Apatheism: Engaging the Western Pantheon of Spiritual Indifference

As secularism continues to grow in popularity, evangelicals must learn to engage apatheists--those who lack the reason, motivation, or will to care about spirituality

Online Reading Informs Classroom Instruction and Promotes Collaborative Learning

Web-based collaborative annotation tools can facilitate communication among students and their instructors through online reading and communication. Collaborative reading fosters peer interaction and is an innovative way to facilitate discussion and participation in larger enrollment courses. It can be especially powerful as it creates an environment where all students are able to ask questions and contribute to a discussion about science. An online annotation tool, Nota Bene (NB), was tested in two biology courses: intermediate-level Molecular Biology (89 students) and upper level Cancer Biology (26 students). Student participation in these graded reading assignments ranged from 79% to 93%. A typical reading assignment from the upper level course generated 105 student comments, 68% of which led to responses, and a typical assignment from the midlevel course generated 183 comments, 44.8% of which generated further discussion. NB also helped uncover misunderstandings and misconceptions about biological phenomena. Coded student responses revealed evidence of knowledge transfer and synthesis, especially in the upper level biology course. We suggest that this type of collaborative reading activity could be useful in a variety of postsecondary classroom settings as it encourages collaborative learning and promotes inclusion of students who might not participate otherwise

College-Aged Religious “Nones” and their Political Views: A Comparison in the Wake of the Disaffiliation Trend

Each year, college-age populations are increasingly reporting that they identify as non-religious and are attending religious services less frequently, resulting in a larger presence of a group known as religious “Nones.” In the past, social researchers have used religious affiliation and attendance to predict opinions on political ideologies. However, with this increasing prevalence of “Nones” among college-age populations, it is more difficult to use religious variables to predict political views. In this paper, I will analyze recent GSS data and an original survey to capture a contemporary picture of college-age respondents’ religiosity and political beliefs

Religious residue: The impact of childhood religious socialization on the religiosity of nones in France, Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden

One of the distinguishing features of religious life in Western Europe in recent decades has been the sharp increase in the proportion of people who identify as unaffiliated with any religious tradition (religious nones). Non‐affiliation entails a rejection of religious belonging, not the absence of all religious belief and practice; yet the determinants of religiosity among nones have not been fully explored. Drawing on data from the 1998–2018 ISSP surveys in four West European countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden), I test the impact of childhood religious socialization on the religiosity of unaffiliated adults by comparing lifelong nones, who were never religiously affiliated, with disaffiliates, who were raised within a religious tradition and have since exited organized religious life. Disaffiliates are consistently more religious than lifelong nones due to religious residue from childhood, with greater residue found among those who were more religiously committed as children. Religious decline among the unaffiliated over time, combined with the increasing proportion of lifelong nones and second‐generation lifelong nones who lack even an inherited, minimal religious residue, suggest that secularization will gather momentum

Debugging and consolidating multiple synthetic chromosomes reveals combinatorial genetic interactions

The Sc2.0 project is building a eukaryotic synthetic genome from scratch. A major milestone has been achieved with all individual Sc2.0 chromosomes assembled. Here, we describe the consolidation of multiple synthetic chromosomes using advanced endoreduplication intercrossing with tRNA expression cassettes to generate a strain with 6.5 synthetic chromosomes. The 3D chromosome organization and transcript isoform profiles were evaluated using Hi-C and long-read direct RNA sequencing. We developed CRISPR Directed Biallelic URA3-assisted Genome Scan, or ‘‘CRISPR D-BUGS,’’ to map phenotypic variants caused by specific designer modifications, known as ‘‘bugs.’’ We first fine-mapped a bug in synthetic chromosome II (synII) and then discovered a combinatorial interaction associated with synIII and synX, revealing an unexpected genetic interaction that links transcriptional regulation, inositol metabolism, and tRNASer CGA abundance. Finally, to expedite consolidation, we employed chromosome substitution to incorporate the largest chromosome (synIV), thereby consolidating &gt;50% of the Sc2.0 genome in one strain </p

The Japanese Way in America: A Comparison of the Spiritual Beliefs, Habits, and Ideas of the American Religious ‘Nones’ and Contemporary Japanese Nationals

There has been growing interest in the religiously unaffiliated within America. This growing interest has caused a new name to come about, the Nones. The present discussion attempts to give context to the rise of the Nones and to compare the religious beliefs and habits of these American Nones with the Japanese Nationals who inhabit Japan. There are many similarities between these two groups relating to ethics, interactions with people, and connection with nature. These comparisons show that there is a possible connection between people that explains spiritual experience, even outside that of normalized, institutional religions. This “intuition of the sacred” is vital in understanding human spiritual experience and, arguably, what it means to be human. Intuition of the sacred may explain why some spiritual beliefs and experiences of the American Nones are similar to the Japanese Nationals. By looking at the categories of sacred Space, Time, Nature, and Human Experience through the lens of the question, “What does it mean to be human?” it can be discovered that there are interesting similarities between the spiritual lives of the American Nones and the Japanese Nationals. This “Japanese way in America” may show that although the Nones are new linguistically, the concern noted by researchers and religious leaders about the growing group and their irreligiosity is actually unnecessary. With a spiritual focus on relationships and daily living, the American Nones and the Japanese Nationals have a lot in common