Search Results for:

bbc news world cleantalkorg2.ru BBC News World news am World News The New York Times bbc news World News The New York Times Finance

Unreasonable Doubt: Vincent Bugliosi Defends Agnosticism

By Eric Reitan

…ace of that uncertainty. But, despite his promise to contribute something truly new to the God debates, Bugliosi treats agnosticism as nothing more than the recognition that when it comes to God’s existence, we just don’t know. One hardly needs a book to demonstrate that no one has a knock-down argument for—or against—God’s existence. In reflecting on the ultimate nature of reality we’re dealing with mysteries that transcend our grasp. Or as theo…

How ‘Positivity’ Can Lead to Conspiratorial Thinking

By Susannah Crockford

…outgoing administration. Yet it goes deeper than this. Trump attended the New York church of Norman Vincent Peale in his youth. Peale took the positive affirmations of New Thought and turned them into religious principles and economic maxims. It also goes further than Christianity, connecting to new age thinking found in works expounding the Law of Attraction, such as Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, now in its tenth edition. The Law of Attraction stat…

The ‘Health Freedom Movement’ Enters the Covid Era by Disseminating Medical Disinformation

By Susannah Crockford

…nvoked in diverse controversies including access to abortion, life-ending drugs, unapproved cancer treatments, and medical marijuana. The crux of the issue for many years has been access to treatments beyond government-regulated and approved medicines. Advocates worked to get vitamins and supplements exempted from FDA regulations regarding safety and efficacy. Libertarian Party leader Ron Paul introduced the Health Freedom Act in Congress in 2005…

New Book Details Harms of Evangelical ‘Purity’ Movement and the Obstacle to Change

By Elizabeth Shively

…ropriate to represent the pious mother. She turned the role down. Klein, a New York-based writer and sexuality educator, shares this memory and other striking stories of her experience growing up in the purity movement in Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free (Touchstone, 2018). She combines memoir with survivor interviews and research on shame, sexuality, and religion to effectively arg…

Swiss Priest Sacked for Blessing Lesbian Couple; Mormon Equality Advocate Excommunicated; Pope-Backed Anti-Gay Referendum Fails; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…piligrims while they are in Rome. The pilgrimage will be chronicled on the New Ways Ministry’s blog. Pope Francis made news this week by calling couples who choose not to have children “selfish.” Mormon Church: Pro-LGBT Advocate Excommunicated John Dehlin, a supporter of marriage equality and the host of the “Mormon Stories” podcast was excommunicated following a disciplinary hearing on Sunday. The conflict between Dehlin and church leadership has…

Amid Uncertainty, Eight Things We Know for Sure About the Boston Bombings

By Ivan Strenski

…cho-“misfit” thesis. These young, under-employed Chechen immigrants never truly felt like “real Americans.” Like the Columbine shooters, one cable news commentator argued Friday morning amid the city lockdown, they seemed like normal young men on the outside, but on the inside, they were volcanoes of psychological instability, seething with the indignities they have suffered from society. Same Old Double-bind We can be confident that commentators…

Whose House? Their House: Just Who Was Held Accountable for the 1/6 Insurrection is Telling

By Susannah Crockford

…t Committee investigating the attacks, he was contacted by someone in the Trump White House during Trump’s speech on Jan 6 who told him to lead a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol building. He has been subpoenaed by the committee, and he now claims that he was trying to stop the riot. Like Jones, Roger Stone was also part of the ‘Stop the Steal’ effort. Although he claims he had no advance knowledge of the attack, he spoke at the Jan 5 rally a…

How to Talk to a Trump Evangelical at Christmas

By Stephen Mucher

…and exaggeration, ensures you won’t get far pinning down “the real Donald Trump” at post-truth holiday gatherings. 4. Don’t discuss Trump voters. Some readers will object that I put too many evangelicals in the same basket of deplorables. If so, they have a valid point. Voters cast ballots for a wide variety of reasons, including frustrations about economic fairness and national belonging that deserve compassion. You should concede this point too…

Brazilian Evangelicals Launch ‘Sin-Free’ (Read: Gay-Free) Version of Facebook

By Peter Montgomery

…ountry. From the Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers: The Standard, a Kenyan newspaper, reported that Ruto made the comments during a speech at a Nairobi church in which he dismissed last month’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples throughout the United States. “The other day you heard that in America the court has ruled about homosexuality, but in this country we will defend what is right and what our faith s…

Citizen Speech in an Age of Data: Or, Why I’m Transcribing My Tweets Into Cuneiform

By Andrew Aghapour

…stimate the shape of tomorrow. Central to Åzone is the role of “Hot Tips”— news articles that must be shared or cited with any trade. This turns users into invested news readers. When I read of a scientific discovery about drought resistant plants, I shared this tip and purchased a share of Post-Scarcity Farming. If your Hot Tip is cited by others when they make a trade, you receive dividends. This incentivizes a unique form of social media partic…