In any terrorist attack by Muslim extremists perpetrated in the name of Islam – such as the recent Charlie Hebdo atrocity – discussions about the Prophet Muhammad, his life and his teachings come to the…
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Articles on Religion
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Let’s be clear about one thing as the loony right once more revisits with slavering lips their thwarted desire to allow racial vilification to run untrammelled through Australian society. Nothing that…
The tradition of freedom of expression on religious matters is not quite so venerable as many seem to imagine in the outcry at the killing of Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists in Paris. While modern…
Getting on for 14 billion years ago the universe suddenly sprang into life. I can’t actually do the math, as they say, but I’m happy to accept the word of those who can that the physics is unambiguously…
The slaying of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists because of their work is the grossest attack on the value of free speech, and of course the right to life. In the deadly attack on the magazine’s…
From the fatwa on author Salman Rushdie to the attack on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the phenomenon of anti-blasphemy actions continues to be prominent in the Muslim world. At first glance…
The French writer Michel Houellebecq once referred to Islam as “the stupidest religion”. Speaking as an equal opportunities atheist born and raised into the weird and wonderful ways of Catholicism, I can…
“Can you love your neighbor as yourself, and at the same time knee him in the face as hard as you can?” American Christian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) champion Scott “Bam Bam” Sullivan wonders in an interview…
Do we need religion in order to be moral? George Washington cautioned against “indulg[ing] the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion”, and today more than half of Americans believe…
In a letter to the Abbe Morellet in 1779, Benjamin Franklin mused that the strategic location of the elbow is proof that God desires us to drink wine. After all, had God placed the elbow lower on the arm…
Interpreting the Bible is a tricky business at the best of times. Those encountering nativity plays or Hollywood epics such as Exodus: Gods and Kings will no doubt spot errors, ranging from innocent inaccuracies…
In my home city of Melbourne, an extraordinary cultural and religious drama is played out on Christmas Eve each year at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Thousands of people mill around…
The term “reboot” means something particular in the movies. The metaphor is drawn from computers: a “reboot” restarts a machine whose software has malfunctioned. But in cinematic terms a reboot refers…
Christmas is bound to produce a few questions about Jesus Christ – as was the case with a recent article on The Conversation on the lack of evidence for a “historical Jesus”. Such questions bleed in to…
Man Haron Monis, the sole perpetrator of the Sydney hostage siege, is but one example of the recent development of a new form of Islamic extremist radicalisation. In recent years, Islamic extremism has…
Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold…
In the movie The Life of Brian (1979), Reg, played by John Cleese, asks fellow members of the People’s Front of Judea: … apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation…
My idea of bliss is a Sunday walk that takes in first some English countryside, and second a pleasant medieval church, with some glass or woodwork or monuments. I once even wrote a piece, published in…
The latest violent episode between Palestinians and Israelis has prompted Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to assert that Israel is in the midst of a “battle for Jerusalem”. This is a city divided…
Indonesia, having grappled with problems of religious intolerance and violence, seems to be making efforts to improve religious freedom. Indonesia’s religious affairs minister, Lukman Syaifuddin, is drafting…
Top contributors
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Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland
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Visiting Research Fellow University of Chester, University of Chester
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Research fellow at Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University
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Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University
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Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity
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Vice-Chancellor, University of Divinity
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Senior Lecturer, The University of Western Australia
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Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Monash University
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Timothy W. Jones is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in History, La Trobe University
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Senior lecturer, Australian Catholic University
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Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Western Sydney University
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Associate Professor in Sociology, Deakin University
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Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo
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Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, University of Sheffield
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
