{"id":1197,"date":"2011-11-07T22:37:55","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T03:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2011-11-07T22:40:13","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T03:40:13","slug":"the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"The World: Better Off With or Without Religion?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s another religion\/journalism event worth checking out, on Nov. 15, live in New York or via webcast:<\/p>\n<p>Does religion breed intolerance and violence?\u00a0 Or has it primarily been a source for good, imbuing followers with purpose and encouraging moral behavior? Two atheists<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1200\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/70\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a> and two believers will wrestle over the controversial motion, <a href=\"http:\/\/intelligencesquaredus.org\/index.php\/debates\/the-world-would-be-better-off-without-religion\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion,&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0in an Oxford-style live debate\u00a0at NYU&#8217;s Skirball Center. Philosopher and Professor A.C. Grayling\u00a0will team up with Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, to argue for the motion and against religion. Rabbi David Wolpe (named #1 Pulpit Rabbi in America by Newsweek)\u00a0and King\u2019s College President Dinesh D&#8217;Souza\u00a0(author of &#8220;What&#8217;s So Great About Christianity?&#8221;) will fight against the motion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>(I took this photo at a punny gas station in Seattle&#8217;s Wallingford neighborhood a few months ago.)<\/p>\n<p>Moderated by ABC News Nightline\u2019s John Donvan, Intelligence Squared U.S.&#8217;s fall season, presented in partnership with Slate, will air on WNET and more than 220 NPR stations nationwide. Audience members will vote to decide the winning team of this significant debate. Tickets: $40 ($12 for students w\/ID) To purchase, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iq2us.org\/\">www.iq2us.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>WHAT: Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates: &#8220;The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion&#8221;<br \/>\nWHEN: Tuesday, November 15 \/ Reception 5:45-6:30 \/ Debate 6:45-8:30 PM<br \/>\nWHERE: NYU\u2019s Skirball Center \/ 566 Laguardia Place, New York, NY 10012<\/p>\n<p>P.S. Remember to save another date &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/out-of-the-mouths-of-religion-reporters.html\" target=\"_blank\">Dec. 14, 6-8 p.m., RNA\/RCC networking event at The Huffington Post <\/a>in downtown NYC.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s another religion\/journalism event worth checking out, on Nov. 15, live in New York or via webcast: Does religion breed intolerance and violence?\u00a0 Or has it primarily been a source for good, imbuing followers with purpose and encouraging moral behavior? Two atheists and two believers will wrestle over the controversial motion, &#8220;The World Would Be&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[305,388,304,517],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-atheism","tag-atheist","tag-atheists","tag-charles-darwin"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The World: Better Off With or Without Religion? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The World: Better Off With or Without Religion? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s another religion\/journalism event worth checking out, on Nov. 15, live in New York or via webcast: Does religion breed intolerance and violence?\u00a0 Or has it primarily been a source for good, imbuing followers with purpose and encouraging moral behavior? Two atheists and two believers will wrestle over the controversial motion, &#8220;The World Would Be&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-08T03:37:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-08T03:40:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The World: Better Off With or Without Religion? - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The World: Better Off With or Without Religion? - Belief Beat","og_description":"Here&#8217;s another religion\/journalism event worth checking out, on Nov. 15, live in New York or via webcast: Does religion breed intolerance and violence?\u00a0 Or has it primarily been a source for good, imbuing followers with purpose and encouraging moral behavior? Two atheists and two believers will wrestle over the controversial motion, &#8220;The World Would Be&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-11-08T03:37:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-11-08T03:40:13+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo-300x225.jpg"}],"author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html","name":"The World: Better Off With or Without Religion? - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo-300x225.jpg","datePublished":"2011-11-08T03:37:55+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-08T03:40:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo-300x225.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/11\/atheist-photo-300x225.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/11\/the-world-better-off-with-or-without-religion.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The World: Better Off With or Without Religion?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}