Search for "Delta Airlines 800-299-7264 Official Site Number"

Attacks on Science: Predictions for the New Year

By Lauri Lebo

…culum. Because they are not subject to the same formal adoption process as official textbooks, supplemental materials used in local school districts could rely on some seriously dubious source matter. (Discovery Institute material, perhaps?) Expect the battles over this issue to take place in Texas and Louisiana. Because of financial constraints, the Texas Board of Education has decided to delay the adoption process of new science textbooks, which…

Crowdsourced Catholicism: New iPhone App Lets Users Forgive Sins

By Vincent Gonzalez

…urch, had only three confessions visible and had not yet offered his first official edict. For better and worse, as of my survey, it seemed the trolls had not yet discovered Penance. Still uncomplicated by tales of murder and rape, nor even confessions denigrating other Saints by name or mocking the application, Penance feels still untried, a community yet to crystalize around substantial moral challenges, a larval church which may or may not ever…

Was a Teacher Disciplined for Refusing to Apologize for Teaching Science?

By Lauri Lebo

…rotected by the First Amendment. Because Hensley was asked to speak in her official capacity as a public employee, her refusal to speak does not give rise to a claim for violation of her First Amendment rights.” A link to the full decision is here. The National Center for Science Education has more on the story here. It’s difficult to tell exactly what took place in the classroom and whether Hensley overstepped her boundaries in a discussion of re…

What’s Ahead in the World of Mormonism for 2011

By Joanna Brooks

…t would be a welcome reminder indeed. Years ago, a high-ranking LDS Church official was reported to have compared working with Elder Boyd K. Packer to trying to “stage manage a grizzly bear.” In October 2010, after Elder Packer delivered a highly controversial and bruising talk on LGBT issues at the Church’s global General Conference, grizzly bears indeed may have been stage managed. Packer’s talk was revised for publication and (in response to pr…

LDS Apostle Says Same-Sex Attraction Can be Overcome

By Joanna Brooks

…studies, there are those who focus on institutional discourses of religion—official church histories, theologies, and declarations—and there are those who study “lived religion,” the way the practice of religion feels to those who give their lives to it. Even as I listened to Elder Packer in the Conference Center and knew his address would be making headlines, what I most wanted to share with Religion Dispatches readers were the “lived religion” i…

The Unbearable Stupidness of Talking about the President’s Religion

By Daniel Schultz

…action from small pesky items like getting the effing economy back on track. In short, the dialogue should proceed as follows: Q.: Is the President really a Christian? I mean, does his really really for reals love him some Jesus? A.: Listen, pinhead: the official unemployment rate is almost 10%. The real rate is more like 17%. I don’t care if the President worships a goat. This seems utterly simple. It can also be deployed against the pretensions…

The Revival of the Pastors’ Policy Briefings

By Sarah Posner

…ut the evangelical vote for Huckabee, with a former Texas Republican Party official writing on his blog in 2007: Lane brought together some 250 Iowa pastors at a Rediscovering God in America event in Des Moines. Huckabee, a former pastor, spoke at that event; and many of the Iowa pastors are expected to turn out their members for Governor Huckabee at the August straw polls. Lane, who is emerging as a major political force within the evangelical co…

Double Helix: Science & Religion as Cultural Kindling; A Response to The New Republic

By Arri Eisen

…of a scientific way of knowing. Again, Coyne’s implication and really the official scientific position of many is that, therefore, spiritual experiences are at best not worth as much as scientific experiences and, at worst, not worth anything. There’s the counter-claim to those who say, “Science itself is a religion, so how can scientists badmouth religion?” Coyne argues, as many have before him, that science is not a religion. What counts as evi…

Campaigns of Omission

By Sarah Posner

…issues in the cash-strapped state. Sekulow tweeted after the results were official, “called 4 Bob McDonnell here in VA – huge victory for GOP, conservatives, and Regent alums everywhere (Regent in Gov mansion).” McDonnell, in other words, portrayed himself as a moderate while letting his opponent fight the culture war. He wasn’t about to reprise his 2003 position that engaging in anal or oral sex might disquality someone from being a judge; his 1…

Hitchens Debates Conservative Evangelical: Nothing Happens

By Eric Reitan

…ns that get the fans cheering, both sides can declare victory. There is no official scoreboard, and each can return to his respective constituencies at the end of the day and spin the contest as a win. Wilson can go back to his evangelical fan base and say, as he did in the Piper interview, “Hitchens has no argument… he just doesn’t like God.” He can point to the vagueness with which Hitchens responded when asked to provide, on his naturalistic as…