Religion Dispatches
…ty, especially for atheists who are so often the object of vilification in American society. The surveys, for example, routinely show that Americans are less likely to vote for an atheist for president than an individual of any other social, religious, or ethnic group. This vilification has really shaped the aggressively defensive public posture some atheists seem to assume. But I read your work and find myself imagining what an atheist ethic of h…
Read More…upsurge. At the same time that anti-gay violence is growing in Africa, the number of African Christians, including Roman Catholics, continues to increase. Catholics now comprise twenty percent of the population of the entire continent, or 185 million people. It would, of course, be unfair to blame increasing anti-gay violence in Africa entirely, or even primarily, on the Roman Catholic Church, given the pivotal roles played in this crisis by some…
Read More…aception. So is the salient difference the size of the list? Is there some number of things-this-paper-can-be-used-for that puts the employer at a safe moral distance from the act, where previously they had been complicit? If so, what’s the number? How long does the list of possible uses have to be to assuage the employer’s conscience enough to let the employees use their compensation for things the employer finds morally repugnant? See, here’s th…
Read More…er Herbert Kohler—pushed through a greatly weakened contract for the small number of Local 833 members still employed in Wisconsin. I say all this to make the point that American business and its “business-friendly” sock puppets like Gov. Scott Walker will stop at nothing—nothing—to roll back worker rights and worker security. So it is simply wrong to view the current Wisconsin putsch with the eyes of “on the one hand… and on the other hand.” It’s…
Read More…gh participation rates are increasing among these types of churches, they represent a small percentage of all churches. Fulton explains that a lot of this increase is due to the debates over immigration reform; but even factoring that in, Hispanic churches are becoming more politically active. The number of congregations might be few, but they may also be larger communities, representing a substantial number of people. In any case, the trend will…
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…k is far from new to me or fellow researchers working on racial justice in American Buddhism. Rather it echoes some of the white Buddhist backlash to racial justice work. A number of white Buddhists* have adopted the language of “invasion” and “infection” in an attempt to discredit long overdue racial justice initiatives in their communities. Popular Zen teacher Brad Warner, for instance, has declared that racial justice work has nothing to do wit…
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…re so fantastic—brought the idea that the whole thing is static. I think a number of people picked up over the past three hundred years that space is empty, we move things around in space, and there are levers and pulleys and buttons. I think for a number of people, atheism is simply the rejection of somebody sitting on a cloud somewhere with a beard who might intervene from time to time. I think quantum physics, the little I know, it just intuiti…
Read More…logger Blabbeando reminds us that during Brewster’s nomination process, “a number of religious leaders the Dominican Republic criticized the nomination of an openly gay man for the diplomatic post. Leading the charge was Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez who called the then-nominee a ‘faggot’ on national television.” Last month the Cardinal urged church goers to show respect for the new ambassador, but some people aren’t willing to let g…
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…ation. That said, lack of religious affiliation is also common among Asian Americans: while 42 percent of Asian Americans identify as Christian, 26 percent report themselves as religiously unaffiliated, in a significant increase over the general population, and 73 percent of Asian Americans voted for Obama. Like any group of this size, the religiously unaffiliated aren’t monolithic. About a third self-identify as atheists, while the rest say they…
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…tion on the bill, I was greeted by a few orange-wearing folk. They were outnumbered by anti-abortion activists, wearing blue, and I felt a little intimidated—so much that I texted a friend for moral support. Once I had registered, I walked back through the main hall to a table set up for those opposed to the bill. A woman stationed there greeted me, “What is up with the blue people?” she asked. “It’s like we’re contagious. Have you noticed how the…
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