Fighting Global Warming With Religious Language
Some campaigners think it is time to stop relying on apocalyptic messages to convert people to the climate change cause. (Helen Grady, BBC Radio 4)

How to Communicate With Aliens
Should we start sending messages into the void? And if so, how can we make ourselves understood to beings we know nothing about? (Stephen Battersby, New Scientist)

Novelist Howard Jacobson Makes the Bible His Own
The biblical poetry did come alive for him when he, finally, visited the philosopher Mary Midgley. She talked to him of myth, of the need we have to grasp the world through imaginative visions that provide a background for the rest of life. For good or ill, right or wrong, it is only human to sense a greater whole, a meaning, a purpose. (Mark Vernon, guardian.co.uk)

Author Responds to Reactions to Her New S&R Book
Barbara Herrnstein Smith: Natural Reflections is centrally about human cognition and argues that certain widely shared cognitive tendencies are exhibited equally by nonscientists and scientists, including some anthropologists and psychologists seeking to explain religion on the basis of evolutionary theory and cognitive science, and also equally by atheists and theists, including some theologians seeking to reconcile science and religion. (Opinionator, The New York Times)

Will Religious Universities Fade Away?
Todd Pettigrew: A university’s main goal should be the rational pursuit of knowledge and truth. Traditional religion, premised as it is on faith and revelation, is incompatible with that goal. (OnCampus, Maclean’s)

Fatwa on Muslim Prayer Ringtones
Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, Egypt’s top cleric, issued a fatwa, or a religious edict, urging Muslims to do away with a popular fad—Quranic verses or the five daily calls to prayer as cellphone ringtones. The government-appointed cleric says such ringtones are inappropriate, misleading, and demeaning to God’s words. (Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press)

Global Cooperation
Don Tapscott: As a fellow of the World Economic Forum, I’ve been attending the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for a dozen years. But I’ve never anticipated the event more than this year. The event’s theme is “Improve the state of the world: Rethink, redesign, and rebuild”—music to my ears. (The Globe and Mail)

Q&A
Wade Davis
Anthropologist Wade Davis recently spoke about how voodooists might view the recent Haiti earthquake, the concern many Haitians are feeling as they bury loved ones without proper rituals, and U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson’s remark that Haiti’s earthquake is God’s retribution for a voodoo “pact with the devil.” (Ker Than, National Geographic News)

TELEVISION
Caprica, Episode 1
We’ve convened a club of media and religion experts—Diane Winston, Henry Jenkins, Salman Hameed, and Anthea Butler—to take the pulse of the show every week, and to share their readings with us. (Religion Dispatches)

EVENTS
Physics of the Universe Summit
A few dozen scientists got together in Los Angeles for the weekend recently to talk about their craziest hopes and dreams for the universe. At least that was the idea. (Dennis Overbye, The New York Times)