From Modern Age, a symposium on Remi Brague’s The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea (and part 2 and part 3 and part 4). A review of Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action by Philip Clayton. More and more and more and more on The Case for God by Karen Armstrong. More and more and more and more and more and more on The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. You don’t need religion to feel guilty about harming people; natural selection built the conscience, hence guilt, into our brains. A review of Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays by Jurgen Habermas. A review of God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition by Alasdair Macintyre. A review of American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile by Richard John Neuhaus. Here's today's lesson is on how to turn Catholics into non-Catholics. A review of In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming a Fanatic by Peter Berger and The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark. A review of Atheism in Christianity by Ernest Bloch. Was Marx right to characterise faith in the way he did? Sigmund Freud is despised today, but many would accept his views on religion. Glad to be godless: Reflections on a summer camp for children of atheists.

From Reviews in History, a review of The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus by David Abulafia. Fernando Zanella (UARU) and Christopher Westley (JSU): The Western Expansion as a Common Pool Problem: The Contrasting Histories of the Brazilian and North American Pioneers. More and more on Fordlandia by Greg Grandin. From The Latin American Review of Books, a review of Seaway to the Future: American Social Visions and the Construction of the Panama Canal by Alexander Missal; a review of Translating Empire: Jose Marti, Migrant Latino Subjects, and American Modernities by Laura Lomas; a review of That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution by Lars Schoultz (and an interview); and a review of Chicle: The Chewing Gum of the Americas, from the Ancient Maya to William Wrigley by Jennifer P. Mathews and Gillian P. Schultz (and more and an interview). From Sociolinguistic Studies, a review of Politeness in Mexico and the United States: A Contrastive Study of the Realization and Perception of Refusals by J. Cesar Felix-Brasdefer. The Inter-American system of human rights has exceeded its founders' expectations, but can it evolve to address new challenges facing the Americas?

From New Scientist, an article on building a crash-proof internet; and an interview with Tim Berners-Lee: "We no longer fully understand the web". A study of how baby names spread in the US suggests the Web isn't so world wide after all (and more). A review of The Myth of Digital Democracy by Matthew Hindman (and more). From Newsweek, will Facebook still be around in five years? Lee Gomes on why Google won't last forever: The company's myriad Web services likely will be usurped over time. A look at how email patterns can predict impending doom (and more). On philosophy and new media: Luciano Floridi prepares for cyberwar. The 0s and 1s of computer warfare: Excessive secrecy may have made our cyberspace insecure in the first place. Douglas Rushkoff on how an army of hackers is using porn to break into your bank account. From Wired, a look at the future of cyber security: What are the rules of engagement? (and more). Can Twitter and Facebook be both social and secure? Defamation 2.0: Social media has made it easier for people to publish their views — but many users don't realise they are subject to the same laws as commercial publishers. Why online realities need regulation: Conflicts on environments like Second Life can open up new legal questions.

A new issue of Open Letters Monthly is out. General knowledge, from capital cities to key dates, has long been a marker of an educated mind — but what happens when facts can be Googled? Bright Lights, Big Internet: The Internet courses with all the raw ambition and creative energy that the hard times seem to have drained from New York. Ian Shapira on how Gawker ripped off his newspaper story. Jerome Weeks went from literary scholarship to Grub Street — then on to multimedia broadcasting; Scott McLemee catches up. Why do we believe in God?: A look at the connection between God and Beavis and Butt-head. Doubt: The professor's problems started when the NBC camera crew arrived on campus and accused him of genocide. Fear of a foreign president: Jesse Walker on making sense of the birther conspiracy theorists. Daniel Gross on how government programs are saving insurance companies from disaster. The year 1969 was crammed with events that have lived on as symbolic battlegrounds in the culture wars that have dominated our country’s politics since then. Timothy Garton Ash has just been taken to task by John Gray for distancing himself from the term "Enlightenment fundamentalism"; Thierry Chervel is baffled by Gray's twisted pessimism.