Search for "Delta Airlines 1800-299-7264 Official Site Customer Service"

No Room for Non-Theists at Boston Interfaith Service

By Becky Garrison

…d would have been more than content with simply an invitation to sit in an official capacity or have the non-theistic community mentioned, as we have been recognized in other instances by Obama.” According to Lauren Anderson Youngblood, Communications Manager for the SCA, they had been working since Tuesday to make sure that the non-theist community was a part of the service. “We were consistently given the run-around, relayed to other people, to…

Rev. Smith Goes to Washington

By Frederick Clarkson

…this new way and see if I might have a bigger impact. On your campaign Web site you state: The county runs human service and health care programs, provides support for public education and helps secure the public safety of the community. These are the issues I have worked on my entire adult life. And I’ve spent that last 25 years building powerful partnerships with nonprofits, religious organizations, businesses, and local government to address th…

Scientology: All-American or Aging Hoax?

By Gordon Haber

…hero. (These exaggerations, among others, would be incorporated into his “official” church biography.) Hubbard washed up in Pasadena after the war, where he dabbled in the occult. (According to Reitman, he also gabbed about starting a religion.) By the end of the ’40s, Hubbard was busy devising his “technology,” an alternative to psychoanalysis called “Dianetics.” Hubbard believed, or claimed to believe, that painful psychological scars, or “eng…

Hitchens Debates Conservative Evangelical: Nothing Happens

By Eric Reitan

…e salesperson focused on making the sale, regardless of what the potential customer might say. But what is the purpose of using such a script in a debate? It certainly isn’t for the debaters to learn from one another, to be challenged by new ideas so that they might rethink and refine their own convictions. In a very real sense, it’s about preventing such transformations. When debaters rely on a flexible script, a challenge never triggers the ques…

On Zion’s Mount

By Jared Farmer

…Mormon version of Williamsburg, Virginia), to Martin’s Cove, Wyoming, the site of a terrible handcart disaster in 1856 that has been converted into a faith-promoting heritage site. These and other hallowed places allow Utah Mormons to commemorate the “pioneer trek” to the Great Basin. The sacred narrative of getting to Utah is more important than Zion itself. The other church program is the worldwide creation of temples: those special-use limited…

Exclusive: Columnist Jonathan Merritt on his Sudden Departure From Religion News Service

By Kaya Oakes

…ite informing readers that he would no longer be writing for Religion News Service. As Sarah Jones recently reported in the New Republic, the 84-year-old wire service has been undergoing what many insiders see as a “spectacular implosion,” with editor Jerome Socolosky being fired in an email by publisher Tom Gallagher, and veteran reporters Kimberly Winston and Lauren Markoe resigning soon thereafter. In the letter, Merritt wrote that his departur…

Behind a Recent Stunt in Idaho Lies a Dangerous Theocratic Movement

By Chrissy Stroop

…Flee [sic.] the city NOW before the coming collapse!” Like the company website, however, the ad features no explicitly religious language. Indeed, Black Rifle Real Estate’s website informs potential buyers: “We are conservative Constitutional Libertarians who believe you can do anything you want on your land as long as you’re not hurting anyone. Don’t preach to me and I won’t preach to you. Let’s disagree but respect one another.” *** What gives?…

This Veterans Day, the Centennial of the Unknown Soldier, Skip the Platitudes and Talk to a Veteran

By Sara Jaye Hart

…an veterans who have served since 9/11, 40% of whom live with a certified, service-connected disability. “Thank you for your service”—America’s current public piety of choice—is insufficient to the task. It smacks of the obligatory and it leaves the person on the receiving end unknown, their service reified and past-tense. It’s time to leaven that ritual platitude with some authentic civic reflection, some historical and situational awareness, and…

The Theological Hijacking of Religious “Freedom”

By Timothy K. Snyder

…hy he supported the law, the minister responded: I, as a pastor, provide a service to my parishioners, but also to the community at large in officiating weddings. I receive compensation for these services as well as the state issues a marriage license after I officiate a wedding. So if I say no to a same-sex couple or there are issues of divorce in someone’s past that I will not do the wedding, some people are going to say that’s discrimination. B…

Are They Jewish Bones? Battle for Separation of Synagogue & State in Israel

By Shalom Goldman

…service has fueled resentment again the Ultra-Orthodox, this sharing of the conscription burden has done quite a bit to lessen that resentment. But the Barzilai affair again painted Haredim as anti-modern and reactionary. Those Haredi groups that have Web sites (and there are quite a few) are now calling on their rabbis to go against Litzman’s demands. Last week’s Jerusalem Post quotes the Web site Kikar Hashabat as saying that Litzman “aggresivel…