Search Results for:

VIPREG2024 how to use 1xbet free bet promo code Austria

A Meeting of Minds… and Computers: What Are the Costs of Using Technology to Merge Humans with Machines?

…grand vision for humanity. In his view, there is a race to the Singularity between humans and AI, and he wants humans to get there first, thus becoming active participants in the post-Singularity world rather than useless bystanders as AI takes over. Speculative as these ideas may appear, the first steps down this path have already been taken. Hundreds of thousands of profoundly deaf people now hear through neural implants that use electrodes to t…

Read More

Church’s Lawyers Have SNAP in Their Sights

…ardless of the motives or possible outcomes, is on its face a violation of freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of privacy. In the Times piece, SNAP was characterized as a key target for the Church. We are pro-child, anti-abuse, anti-cover-up and pro-prevention. We have in our membership rabid atheists and daily Mass goers. We take no position on any organization, philosophy, denomination or spiritual beliefs, and we never will, b…

Read More

Bad Scholarship A Poor Solution to Anti-Trans Politics: A Response to the New York Times’ “Is God Transgender?”

…Israel’s conception of gender on the basis of this version of the text because no Israelite ever purposefully wrote this version of the text—it got here accidentally. Maintaining the assumption that there are no typos in the Bible is a fair starting point for rabbinic argument, but Sameth should use that assumption to make interpretations that allow Jewish communities to hold a more expansive views of gender instead of using it to reconstruct the…

Read More

Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data

…o get at “a coming out experience,” though the survey deliberately did not use that language in order to avoid possible confusion. Asked whether she thinks the phrase “coming out” belongs only to the LGBTQ community, Gill remarked, “I would vehemently disagree with that; I think it belongs to everybody. And I see a lot of similarities between being nonreligious and being LGBT.” She stressed that this does not mean that the stigma and discriminatio…

Read More

Hajj Journal: Using the Toilet at the Grand Mosque

…everyone also does this manual flush, because, well, I’ve used enough outhouses at amusement parks or natural sights in America with no water to be thankful for what I had. Then I needed to make wudu’ and headed for the nifty wudu’ stations. Unfortunately, these too were saturated with water. Never mind my description before of the drain for removing the waste water—it was there, alright, but like the toilet, I don’t know what made it impossible f…

Read More

A Biblical Perspective That Recognizes Black Women

…lain any unfamiliar terminology. I hope that readers will come away with a better understanding of the complexities of the use of the term “womanist” and womanist work. What alternative title would you give the book? I’m happy with the title suggested by my editor, since it describes the contents of the book. Not All Black Women would be a cute title to drive home the point that not all Black women identify as womanists, but it doesn’t capture the…

Read More

Profits Over Principles for Romney?

…bout promoting tobacco in countries which had no or few regulations on the promotion or use of tobacco products. In fact, the documents show that this was the clear objective of American tobacco companies who were facing declining sales at home due to increased government regulations and scrutiny. Romney has spoken of his personal disdain for tobacco, revealing that in his entire life he smoked only one cigarette—when he was a teenager. Growing up…

Read More

SCOTUS’s Incoherent ‘Masterpiece Cakeshop’ Decision

…to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others. It’s simply a factual statement followed by an anodyne opinion. I don’t think people should use their religion to hurt others, either. Does that make me a bigot? The broader point here is that Kennedy’s reasoning is simply incoherent. There is no way for government to remain “strictly neutral” when it comes to religious values. B…

Read More

Will SB 1146 End LGBT Discrimination in California’s Religious Schools?

…th-based institutions explicitly subject” to California non-discrimination codes. Of course, that’s because non-faith-based institutions are already subject to the state and federal anti-discrimination laws. “The targets of this bill are religious colleges and universities, but the true victims of this legislation would be the innocent students,” wrote California Assemblyman Matthew Harper early last month. Since the anti-discrimination requiremen…

Read More

Did the Pope Claim Gay Marriage as a Threat to Humanity or Didn’t He?

…eaucracy is arrogant, secretive, suspicious of outsiders, and given to the use of almost impenetrable jargon. Sometimes, as a journalist, you have to explain what they mean. But none of this explains, still less excuses, the claim that he had said gay marriage was a threat that undermined the future of humanity. He didn’t. Well, did he or didn’t he? Shouldn’t be that hard to check. Here’s what the Reuters story said: Pope Benedict said on Monday t…

Read More