It’s a counterculture fusion of politics and pop, and it’s taking over a high school near you. Like the waves that came before it, it’s got passion, music, and anti-authority posturing, but more than anything else, this one has God. So what does it mean when today’s youth counterculture has a mindset more akin to Jerry Falwell’s than Abbie Hoffman’s? In RIGHTEOUS: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, Lauren Sandler, a dynamic young journalist, reports from this junction of Evangelicalism and youth culture, traveling across the country to investigate the alternative Christian explosion. Using the grassroots modus operandi of the 1960s, these religious kids – part of the “Disciple Generation” as Sandler calls it – turn an antiauthoritarian sneer toward liberalism, feminism, pacifism, and every other hallmark of that era’s counterculture. And they’re engaging their peers with startling success, fusing pop culture, politics, and religion as they preach from the pulpit of the skate park, bar, and rock concert. Secular, liberal, and practically the embodiment of everything Evangelicalism deems unholy, Sandler travels with skateboard missionaries, hangs out with the tattooed members of a postpunk Seattle megachurch that has evolved into a self-sufficient community, camps out with a rock’n’roll antiabortion group, and gets to know the rap preachers who are merging hip-hop’s love of money with old-fashioned bible-beating fundamentalism. Much more than a mere observer, she connects with these young people on an intimate level, and the candor with which they reveal themselves to her is truly astonishing. Illuminating, often troubling, and unapologetically frank, RIGHTEOUS introduces a bold new voice into the ongoing debate over religion in American life. And it is the first in-depth front-line exploration of the country’s new moral majority – dressed up in punk-rock garb – and what its influence could mean for the future of America. BACKCOVER: Advanced Praise: “Lauren Sandler obliterates the naïve and complacent hope that keeps most secularists and religious moderates sleeping peacefully each night-the hope that, in 21st century America, the young know better than to adopt the lunatic religious certainties of a prior age. The young do not know better. In their schools, skate-parks, rock concerts, and in the ranks of our nation’s military, our children are gleefully preparing a bright future of ignorance and religious fascism for us all. If you have any doubt that there is a culture war that must be waged and won by secularists in America, read this book.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation “It is no easy thing to enter into the world of the young evangelicals, to feel deeply their alienation, to breathe their air and share their electric conviction that they are the rising counterculture against an empty world. Lauren Sandler has done it, and done it with an effervescence and honesty that make her travels in Disciple America jump off the page.” —Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University, and author of The Intellectuals and the Flag "At once controversial, critical, blasphemous and compassionate, Righteous offers a compelling journey into a growing youth subculture typically dismissed by urban intellectuals. Sandler has written a provocative and illuminating portrait of young people desperately seeking meaning, community and love in an empty, often terrifying social landscape. Evangelical youth---the Disciple Generation--- are a generation rising, and we do need to pay attention.” —Dr. Donna Gaines, sociologist and author of Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids and A Misfit's Manifesto: The Spiritual Journey of a Rock & Roll Heart “Lauren Sandler has traveled among the believers and returned with a story that alarms, informs, and enlightens. She reveals the rise of a fundamentalist-style youth movement that has replaced faith with closed-minded certainty and is frighteningly cult-like. Read this book and you will understand this Disciple Generation and the challenge it poses to a civil society.” —Michael D'Antonio, former Newsday religion writer and author of Fall From Grace and Heaven on Earth “Righteous is a lively, probing account of today's fresh, sometimes bizarre sub- cultures of American evangelism. Both the term ‘alternative’ and ‘evangelical’ will mean something new to you after this book. Sandler's conclusions are important: These kids have been forgotten by their original social worlds, by secular organizations and even by Left-Liberal causes. In a cold new world, getting saved can now seem like a young American's only source of community and warmth.” —Alissa Quart, author of Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child “Righteous is the most adroit and fascinating examination of a great national ill, the muddling of faith and politics, the secular and the divine.” —Brad Land, author of Goat

    Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last be- coming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including: • Are our musical preferences shaped in utero? • Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music? • What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brain’s response to music? • Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure?This Is Your Brain on Music explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch. At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession.

