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Jonestown at 40: The Real Conspiracy Is More Disturbing Than the Theories

By Rebecca Moore

…re reported to have been injected with poison, but it’s impossible to determine how many. This leaves the problem of how many adults voluntarily drank the “Kool-Aid.” Suicide is, of course, called into question if they were surrounded by armed guards, though the guards themselves died at the end by ingesting poison. The presence of hypodermic needles at the site also argues against suicide. At the same time, how do we account for those residents w…

The Plot to Turn the Synod into a “Plot”

By Patricia Miller

…pe to solidify his preferred reading of church doctrine. The evidence for anything that might properly be called a “plot” is so thin that Douthat is forced to deploy signifiers of conspiracy and Machiavellian ill-intent to make his case. He knocks Francis for his “ostentatious humility,” (apparently he preferred Benedict’s flair for papal bling, including his red shoes or fur-lined, ermine-trimmed winter cape). He speaks of Francis’ “maneuvers” an…

Satanic or Silly: Does Yale Press Censorship of Cartoons Insult Muslims?

By Daniel Martin Varisco

…find the rationale troubling, as it assumes that Muslims extremists await any new pretext to spur violence and that “moderate” Muslims are at their mercy. Given the ongoing United States military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, drone bombings in Pakistan and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, there are far more relevant pretexts available than an Ivy League book that may not even warrant review in major newspapers. The peddlers of Islamophobi…

Data-Mining Denominations: Same-Sex Marriage Edition

By Daniel Schultz

…people are by intensity, measured with the simple hack of subtracting the number of people Strongly Opposed to same-sex marriage from the number Strongly In Favor. Not surprisingly, since the Unitarian-Universalists only had 6 percent opposed, their position on the chart hardly budged at all. Other groups traveled a little more. Mainline Baptists, for example, strongly disapprove just a little more than they strongly approve. Evangelical Baptists…

How Not To Defend Atheism

By Vlad Chituc

…llion atheists in the U.S., a full 26% of the country. The most charitable number I could find was from Gallup, putting the number of Americans in 2014 who say they don’t believe in God at 11%. To make things frustratingly worse, other atheists have been calling Silverman out for falsely inflating the number of atheists for more than four years. And last year, I specifically asked Silverman if he would stop reporting the stats on “nones” as being…

Religion Round-Up: What’s Going on in Religion Around the World

By Diane Winston

…ould be able to speak for themselves and there are usually more than two sides to every story. She is correct to remind us that we rarely hear the perspectives of women from the group. That said, any social arrangement that permits adults to have sexual relations with children is wrong, and I wish Bob Garfield had asked her what community members said about that….

How a Powerful ‘Ex-Gay’ Pastor is Chasing the Latino Vote

By Katherine Stewart

…most emotionally fraught chapters of Jim Domen’s life in a column for the New York Times. I did it not to invade his privacy but because by his own account those intimate details are part of what define him as the public figure that he is. Still, as I take in the glow of the late-afternoon California sun reflecting off the Home Depot across the parking lot, I’m on edge. Did I get him right? Will he be angry? Two months ago, he retweeted @realDona…

Trump’s Pathological Devotion to Border Walls Isn’t Political, It’s Theological

By Alana Massey

…. *** In what was then the comfort and home turf of his own Trump Tower in New York City, the 45-minute speech was a reliable cascade of derision aimed at President Obama and half-formed nonsense plans to Make America Great Again. It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned a border wall, but it was his most portentous delivery to date. “I will build a great wall—and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me—and I’ll build them very inexpensive…

A Rationalist’s Ghost Story

By Gary Jansen

…ous name in a cemetery somewhere. There’s something sad about that, the anonymity of the people who lived before us, but there’s something beautiful about it too, how life just keeps going. We can all sometimes forget about that. I know I have. I know I have taken people for granted, but I try to be a little more aware now of the life around me. Is there anything you had to leave out? Ann Beattie wrote a terrific line in one of my favorite short s…

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Overthink the New Pew Data’s Impact on Politics

By Sarah Posner

…Presbyterian Church in America, and “0ther evangelical denominations and many nondenominational congregations.” Sixty-two million Americans fall into this demographic, two million more than in 2007, according to the Pew Survey. The Pew report notes, though, that researchers sought to identify evangelicals still another way (other than denominationally). They asked, “Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian, or not?” Thi…