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New Theory for Tucson Tragedy: Blame the Atheists

…k forward to seeing the Christian media blaming the atheists in tomorrow’s news cycle. Details of Loughner’s religious beliefs are sketchy, but that isn’t going to keep them from defending the argument that he is an atheist by pointing to a supposed shrine that was found in his backyard, which consisted of a skull, as well as the fact that two of Loughner’s favorite books listed in his YouTube account are Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. (A…

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“I’d Be Stupid Not To Go Packing Now.”

…eferring to the news about the cop beat down of Duanna Johnson, an African American transwoman, in a Memphis booking room that was captured on a surveillance video. “I’d be stupid not to go packing now.” Williams lives in Oakland, just outside of San Francisco, and he’s going to check out the San Francisco chapter of Pink Pistols. As a national organization that encourages lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender to arm themselves to prevent hate cr…

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The Theodicy of George Carlin

…Catholic insults his whole life. “I used to be Irish Catholic and now I’m American. You know, you grow.” The tug between sin and salvation producing obvious entendre: “They were always pushing for pain and you were always pulling for pleasure.” Later books and HBO specials toyed with the faux sacrilege of a celebrity Jesus. “So, not all of the New Testament is true,” encouraged a reporter to Carlin’s Christ. “Nah,” he replied, “Some of that gospe…

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Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

…onstitution.” Based on the “explanatory memorandum” document identifying a number of American Muslim organizations as allies in its author’s aspirations, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial publicly labeled over 200 American Muslim organizations “unindicted co-conspirators,” a highly controversial move derided at the time by legal experts as contrary to Justice Department policy and in violation of the groups’ constitutional rights. Even…

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Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

…ntion of 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…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Truckin’ as a New American Pilgrimage

…de (aka “Dudeism”), a religion based on the Coen Brothers’ film The Big Lebowski and Oprah Winfrey is arguably the most important national spiritual leader. That is why the Grateful Dead is not just a band, but also a new American religious community. And “Truckin’” is not just a song, but also sacred text extolling the value and virtue of a new American pilgrimage, a journey that is at once physical, spiritual, and musical….

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Tribal Trouble: The Changing Nature of American Jews’ Relationship to Israel and the Question of Jewish Unity

…reements about matters concerning Israel. We can point to the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism; the non-statist American Zionists, such as rabbis Abba Hillel Silver and Stephen Wise (who only agreed to join Ben-Gurion’s statist project after the Biltmore Conference in May, 1942); and the anti-occupation group Breira that emerged after the Yom Kippur War in 1973; among many others. The new heresy The identification of Zionism with Jewishne…

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Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

…rine Band playing some of the same “airs” it played for Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Compared to royal coronations, American inaugurations are remarkably simple affairs. But our ceremonies retain their own majesty and are capable of projecting a strong sense that something sacred is happening. Our inaugurations have always reflected a mashup of civil religion—invocations of our secular sacred texts, appeals to mystic chords of national memory—and bit…

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‘We’re all in this together’: The Perils of Kumbaya Rhetoric

…, 70% of the dead in Louisiana have been African American; in Michigan the numbers are 14% and 40% respectively, etc). The crisis has already condemned low-income families to a shocking level of food insecurity, with one-fifth of American kids now at risk of going to bed hungry each night. Many of those forced to work—especially women of color—will sicken and die in a too-rapid “reopening” aimed at saving businesses. The rapidly widening divide be…

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The Intellectual Source Code For National Conservatism Can Be Found at This Niche Catholic Publication

…unding the National Conservative movement is not without precedent. Between 1800 and 1950, Europe endured what amounted to a second Catholic Counter-Reformation. In the latter portion of the 19th century, predominantly Catholic countries in Europe—which of course European nations have largely been since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia—experienced an upsurge of royalist and irredentist passions to which the Catholic Church often attached itself (for e…

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