    We can now pin down the neurons that fire when a person reports becoming aware of a piece of information and understand the crucial role unconscious computations play in how we make decisions. The emerging theory enables a test of consciousness in animals, babies, and those with severe brain injuries.A joyous exploration of the mind and its thrilling complexities, Consciousness and the Brain will excite anyone interestedin cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifyingconsciousness.

    He asks: How do we "read" other people?What is the neurochemistry behind love and sex?What does it mean that the brain is teeming with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs?Why does music move us to tears?Where do breakthrough ideas come from? Johnson answers these and many more questions arising from the events of our everyday lives. You do not have to be a neuroscientist to wonder, for example, why do you smile? And why do you sometimes smile inappropriately, even if you don't want to? How do others read your inappropriate smile? How does such interplay occur neurochemically, and what, if anything, can you do about it? Fascinating and rewarding, Mind Wide Open speaks to brain buffs, self-obsessed neurotics, barstool psychologists, mystified parents, grumpy spouses, exasperated managers, and anyone who enjoys speculating and gossiping about the motivations and behaviors of other human beings. Steven Johnson shows us the transformative power of understanding brain science and offers new modes of introspection and tools for better parenting, better relationships, and better living.

    The commentary by the translator is based on the oral teachings of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche and Lama Tharchin Rinpoche.

     Early studies of the functions of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike-strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, lobotomies, horrendous accidents-and see how the victim coped. In many cases survival was miraculous, and observers could only marvel at the transformations that took place afterward, altering victims' personalities. An injury to one section can leave a person unable to recognize loved ones; some brain trauma can even make you a pathological gambler, pedophile, or liar. But a few scientists realized that these injuries were an opportunity for studying brain function at its extremes. With lucid explanations and incisive wit, Sam Kean explains the brain's secret passageways while recounting forgotten stories of common people whose struggles, resiliency, and deep humanity made modern neuroscience possible.

    An important feature of the book is the large number of articles on topics of mental life, in which well-known writers discuss subjects in which they have a particular expertise. Noam Chomsky writes on his own theory of language, Idries Shah on Sufism, John Bowlby on attachment theory, B.F. Skinner on behaviorism, Oliver Sacks on nothingness, A.J. Ayer on philosophical views of the relation between mind and body, and R.D. Laing on interpersonal experience. The editor, Richard Gregory, contributes entries on aesthetics, phrenology, physiognomy, and illusions of perception. The Companion includes entries on such everyday events as sleep, humor, forgetting, and hearing, as well as specialized topics such as bilingualism, jet-lag, military incompetence, computer chess, and animal magnetism. What can, and all too often does, go wrong with the mind is also covered--many forms of mental illness are explored, as well as mental handicap, brain damage, and neurological disorders. Perception and the ways in which our senses are often deceived are treated in full, as are elements of personal development and learning, and the puzzling world of parapsychology with its altered states of consciousness, out-of-body experiences, and extra-sensory perception. The workings of the nervous system are explained in a special tutorial article. The text is supplemented by brief definitions of specialist terms and by biographies of major figures who have contributed to our understanding of the mind--individuals as varied as Plato, Johannes Kepler, William James, Sigmund Freud, and Alan Turing. The entries are arranged alphabetically and, following the style of other recent Companions, are linked by a network of helpful cross-references. The 160 illustrations have been carefully chosen to amplify the text, while specialist bibliographies provide suggestions for further reading.

