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Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

…the Institute “explores the frontiers of consciousness” to “build bridges between science and spirit,” and “research subtle energies.” Such baloney works wonders for middle-class self-absorption, and for Brown it serves as a useful device. By merging mind and matter, it allows Brown, through Katherine Solomon, to construct his own “missing link between modern science and ancient mysticism.” Part of the appeal of Brown’s books is the hint that the…

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Bishops Have No Religious Freedom Claim

…— free exercise of religion, that in order for a law to violate somebody’s free exercise, it has to impinge — substantially burden — their religious practice. And there is no substantial burden on Catholics’ religious practice by providing coverage — insurance coverage for contraception for other people. No one is making Catholics who do not want contraception to take it. No one is making the bishops take it, and so it’s not really a First Amendme…

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Book Burning and the Scapegoating of Islam

…serter, and denier. Therefore they faced a reminder that they too were not free of the sin that leads to the cross, and were in need of conversion. We Are All Betrayer, Deserter, Denier If Heim is right about this, then Jones and Phelps and their respective congregations are symbolically enacting the very thing that the passion stories central to Christianity were intended to repudiate. Where they are called to see the crucified Christ in those wh…

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New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists

…nvergence of these three themes. What is the cover? That is, for lack of a better term, a doodle. The séance records of the Cercle Harmonique were first kept by members, Henri Louis Rey and then François “Petit” Dubuclet. Petit handed the records onto his son-in-law René Grandjean, a French émigré and Spiritualist himself. Grandjean later donated the records to the special collections at the University of New Orleans. Grandjean was an amateur hist…

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RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?

…acknowledges climate change, for example, but he is a fierce proponent of free markets—and so ideologically rigid that it is difficult to imagine him getting behind the kinds of solutions that could address what needs to be done. Similarly, he is so fiercely antigay, and supports African political and religious leaders who advocate criminalization of homosexuality, that it is difficult to imagine that the HIV/AIDS work for which he receives such…

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‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

…hat is political, but respectful of the constitutional limits on religious freedom. It has correctly taken the position that public policies established to serve the common good require a clear and narrow definition of what is and what is not a religion. We do not just abandon the common good to unexamined claims that a public health or education provider is required by faith not to comply.  We are prepared to give an actual religion an almost fre…

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A Public Monument to Atheism—In Florida

…think they’ve found a clever way to bring the Commandments in through the back door by invoking a “free speech zone.” They have to understand what that means—free speech means free speech for everyone. Those courthouse plazas may get awfully crowded….

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Q Shaman’s New Age-Radical Right Blend Hints at the Blurring of Seemingly Disparate Categories

…und base underneath the town where alien experiments were undertaken, that free energy was possible if only the dark cabal hadn’t kept it from us to continue profiting from our labor, and that the banking system and wage labor were designed to keep us enslaved. Spirituality, they told me, was the route to freedom from these third dimensional machinations. The dark cabal wants to block spiritual evolution because it threatens their control. What’s…

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Vietnam, the Analogy

…ir of the 21st century. This connection has been brilliantly drawn in a recent book by Carol K. Winkler, In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post World War 2 Era. Drawing on extensive pre-9/11 research in a number of presidential libraries before they were closed to free public scrutiny, Winkler demonstrates how the language of “terror” has been a free-wheeling presidential signifier, easily exploited to justify any w…

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Arrests Made in Murders of Atheist Bloggers in Bangladesh, But Int’l Response to Violence Remains Anemic

…time warp and a time when vigilante violence was the means of suppressing free speech. To better understand these fears, it’s important to understand how Bangladesh has come to this point—and why many U.S. lawmakers continue to overlook its growing political and social turmoil. While Bangladesh eventually became its own country following a brief war between India and Pakistan, the remnants of those loyal to West Pakistan and opposed to a secular…

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