Religion Dispatches
…We, the scholars. You, the voters. We believe him against the evidence because it feels better to believe that his life—his survival, bound and tied, long ago—is a testimony to Jesus’ mercy. We feel better believing that nobody would ever, or could ever, lie about loving God, or lie about loving Christ. And despite our own schismatic compulsions (in daily life, in sectarian divide), we like to believe that all denominations look the same in the da…
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…lation theory Mystwood is playing with—he is the universe, the universe is code, his code is part of the important bit, it’s all a simulation, and he’s ready to play. And, importantly, the rest of us might not matter. The language of programming in A Glitch in the Matrix is compelling and difficult. On the one hand, it is literal computer programming. On the other, intentional or not, the movie invokes the language of “deprogramming” that was comm…
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…lation of the European Convention on Human Rights, saying the law had been used to violate freedom of expression. The ruling was rejected by the Russian government; BuzzFeed’s Lester Feder notes that “Russia has repeatedly thumbed its nose at the ECHR’s authority in recent years, including adopting legislation in 2015 allowing for ECHR rulings to be ignored when they contradict the Russian Constitution.” More from Reuters: Pro-Kremlin politicians…
Read More…ocacy organizations and to target political opponents of President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni critics worry that the bill will not generate the international opposition that the Anti-Homosexuality Act did even though it is designed to achieve many of the same goals. The Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers raised the question at a State Department briefing this week; spokesperson Mark Toner said, “Certainly we’d be concerned about any proposed legisla…
Read More…. But who is to decide what constitutes a “vice against nature”? The Portuguese legislators had been too coy to mention gay sex explicitly, and so a meaningless clause entered the statute books, which no court could act upon. This year, the Penal Code was rewritten. The new Penal Code sweeps away a great deal of the musty colonial legacy, including the mention of “vices against nature”. Now not even the most contorted of arguments could claim that…
Read More…that works with LGBT youth. The camp organization refused the booking because it said WayOut promotes homosexual activity, which counters its understanding of the Bible. The appeals court upheld a 2010 finding of discrimination from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. According to Australia’s ABC, “The Court of Appeals has found there was no legal error in the tribunal’s decision and exemptions to preserve religious freedoms to not…
Read More…e original ruling by the judge stated that satire in its own right did not promote enmity between groups. In fact, satire of religious actions and beliefs right is a long tradition in India. The 11th century Kashmiri Sanskrit poet Kshemendra, in works such as Samaya Matrika, Kalavilasa, and Narmamala, satirizes brahminical and Buddhist norms with rapier wit. (Kshemendra, by the way, also wrote serious devotional and poetic works.) My colleagues in…
Read More…ls can’t exist at Patrick Henry College because the students sign an honor code,” Farris claimed. “[Homosexuals] could not sign our honor code,” Farris said, adding that he considers the actions of gay men and women “sinful.” “Part of the honor code is to be sexually pure,” he added. Baratko speaks to a couple of the bloggers, who say they were inspired by other blogs at conservative Christian colleges like Bob Jones University (BJUnity), and he a…
Read More…onism is never specifically mentioned in the LSEA. Instead, LSEA relies on code language to attack the teaching of evolution and other subjects that Christian fundamentalists hate because it contradicts their narrow religious worldview – reality be damned. The language that was inserted into the LSEA, which the Livingston school district properly understood to mean it could teach creationism, says that the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and S…
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…California comprises some 150 ministries and organizations. It seeks to “cause reformation in the church” and “release freedom into the spheres of society… to bring Heaven to earth.” This echoes the 7 Mountain Mandate and would be the fulfillment of the Dominion mandate. *Aglow International, headquartered in Washington State, is advised by such leading apostles as Ché Ahn, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, and James Goll. Founded in 1967, early in the…
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