    And yet, influential as this phenomenon is in the worldview of so many, the belief in biblical prophecy remains a popular mystery, largely unstudied and little understood. When Time Shall Be No More offers for the first time an in-depth look at the subtle, pervasive ways in which prophecy belief shapes contemporary American thought and culture.Belief in prophecy dates back to antiquity, and there Paul Boyer begins, seeking out the origins of this particular brand of faith in early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writings, then tracing its development over time. Against this broad historical overview, the effect of prophecy belief on the events and themes of recent decades emerges in clear and striking detail. Nuclear war, the Soviet Union, Israel and the Middle East, the destiny of the United States, the rise of a computerized global economic order--Boyer shows how impressive feats of exegesis have incorporated all of these in the popular imagination in terms of the Bible's apocalyptic works. Reflecting finally on the tenacity of prophecy belief in our supposedly secular age, Boyer considers the direction such popular conviction might take--and the forms it might assume--in the post-Cold War era.The product of a four-year immersion in the literature and culture of prophecy belief, When Time Shall Be No More serves as a pathbreaking guide to this vast terra incognita of contemporary American popular thought--a thorough and thoroughly fascinating index to its sources, its implications, and its enduring appeal.

    Too often, overwhelmed by anatomical detail, students miss out on the functional beauty of the nervous system and its relevance to clinical practice.

    Revealing that AD is not one condition, as it is currently treated, but three, The End of Alzheimer's outlines 36 metabolic factors (micronutrients, hormone levels, sleep) that can trigger "downsizing" in the brain. The protocol shows us how to rebalance these factors using lifestyle modifications like taking B12, eliminating gluten, or improving oral hygiene.The results are impressive. Of the first ten patients on the protocol, nine displayed significant improvement with 3-6 months; since then the protocol has yielded similar results with hundreds more. Now, The End of Alzheimer's brings new hope to a broad audience of patients, caregivers, physicians, and treatment centers with a fascinating look inside the science and a complete step-by-step plan that fundamentally changes how we treat and even think about AD.

    But don't almost all of us, at some time or another, engage in magical thinking? Seventy percent of Americans believe in angels; 13 percent of British scientists "touch wood"; 40 percent of Americans believe that astrology is scientific. And that is only the beginning.In Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Lewis Wolpert tackles one of the most important causes on the horizon of public debate: the nature of belief. Looking at belief's psychological basis and its possible evolutionary origins in physical cause and effect, Wolpert expertly investigates what science can tell us about those concepts we are so sure of, covering everything from everyday beliefs that give coherence to our experiences, to religious beliefs, to paranormal beliefs for which there is no evidence.

    In fact, much of what makes our brains "happy" leads to errors, biases, and distortions, which make getting out of our own way extremely difficult. Author David DiSalvo presents evidence from evolutionary and social psychology, cognitive science, neurology, and even marketing and economics. And he interviews many of the top thinkers in psychology and neuroscience today. From this research-based platform, DiSalvo draws out insights that we can use to identify our brains’ foibles and turn our awareness into edifying action. Ultimately, he argues, the research does not serve up ready-made answers, but provides us with actionable clues for overcoming the plight of our advanced brains and, consequently, living more fulfilled lives.

    William Langewiesche investigates the burgeoning global threat of nuclear weapons production, presenting the story of the inexorable drift of nuclear weapons technology from the hands of the rich into the hands of the poor.

    However, as the authors of this accessible guide demonstrate, there are at least some things we do understand about the brain, things which may lead us to think quite differently about the way we view ourselves and workings of our minds. Starting off with a brief tour of the history of neuroscience, from Aristotle's view that the function of the brain was to cool the heart to the ancient practice of drilling a hole in the skull to relieve headaches, the book covers all of the key areas - including the anatomy and development of the brain, the workings of the sensory and nervous systems, the function of sleep and the capacity for language - in a clear and comprehensible manner. The authors also consider the roots - and possible treatments - of some of the most common psychological disorders, and examine the way in which science may help us to find answers to philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness and the identity of the self. to be able to extend life well beyond the standard three score years and ten, this lively and entertaining introduction assumes no previous scientific knowledge and will be suitable for readers of all backgrounds.

    Learn about the religious right’s goal to Christianize America by using the Declaration of Independence and arguing that this document proves that the United States was founded on Biblical law. Understand everything from the argument to the documentation that Dershowitz uses to disprove this historical distortion.