Search Results for:

United Airlines 800-299-7264 Flight Booking Reservations Number

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

…yes, by which I mean dishonest, delusional, disingenuous. But I kept those reservations at bay. I meditated at dawn for 90 minutes. I heeded the silence imposed during breakfast. I dutifully attended lectures on meditation and ayurvedic healing. And during yoga, I stretched and breathed in step with the yogi. The schedule gave me structure, and the structure let me silence all my religious qualms. “I’m here to get away,” I’d remind myself as I sat…

Read More

The Sacred and the Dead: Three Ways to American Beauty

…aves by way of hierarchy. The U.S. government splicing up Native land into reservations: “Plus the Great Chief in Washington promises your tribe $1 million.” The losers, criminals, and out-casts have learned to survive by imitating the powers that be. Duplicity, seduction, and addiction are the American reality. “Come on boys and gamble….I’ll take your money home.” In his lyrics, Hunter alerts us, however, to the danger. Like the ancient Greek cho…

Read More

How the Catholic Church Changed the Movies

…ad four sub-ratings, from acceptable for all to acceptable for adults with reservations), to “B” (morally objectionable in part), to “C” (condemned). This rating system, which was even more stringent than the Hays Code, “dominated film production during Hollywood’s golden era,” says Black. Movie producers lived in fear of obtaining a “condemned” rating from the Legion and adjusted their output accordingly. This month, Turner Classic Movies will ex…

Read More

By the Way: Fractured Religious Right Endorses McCain

…of discussion, and to no one’s surprise, the group decided to shelve their reservations about John McCain and endorse him in the fall campaign. “The alternative is so bad,” Phyllis Schlafly declared, “we must support John McCain.” The meeting was called by Mathew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University. Those in attendance included Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio, Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther Ki…

Read More

Pawlenty Stars in American Civil Religion: The Movie

…ression, blood, and violence beneath the freedom it proclaims. Pawlenty gives us Martin Luther King Jr. but not the church bombings, police dogs, and fire hoses. He gives us a quaint picture of horses and wagons but no images of American Indian removal, Indian wars, and shrinking reservations. He gives us the fall of the Berlin Wall but not McCarthyism.  It’s an ad for a book (a book that isn’t selling that well, apparently) and not a history less…

Read More

Web 8.0: The Return of the Human

…ees us as a unique species—not like any other animal. He has, for example, reservations about animal rights. Too much empathy for other creatures, he alleges, can lead to “empathy inflation.” If we want to protect the rights of non-humans, we might as well torture ourselves over whether or not we have the right to kill the harmful bacteria that’s crawling around on (and in) us. The borders of the human might be “variegated and fuzzy,” Lanier says,…

Read More

Evangelicals Struggle With the Role of Churches in Society

…rns for the welfare of society, many conservative evangelicals harbor deep reservations about supporting any programs that seem to deprioritize evangelism or run the risk of becoming too liberal or too secular. Socially engaged evangelicals counteract those concerns by insisting that faith-based activism can ideally be a vehicle for greater evangelism, not a distraction from it. But they often face strong ideological resistance and logistical cons…

Read More

Material(ist) Girl: A Philosopher Argues Against the Soul

…nto this long conversation about reincarnation and I presented him with my reservations about such a thing. Something is left, namely the body, and as that disintegrates small creatures make use of the bits and pieces and in that sense it’s reincarnated, but there isn’t anything else, some nonphysical thing that has feelings and thoughts and memories and personality that goes into the little critters or into a person. What gets transferred from pa…

Read More

Exodus “Ex-Gay” Ministry Closes Up Shop

…Secondly, even though the son is welcomed back, no questions asked, it’s understood that he’s not going to go out and do it again. The message to LGBT people is clear: you’re welcome and forgiven, but going back to that “lifestyle” is forbidden.  I hope my reservations are unfounded, because so much is at stake in this move. If time reveals this new organization to be nothing more than a shuffling of the Titanic’s deck chairs then it will only rei…

Read More

By the Way: Fractured Religious Right Endorses McCain

…of discussion, and to no one’s surprise, the group decided to shelve their reservations about John McCain and endorse him in the fall campaign. “The alternative is so bad,” Phyllis Schlafly declared, “we must support John McCain.” The meeting was called by Mathew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University. Those in attendance included Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio, Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther Ki…

Read More