I’ve been thinking lately about the interface between data and spirituality, and while I have some ideas that I’ll be presenting in future blog posts, I thought I’d start with a question. A plea for learning, really. How have people thought about using data to inform and promote spiritual practice? What I’m looking for is something along the lines of The Quantified Self meeting spiritual formation? There are, of course, no end of academic studies of spirituality, many of which... Read more
“Persecution!” is the cry that we hear from some Christians today. Detractors of those individuals complain about a “wahbulance” attitude these Christians have. Supporters of these individuals point out ways in which Christians have faced discrimination or are victims of unfair measures. The historical persecution of Christians is not an illusion. Knowing that Christians in the past have been tortured and killed for their faith may make it easier for Christians to see themselves as victims of persecution. There is... Read more
Recent news on the higher education scene has turned attention to the Asian American case, or cases we should say. A team of education researchers led by Dr. Robert Teranishi used data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the University of California higher education system to make the case that Asian American ethnic groups are not all performing in the “model minority” way. As some readers know, Asian Americans tend to be grouped together as if they were... Read more
Do you take your leisure seriously? If not, you aren’t going to get flow which I described last week. Contrary to popular belief, flow is not the easy-peasy feeling you get when plopping down on the couch to watch an old movie or the NBA Finals. Flow also is not the exclusive property of musical or spiritual virtuosos who seem to just forget the world around them as they wrap themselves in beauty or prayer. Flow happens when your work... Read more
As I also wrote about last summer, August 15th marked an important change in immigration policy, when young adults without official documentation were able to apply for two-year stays in the country, without fear of deportation. Today we also face the possibility of a significant change to the system. A bipartisan “Gang of 8” proposal for immigration reform was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill, which heads to the Senate next week, will provide a path to legalization... Read more
How quickly the second Obama administration has become scandal-plagued is astounding. Unfortunately, scandals seem to be commonplace in the second term of our presidents. In my humble opinion the controversy with the most potential to permanently damage his ability to govern is the IRS scandal. The IRS is one of the most feared departments in our federal government. The idea that individuals in that department may use that fear to unfairly promote their political agenda is terrifying. It is... Read more
News items are useful for teaching but they can sometimes provoke new research investigations. For example I recently found this item on my Facebook newsfeed (I created an interest page and jammed together all of the major news and national group organizations into a single feed; it’s fairly efficient most of the time). It illustrates the rough contours of the various dialects of English spoken around the US, and brought to mind my previous post on race, immigration and region... Read more
Did you know that you can actually increase your ability to enjoy the things in life that produce the greatest satisfaction? When I read Martin Seligman’s PERMA concept of human flourishing (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement) I simply presumed that Type-A, achievement oriented people like me are too busy doing our work to get into flow (another word for engagement). “Flow must be what creative types, like artists or actors, experience,” I naively thought. To learn more about... Read more
This is the last blog of my series on atheists which is based on a book, co-written with David Williamson, titled There is no God: Atheists in America (Rowman and Littlefield). You can see the first three entries of this series here and here and here. In the past blogs there has been a debate with my use of the term “belief” in describing atheism. I have discussed my use of that word in my previous blogs and read... Read more
One of the more robust trends in American Christianity–at least its Protestant side–is the decreasing significance of denominations in Christian’s identity and affiliation. To show this, I used GSS data to divide Protestants into groups by denomination. This the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. In addition there is a “generic” category of Christians who don’t affiliate with any particular denomination (e.g., interdenominational) and an “other” category of denominations and identities not asked about in the GSS. To show their... Read more
Black, White and Gray
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