Religion Dispatches
…alled for an increase of a hundred thousand troops, which would double the number presently there. Yet it will still be half of the numbers of Russian troops that the former Soviet Union had deployed in Afghanistan—and it lost the war, dragging much of the Soviet economy down with it. A similarly dismal prognosis is in store for America’s continuing presence in Afghanistan. Moreover, the persistence of US troops in the region will continue to prov…
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…assigned to religious settings that are now increasingly unappealing to many. The issue may be one of culturally normed access at least as much as something psychologically nefarious in DIY spirituality or psychologically wholesome in conventional religious practice. The finding by King and colleagues that non-religious people did not show any greater vulnerability to mental disturbance than did the religious certainly suggests as much. So, too,…
Read More…igning for the criminalization of sexual minorities. In Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and many other African countries, Roman Catholic bishops and priests—with the support of their colleagues in the U.S. and at the Vatican—have been at the forefront of anti-LGBTI campaigns. Much blame has been placed on the shoulders of conservative American evangelicals, but U.S. Roman Catholic right-wing groups are equally guilty of exporting homophobia and…
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…has emerged as a familiar, if still creative, course of explorations for many Americans.” Montgomery sought to be creative in exactly this sort of spiritual exercise. Montgomery’s CYOA plots also seems to place him more firmly in the spiritual-but-not-religious rather than secular humanist camp. The point, for Montgomery, was that whatever might exist or not exist, dealing with it would be a matter of human choices. Or, as the second Humanist Mani…
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…de against Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s. The fact is, a significant number of Serbs, and even a large number of others from traditionally Orthodox backgrounds, continue to harbor a great deal of anger about Western intervention in the Kosovo War, which they see as a failure by the West to comprehend the historical role-reversal that’s taken place, including the persecution of Orthodox Christians by Albanians and other majority-Muslim ethnic…
Read More…wouldn’t threaten IVF or women with life-threatening pregnancies. But many Oklahomans, and more to the point many legislators, found such lack of clarity. Sen. Doug Cox, who criticized other members of the Public Health committee for their unwillingness to put their reassurances in writing, proposed a number of amendments. So did other legislators, such that by the time SB-1433 was scheduled to be voted on, it was groaning under the weight of a…
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…ion has done business or pursued potential deals.” There’s no evidence of any Syrian refugee committing a single act of terror in the United States, nor have there been any Iranian or Iraqi terrorists. Donald Trump’s list of banned nations is comprised of nothing more than the most vulnerable of Muslim countries, six of whom we’ve bombed or used in proxy wars. Like all bullies, he has found a soft and weak target to point his finger at. Some may t…
Read More…ike? Wild hyenas? The story that follows that headline would be just as funny if it didn’t signal the death knell for the religious right’s jihad against gays and lesbians. The article marvels that: According to the research, many same-sex couples are doing something straight couples have been doing for generations: getting older, having kids, and moving to the suburbs… These trends, both the spread of gay people living openly, and of gay populati…
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…er religion, or no religion?” while ARIS asks, “What is your religion, if any?” The Pew ask a different question: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in particular?” Pews researchers said they believe, “by explicitly offering respondents the chance to identify as atheist, agnosti…
Read More…what’s going on, but too few seem capable of saying it. We now have a fair number of political and civic leaders who are willing to say the word trauma and talk about the all-pervasive violence in this culture, not to mention the extent of mental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roo…
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