This weekend on the Dish, we explored the varieties of religious experience: John Updike believed that faith was like being in love, Christopher Beha thought of conversion as the beginning of new struggles, Martin Amis reminded us of our inevitable decline, and Colin Dickey contemplated the relationship between mourning and magic. We featured a BBC documentary on Mitt Romney and Mormonism, showed the similarity between religious books and erotica, and discovered that, if you are searching for a guru and considering Anthony Robbins, you might get burned. And if all this seems too serious, Jim Holt shared his favorite religious (and atheist) jokes with us.
We also pondered human creativity: John Banville praised James Joyce's celebration of the ordinary, Adam Kirsch asked if evolution can account for art, Claire Kelley held that running can spur epiphanies, and Bruce Springsteen attributed his creativity to self-loathing, while others found that their best work springs from love. As always, we drew attention to two examples of creative effort – read Saturday's poem here and Sunday's here.
Love and sex were on our mind as well, which isn't surprising given that we are entering peak porn-watching season. Jesse Bering reminded us that asexuality is complicated, Tom Jacobs established that we like our female Olympians scantily clad, and we realized we should be grateful that we don't have sex like bed bugs. Readers further engaged the ethics of being able to find out who signed an anti-same-sex marriage petition in Maryland.
In assorted coverage, Brian Hoffstein provided perspective about our time on earth, Morgan Meis probed the ambiguities of Epicureanism, Douthat compared gun control to Prohibition, Eli Lehrer wondered if doctors are overpaid, Farhad Manjoo reviewed the latest in fake meat, Tim Doody profiled an LSD pioneer, and Jay Rosen tried to answer why Sunday political shows are so bad. MHBs here and here, FOTDs here and here, VFYWs here and here, and the latest window contest here.
– M.S.
(Image via Flickr user kstepanoff)
The Dish 