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What Makes a Human Bomb Tick?

…it is not limited to religiopolitical violence. Lankford cites a number of American suicide terrorists that exhibited “classic suicidal traits.” Like Joseph Stack, a divorced software engineer with tax problems. In 2010, Stack crashed his single-engine plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, killing himself and an IRS manager; “There isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken [with me],” Stack wrote in the suicide no…

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Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

…houris, dark-eyed women. We all know that Mohammad Atta, who flew American Airlines flight 11 into the Twin Towers on 9/11, was inspired by this promise. But among progressives, the sex promised to the righteous in the Qur’an isn’t sex as we know it, but something mysterious and sublime for which sex is a poetic stand-in. Second, what happens to our bodies in heaven? This is my favorite part of the heaven conversation. For if you believe in heaven…

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Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

…“Hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jewish men delayed takeoff of a transatlantic flight by refusing to sit next to women, and then caused chaos once it was airborne [by standing in the aisles for the entire flight and refusing to occupy their seats].” Obviously a congested plane aisle isn’t the end of the world (although one can imagine it might be a safety issue in some situations), and the news reports have treated it as a kind of amusing oddity. But…

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More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

…artners in Israel,” notes the Times. “Civil marriage does not exist in the country, where the solemnization of marriage is entirely controlled by the state rabbinate, and homosexual unions are not in themselves recognized.” Vietnam: Couple marries on airplane flight A Vietnamese lesbian couple celebrated a Valentine’s Day wedding on a Vietjet flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok. Pink News notes, “Same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in…

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Republican Scandals Drag Secretive ‘Family’ Into the Big Time

…ng an imperial vision of American power that imposes its hybrid-version of American democracy/American gods around the world through support of dictators considered “men of God” (Haiti’s Papa Doc Duvalier, for whom Family members arranged congressional support, Efrain Rios Montt, the Guatemalan killer championed by Pat Robertson, etc.). That, sadly, is the link between the killer bunny and its ostensible victim, fundamentalism and the establishmen…

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Healed of the Sin of Religion: At Church with Sara Miles

…u’re desiring? Part of you might be desiring rules, and a schematic way to manage things. But part of you is desiring more God, has glimpsed more, had an experience of more that it’s trying to recreate. And that’s the job of people who run churches—to try to listen to that desire, and feed it. Every Friday you give away free groceries to anyone who comes—no requirements. You talk about the resistance to simply giving food away. Well, we feed every…

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The Traitor Chaplain Who Gave Government Prayer to America — A 4th of July Corrective

…r even suppressed. Duché betrayed American independence. When we hear these unconstitutional legislative prayers before government bodies all over this country we should remember their legacy is one of treason and betrayal. They are, at heart, un-American. Happy Fourth of July, America. This article is adapted from The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American which examines and debunks the historical disinformation that forms the ba…

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Oh Say, Can You See?:  9/11 Flag Displays and the Flag’s Symbolic Power

…’s “supreme being” and another’s “Queen,” even. As Marc Leepson’s Flag: An American Biography tells the story, the American flag, while approved in 1777 largely for the protection of American ships at sea, was not widely displayed by civilians until the Civil War. Once the flag was lowered over Fort Sumter, flags rose over houses and wagons and even hats. The next major watershed in civilian relations to flags was 9/11. Gardella writes that “Accor…

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Palin’s Israel Trip

…r her Israel trip, as it has done for other presidential hopefuls, instead booking it through a Christian tour agency. He thinks, perhaps, that Palin is miffed that he and other RJC board members have been critical of her, but that she’s unwise to rebuff them because they could be so helpful to her. But this is characteristically Palin behavior — with or without the criticism. She is, for example, the only GOP aspirant who has never spoken at the…

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