Buddhism prizes both compassion and undivided focus – which can be hard to combine.
Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The lines between family life and Buddhist monasticism are not so ‘either/or’ as they might seem.
Daniel Ellsberg addresses supporters during an anti-war protest in 2010 in front of the White House.
Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
The Vietnam War whistleblower, who died on June 16, 2023, wrestled with his decision to leak thousands of pages of government documents.
People admire a massive statue of the Hindu goddess Kali.
Jerry Redfern/LightRocket via Getty Images
Mother figures from faith traditions around the world reflect many different ways of thinking about the divine.
Jewish mothers have created ways to celebrate childbirth with rituals old and new.
Pal Pillai/AFP via Getty Images
Recent generations of Jewish women have looked to reinvent rituals marking the most meaningful moments in their lives, especially childbirth and motherhood.
An ancient Greek relief depicting a baby with its mother and grandmother.
David Lees/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Greek epic poetry often uses mothers and wives to humanize its heroes, reminding listeners of the meaning of sacrifice.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, photographed in New York circa 1874.
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Theosophy and its founders had an outsize impact on Americans’ ideas about spirituality and Asian religions.
Catching a ride for free?
Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
As a society, everyone is motivated to regulate AI development. For individual companies, though, the opposite is true.
A still from the film ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ showing Russell Crowe as the real-life Vatican exorcist.
Sony Pictures
How did blockbuster horror films such as ‘The Exorcist’ help the church warm to the controversial ritual?
A protest for Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not complying with dress code laws, in Tehran on Sept. 19, 2022.
Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Religious freedom has grown more important in US foreign policy – but does that come at the expense of promoting other human rights?
AI characters can ask kids a question and then customize a response to each child’s unique answer.
Romrodinka/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Children learn more science when they watch an AI-powered cartoon character than with a regular Mickey Mouse or Dora the Explorer, a new study finds.
Sure, you can try to force people to agree with you – but respectful persuasion is something else.
Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Immanuel Kant’s ideas about respect are still important today, in a world where social media and echo chambers make manipulation easy.
Some African countries are seeking to replace orphanages with family-based care.
himarkley/E+ via Getty Images
Rather than protecting some of the world’s most vulnerable children, many of Africa’s orphanages are exploiting them.
Who’s in control?
John Lund/Stone via Getty Images
AI is poised to reshape parts of US culture and society. Have tech developments raced ahead of our ability to understand the consequences?
The most important part of knowledge, in Socrates’ view? Knowing how much you don’t know.
Yoeml/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Athens was deeply polarized over big-picture questions, and Socrates was never hesitant to question both sides’ assumptions – or his own.
Activists in Dhaka demand safe working conditions in 2019, on the anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse.
Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Ten years after the collapse at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, the garment industry’s deadliest disaster, reforms are incomplete. The opaqueness of today’s complex supply chain is part of the problem.
Mary is often depicted weeping, a reminder of the ‘Seven Sorrows’ the Bible recounts her suffering.
pratan ounpitipong/Moment via Getty Images
Investigating supernatural claims is a delicate task for the church, and Catholic leaders rarely label them as authentic.
A salt pyramid in Uyuni, Bolivia. The rainy season produces a mirror effect in the salt flat.
Mario Orospe Hernandez
Lithium extraction in Bolivia poses more than environmental questions: It illustrates how notions about ‘raw materials’ can be at odds with Indigenous relations with the land.
Israeli political conflicts could change the giving patterns of U.S. Jews.
Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Political situations in both Israel and the US could be changing prior patterns with these donations, which fund hospitals, museums and a wide array of organizations.
You don’t have to see the future to know that AI has ethical baggage.
Wang Yukun/Moment via Getty Images
Generative AI is designed to produce the unforeseen, but that doesn’t mean developers can’t predict the types of social consequences it may cause.
Would religious charter schools be constitutional? More advocates are pushing to find out.
FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images
Using public funds to support students at private religious schools is one thing, but establishing faith-based institutions within public districts is another.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk speaks during a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event on Aug. 25, 2022, in Texas.
Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images
Effective altruism, often called ‘EA,’ is closely linked to utilitarian philosophy and calls for donors to carefully scrutinize whether their giving makes an impact.
Zoe Sahloul, executive director of the New England Arab American Organization, center, celebrates Eid-al-Fitr in Maine.
Joel Page/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images
Arab American Heritage Month is becoming more well-known, but the simple words ‘Arab American’ encompass a wide array of religious and ethnic groups.
Samuel Willenberg, the last survivor of the Treblinka uprising, poses for a picture at his art studio in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2010.
AP Photo/Oded Balilty
Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, pointedly commemorates Jewish resistance to the Nazis.
How did commemorating the Resurrection get tangled up with rabbits and eggs?
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images
Like Halloween and Christmas, today’s Easter traditions are a blend of Christian and non-Christian influences.
A mural in Derry commemorating the TV show ‘Derry Girls,’ which follows the lives of teenagers growing up amid Northern Ireland’s troubles.
Dominic Bryan
Twenty-five years after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is still resisting the culture of violence.