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Muslim Beard Decision was a Boost for “Religious Liberty” Advocates

…determining whether or not a regulation is actually a burden on someone’s free exercise rights. And because of the way the doctrine works, it’s harder for the government to satisfy the rest of the test once the burden has been established. Part of that low bar is due to the fact that the opinion continues the slippage between the concepts of sincere religious belief and substantial burden that were evident in Hobby Lobby as well. The Court notes…

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Liberals Enabled Bishops in Contraception Battle

…th states held that there was no violation of the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. That’s because the law doesn’t “substantially burden” anyone’s religious practice and is one of general applicability that was not targeted at infringing a particular religious practice.  To permit religious beliefs to “excuse compliance with otherwise valid laws regulating matters the state is free to regulate,” would, the California Supreme Cour…

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You Are More Than Your Brain: A Revolutionary Theory of Consciousness

…re’s no concrete way of determining what we experience is not a dream, because the objective methods we use to make such determinations (like pinching ourselves) might also be a dream. Descartes then looked beyond the senses to justify the world; to understand what we think and feel and see from a detached perspective. He concluded we are a reflection of some kind of immaterial “thinking thing” that somehow yields consciousness. For Crick and othe…

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Pope Denounces Gender Colonization; Indonesian Court Considers Islamist Request To Criminalize Homosexuality; Egypt’s Grand Mufti Says No One Has Right to Harm Homosexuals; Global LGBT Recap

…ave just one cause to fight, over my sexual and personal identity. But because I’m living under the occupation, because I’m living in Israel, I need to talk about two things: the fight of being proud saying that I’m Palestinian without judgment, without racism or without people thinking that I’m going to kill them. The second thing is the fight over my sexual identity in front of my community. I’m not sure that I’m going to see it in our generatio…

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No “Cancel Culture” on the Right: How Conservative Christians Protect the Powerful

…stles, respectively. Can “cancel culture” be illegitimately weaponized and used to harm less powerful people? Sure. I’m a freelance writer and a trans woman with no trust fund to my name, and this is something I unfortunately know from personal experience. But it’s a leap to conclude from the inappropriate weaponization of “cancel culture” that all opinions deserve access to all platforms. Nor is this a reason to stick our heads in the sand, ostri…

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Searching for Moral High Ground While Houston Drowns: A Perspective on the Lakewood Church Controversy

…istianity function so closely with some of the core American ideals around free-market capitalism, wealth and consumerism. Prosperity gospel, for instance, only makes logical sense in a system of free-market capitalism. Those core American ideals have come under assault in very public ways when measured against the yardstick of liberation theology and faith-based social justice initiatives. By Tuesday afternoon, August 29, news sources were report…

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Republican Lauren Boebert Jokes About AR-15s and Jesus — And Yes, She’s a ‘Real’ Christian

…ntly quoting the New Testament and rhapsodizing about how Christians “love freedom so much… because it’s ingrained in our being as new creations in Christ.” She goes on, “We came to Jesus, because we were bound, we were not free. But Jesus paid the ultimate price to set us free for all of eternity.” No, there’s simply no tenable case to be made that Boebert is not a “real” Christian. She is very much a Christian. She is also a terrible person. And…

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Well, the Harris-Trump Debate Happened — Now Enjoy Your Freedom and Choose Wisely

…n’s bodily autonomy was emphasized, but as the saying goes “none of us are free until all of us are free.” It begs the question as to which women’s rights matter when US imperialism is responsible for dropping bombs on countries where women are using tent cloth as menstrual products because they’re displaced and don’t have access to what should be basic hygiene products or basic anesthetic during childbirth. There was little talk about the details…

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The Double Blessing: Obama, the Bible, and Outreach to Muslims

…God also told Hagar that her son, Ishmael, would be blessed. He would be a free man, and he, too, would be the founder of a great nation. How can both things be true? How can both sons be the recipient of “the blessing”? Welcome to the world of the Bible. The text is clear: both sons inherit God’s legacy through Abraham. It is not an exclusive or single inheritance. Why then does God tell Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away from the campsite? B…

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American Infidel: Robert Ingersoll Was the “Great Agnostic” of the (Last) Gilded Age

…ttacks on “superstition” and religious flummery were tolerated in part because he was so good-humored and generous to friends and enemies alike—and also because his renown for matchless oratory in political life and in courtrooms gave him a degree of protective cover. When he died, in 1899, numerous obituaries and editorials deplored how he had used his great gifts to mock religion, some even noting that he could have been elected to high office—p…

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