Atheists are not the only people who donate their bodies, yet the practice is strikingly prevalent in a variety of atheist circles. We concentrate here on the Indian case, exploring body donation as a key instance of the material culture of atheism. Recent efforts to reinvigorate study of the material culture of religion are to be welcomed, but they should be extended to non-religion in order to address the irony that sees scholars representing materialism as an abstract doctrine and, hence, as immaterial. Body donation holds value for Indian atheists as a bridge between 'positive' and 'negative' modes of atheist thought and action. It also provides a ready-made solution for atheist activists keen to circumvent the cadaver-centered death rituals they find so redundant.
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Godless People and Dead Bodies
Materiality and the Morality of Atheist Materialism
Jacob Copeman and Johannes Quack
Atheist Political Cultures in Independent Angola
Ruy Llera Blanes and Abel Paxe
In this article we chart the histories and political translations of atheist cultures in Angola. We explore the specific translations of atheist ideologies into practical actions that occurred in the post-independence period in the 1970s–1980s and perform an ethnographic exploration of their legacies in contemporary Angola. We also debate the problem of atheism as an anthropological concept, examining the interfaces between ideology, political agency, and social praxis. We suggest that atheism is inherently a politically biased concept, a product of the local histories and intellectual traditions that shape it.
Return of the Sacred?
Ronjon Paul Datta
Alexander Tristan Riley. Godless Intellectuals? The Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred Reinvented, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010, 298 pp.
In Durkheimian Studies
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2011
- Article Type:
- Review Article
- Pages:
- 153–156 (4 total)
Christian Interpretation of Kohelet [Ecclesiastes]
Three Examples from History and the Present
Elisabeth Birnbaum
Abstract
The book of Kohelet has been interpreted in very different, even opposing ways. There are rather divergent views on its main theme. Is Kohelet a God-fearing sage or a hedonistic sceptic? A godly preacher or a godless provocateur? This article shows three important interpretations of the book through the centuries and highlights their presuppositions, methods and results.
In European Judaism
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2021
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 17–26 (10 total)
On Atheism and Non-religion
An Afterword
Matthew Engelke
We all have our conceptual bugbears, terms which, as anthropologists, cause us trouble. Over the past couple of years, an increasing number of anthropologists working in the anthropology of religion have had to face some newly prominent ones: atheism, godlessness, and (worst of all) non-religion.
Introduction
Godless People, Doubt, and Atheism
Ruy Llera Blanes and Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic
In the introduction to this special issue, we set the agenda for researching the aspirations and practices of godless people who seek to thin out religion in their daily lives. We reflect on why processes of disengagement from religion have not been adequately researched in anthropology. Locating this issue's articles in the anthropological literature on doubt and atheism, we argue for the importance of a comparative investigation to analyze people's reluctance to pursue religion.
Boaz Remembers
Jonathan Magonet
That all happened many years ago. To my surprise, and regret, I am the one still here to tell the story. Ruth was younger than me by so many years, but the hand of God works in its own mysterious way. There are those who still say that her death was my punishment for marrying someone like her, from an enemy people and a godless society. So I feel it is up to me to set the record straight. To tell Ruth's story as she might have told it herself. I will do my best and I hope to do justice to an extraordinary woman., who in a brief moment changed my prejudice and fear into acceptance and love. Who gave me a new life. When Oved comes of age he can learn from her own words the story of his true mother.
In European Judaism
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2007
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 158–160 (2 total)
What Can Rabbinic Depictions of Ruth's Conversion Teach Us about the Importance of Belief in Judaism?
Maciej ‘Mati’ Kirschenbaum
Righteous Non-Believers: A Solution for Godless Times? According to Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, rabbinic Judaism established clear boundaries separating the Jews from the gentiles not only to prevent their assimilation into non-Jewish society but also in order to
In European Judaism
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2021
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 116–134 (19 total)
Book Reviews
Jack Hunter, Annelin Eriksen, Jon Mitchell, Mattijs van de Port, Magnus Course, Nicolás Panotto, Ruth Barcan, David M. R. Orr, Girish Daswani, Piergiorgio Di Giminiani, Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, Sofía Ugarte, Ryan J. Cook, Bettina E. Schmidt, and Mylene Mizrahi
OUSTINOVA-STJEPANOVIC, eds., Being Godless: Ethnographies of Atheism and Non-Religion , 154 pp., afterword, notes, references, index. New York: Berghahn Books, 2017. Paperback, $27.95. ISBN 9781785335730. As Matthew Engelke points out in his afterword to
In Religion and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2018
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 192–217 (26 total)
Psychoanalysis as Torat Hayim
In Praise of Separation
Agata Bielik-Robson
Jewish torat hayim , the ‘teaching of life’, which Derrida quite rightly called ‘the great intangible Jewish principle’, 3 capable of uniting the most religious and the most ‘godless’ of Jews. 4 In the very centre of this teaching is the emphatic
In European Judaism
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2022
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 55–70 (16 total)