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But in his new book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, Douthat argues that religion has fallen into heresy (hence the feisty subtitle). Douthat recently spoke with NPR's Linda Wertheimer about why he thinks American Christianity has become distorted. 
This is a story about how innovation happens. It begins in 1386 after the great Papal Schism (seriously), demonstrates the ability of universities to foster capitalism, and concludes with a surprising hero of the modern world: lawyers. 
On average, happier people are also healthier, with the causal arrows probably pointing in both directions. Finally, age and happiness have a consistent U-shaped relationship, with the turning point in the mid- to late-40s, when happiness begins to increase, as long as health and domestic partnerships stay sound.
All of this seems rather logical, suggesting that if a government wants to get into the business of promoting happiness, it can pursue some straightforward policy goals, such as emphasizing health, jobs and economic stability as much as economic growth.
But here's the complicated part. While there are stable patterns in what leads to happiness, there is also a remarkable human capacity to adapt to both prosperity and adversity. 
Mitchell couldn’t get the dead woman out of his mind; the tableau was stuck before his eyes. He tried to tough it out, but after months of suffering, he couldn’t take it anymore. He finally told his brother, a fellow firefighter, about it.
Miraculously, that worked. No more trauma; Mitchell felt free. This dramatic recovery, along with the experiences of fellow first responders, led Mitchell to do some research into recovery from trauma. He eventually concluded that he had stumbled upon a powerful treatment. 
Your shopping habits reveal even the most personal information — like when you’re going to have a baby. 
For all of you aspiring physicists out there, here's an intriguing introduction to the workings of CERN's Large Hadron Collider, located between Switzerland and France. There is no upper limit to the risks men are willing to take in order to succeed, and if there is an upper limit for women, they will succeed less. They will also end up in jail less, but I don’t think we get the rewards without the risks. 
Recent studies indicate that our brains may work like JPGS, conserving "bandwidth" and influencing how we see the world. 
Seen from the state’s point of view, multiple citizenship is at best untidy and at worst a menace. Officials would prefer you to be born, live, work, pay taxes, draw benefits and die in the same place, travel on one passport only, and bequeath only one nationality to your offspring. In wartime the state has a unique call on your loyalty—and perhaps your life. Citizenship is the glue keeping individual and state together. Tamper with it, and the relationship comes unstuck. But life is more complicated than that. 
Dichter understood that every product has an image, even a “soul”, and is bought not merely for the purpose it serves but for the values it seems to embody. Our possessions are extensions of our own personalities, which serve as a “kind of mirror which reflects our own image”. 
Within a few months of Havel's ascension, the euphoria of the Velvet Revolution began to fade. The poetry of those winter weeks, the theatrical press conferences and the street rallies, yielded to the prose of governing a ruined state. No more scooters, no more sneaking out of the Castle for a drink at a local pub. 
Lowe’s pulled its ads following a protest campaign from the Florida Family Association, which objects to the show, in essence, because it portrays Muslims too positively. That is, it argues the show is “propaganda” because it portrays peaceful, ordinary Muslims without mentioning horrible things that other Muslims have done. Right: because a decade of news reports, eight seasons of 24 and constant political grandstanding have done a bang-up job of utterly ignoring Islamic extremists. People are paying more and getting less. Is that unfair? Perhaps, if one defines fairness as getting what one expected. But what if what was promised—progressively longer retirements, and riskless pensions in any market environment—was never realistic to begin with? |
I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste. If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average. Even printed, on pages that are bound, sentences remain unsettled organisms. Years later, I can always reach out to smooth a stray hair. And yet, at a certain point, I must walk away, trusting them to do their work. I am left looking over my shoulder, wondering if I might have structured one more effectively. 
An Oxford philosopher argues that we are not adequately accounting for technology's risks -- but his solution to the problem is not for Luddites. 
As the brain fades, we euphemistically refer to these occurrences as "senior moments." While seemingly innocent, this loss of mental focus can potentially have a detrimental impact on our professional, social, and personal wellbeing. 
Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. 
It turns out most of us value nearby stores and parks rather than McMansions. 
Young people have grown up in a world where capitalism has failed them and the War on Terror has replaced the Red Scare. 
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back. 
If you're an unabashed racist, a femininity-hater, or a body fascist, then be my guest and declare all your prohibitions. Just don't be shocked if you're called out for being an asshole. 
Hip-hop and homophobic hate speech have long gone hand in hand—but now MCs from Fat Joe to The Game are changing their tune. Chris Lee on rap’s gay-friendly tipping point. 
I want to honor and discuss each of these 12 points, because no matter what part of life’s path we’re currently traveling on, these ‘happiness habits’ will always be applicable. 
A bizarre underwater "icicle of death" is captured on camera for the first time by BBC filmmakers. |
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