Derek Beres
Derek Beres is a Staff Writer for Freethink. Based in Portland, Oregon, he has served in senior editorial positions at a number of tech companies and has years of experience in health, science, and music writing. He is the co-host of the Conspirituality podcast and co-author of Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracies Became a Health Threat.
A few weeks ago, when I published an article on vegetarianism as a political tool, I received emails and comments from people in India contesting the opening graphs, which were […]
Yesterday on NPR, Jenna Chavez, a member of an evangelical church in El Paso, Texas, succinctly summed up the foundation for the argument against same-sex marriage: [Marriage has] been defined…for […]
There’s a popular myth in the American yoga community that Indian vegetarianism began as a spiritual response to humanity’s place in the cosmos. The concept of ahimsa, or non-violence, is […]
Observing the Roman Empire crumble from North Africa in the fifth century, St Augustine of Hippo decided that while waging war against fellow Christians was sinful, throwing up arms against […]
Arguably the most dangerous of the seven deadly sins, pride acts like the invisible center of the wheel of transgression in which the other six revolve. Inextricably entwined in cases […]
On February 20, a conservative Christian group, the National Center for Law & Policy (NCLP), filed a lawsuit against the Encinitas School Board for teaching yoga in public schools. The […]
One of the more ubiquitous statements that has emerged over the last decade, ‘Spiritual, Not Religious’ is a self-affirming antidote to the traditional trappings of religion, the archaic and inflexible […]
Our attitude toward the pathologizing may be more destructive than the pathologizing itself.—James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology Trauma affects all of us. Types of trauma—physical, emotional, violent, intrusive, social, or the […]
I’m pretty certain that the New York Mets won the ’86 World Series because I refused to put my feet on the ground. Perched on the edge of my bed, […]
I’ve noticed a pattern when speaking to friends about creationism: I say the word, and in response receive a squinted eye and disgruntled head shake, followed by, ‘But no one […]
Eben Alexander, author of the bestseller Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, is only the latest in a long line of historical figures who has argued for […]
Long before Allen Ginsberg used the phrase ‘first thought, best thought’ to describe spontaneous, intuitive writing that seemed to spring unaware from ‘somewhere else,’ Buddhists had developed this maxim as […]
Humans experience joy in a multitude of ways, yet the varied forms of suffering—death, divorce, separation—return to one root principle: loss. What drives the fear of loss is something far […]
Krishnamurti was faced with an unsolvable dilemma not unfamiliar to spiritual teachers. He often implored his audience to not take anything he says as truth, but to find it for […]
Over the last half-century we’ve emphasized physicality over philosophy. Yet a growing contingent of yogis has been asking questions such as: How can we take these ethical, philosophical and moral codes and apply them to our times?
When your hollow bullet causes a prairie dog to explode on impact, that’s called a tap. The real prize, however, is a double tap. That’s when your single bullet kills […]
While the desire to tax churches is not new, it seems as far from reality as possible at this moment. As has been commented, no atheist could possibly hope to […]
In general, I avoid free literature thrown my way on subways and street corners. Recently passing by a stack of cheaply printed books while leaving Samosa House in Culver City, […]
Security is perhaps the most well-known illusion human beings have contrived. From the cursory seduction of emotional stability to the wrathful manifestation of raging armies, the painful longing for complete […]