quite a start...

12 Jan 4min

Brief: Censorship Industrial Complex

Brief: Censorship Industrial Complex

Marco Rubio’s office published an official press release last month titled “Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship Industrial Complex.” The memo discusses the decision to impose visa ...

10 Jan 22min

290: Trump Derangement Science

290: Trump Derangement Science

What do fascists need to do to convince their rank and file that they’re the smartest in the room? They invent new science to trash the old science they didn’t like. First, we look into how RFK Jr is ...

8 Jan 1h 6min

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