Search for "cheap airline tickets for 16 year olds phone number 1-800-299-7264"

The Pope in My Pocket; We Are All Dilettantes Now

By Michael A. Elliott

…or sell for under two dollars). And unlike the internet, the space of the iPhone feels not just private, but personal. Yes, the iPhone might be my means of connection with the world—it is, after all, a phone—but it is also my own little password-locked garden that I carry with me wherever I go. Moreover, I can remake the landscape with a few flicks of my fingers whenever I choose. As a result, the territory necessarily mixes the sacred and the pro…

Gay Marriage Supporters Rally People of Faith for Washington’s November Vote

By Nicole Neroulias

…seconds, with people not home or not interested. After an hour working the phones, Scott Holley, 33, cheerfully noted that he had become “unfazed by rejection” during his two-year Mormon mission in Chile. “There are people out there that are ready to hear your message. You just have to find them,” he said, of both experiences. “There are people who have been preparing to become accepting, and it’s now time to harvest.” In his own faith community,…

Hajj Journal: M & M

By Amina Wadud

…though this, the men would hover around the tent entries, send notes, make phone calls, actually get their phone cords recharged, and send food and drink through every possible opening in the tent. As far as I could tell, it was always the men hanging around our tent and not the women hanging around the men’s tent. Pretty funny if you think about it. They were like lost puppies without their women. Yet patriarchy would have us think they are the m…

Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…ion by joining other denominations or leaving Christianity altogether. The number of priests and nuns was at an all-time low even before the recent sexual scandals, and the number of self-identified Catholics world-wide keeps declining. Many of those who remain in the Church ignore standard doctrines and believe what they want. How many Catholics disobey Church rules? About as many as the angels dancing on a pinhead. Believers know that Jesus prom…

Why Don’t “Nones” Vote?

By Sarah Posner

…are traveling even more starkly in a non-theist direction: 32% of 18 to 29 year-olds are unaffiliated, and 42% of those describe themselves as atheist or agnostic. That’s over ten points higher than the 21% of 30- to 49-year-old “nones” who describe themselves that way, and more than twice the 15% of 50- to 64-year-old “nones” who do. These are national numbers, obviously, and there greater numbers of evangelicals and fewer “nones” in some states…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…not, then we might legitimately ask the question of how kids of 12, 14, or 16 years old have been allowed to work 16– or 18-hour days, seven days a week. But if it is a religion, as it is right now, then the Sea Organization is protected as a religious order, and what goes on within that order is not open to the same level of scrutiny. Courts are generally loath to take Scientology on because [the Church] has a messy legal history. They are noto…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…arriage, and of the 64 percent that oppose it only 21 percent are 18 to 29 year-olds. Perla notes response to the Orlando massacre: The North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (NAD) joined the chorus of supporters, offering a ray of hope to LGBT members in an otherwise desolate moment. The same day of the tragedy, the NAD issued a statement expressing heartbreak over “the loss of innocent lives.” Although the statement failed to name hom…

Covering Religion in The New Year: The Atheist Bus And More

By Diane Winston

…the atheist bus adverts, said: ‘You wait for ages for an atheist bus, then 800 come along at once. I hope they will brighten people’s days and make them smile on their way to work.’” So will it be a year of smiles for the faithless—or, perhaps, the faithful? A lot depends on the economy. Religion didn’t fare particularly well during the Great Depression. Despite the seeming need for alternative realities, church attendance didn’t swell in the 193…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…making. Not only have millions of the long-term unemployed started the New Year with no safety net, but many of those with full-time jobs earn less than the poverty level for a family of four (18 million people in 2012 or 17.5 percent of all full-time, year-round workers). It was not always like this. There was a time in our history when the poor and unemployed experienced a more compassionate government. During the Great Depression the federal go…

Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong

By Nancy Marie Brown

…bert of Aurillac, Pope Sylvester II. I was astonished. Nothing in my many years of reading about the Middle Ages had led me to suspect that the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day. Nor was his science just a sidelight. According to a chronicler who knew him, he rose from humble beginnings to the highest office in the Christian Church “on account of his scientific knowledge.” To my mind, scientific kno…