Religion Dispatches
…ill: they can only obey Allah. The jinn, like the human creatures, do have free will and can disobey. This is different from the version of this story in Genesis, where there was “war in heaven” and the war was against God. We don’t have a God in such compromising positions. In the Qur’anic story, Satan disobeys and still knows that God is one. Think about that. It was not disbelief in God’s oneness that was the problem. He (and it’s always a he s…
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…The state owns the land, but does not maintain it and people live here for free. There is no water, electricity or septic. Most of the people only come in the cooler winter months. But about 150 people, an incredibly hardy bunch, live here year round, braving temperatures that will climb to 130 degrees. It was 112 when I was there Saturday and Sunday. At the entrance to Slab City is Salvation Mountain, an adobe mountain covered in bright paint and…
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…ponents to heartily resist or embrace our influence and vice-versa. We are free to the extent that we live in a trustworthy world. The new birth of freedom will grow as we can come see most of our opponents as men and women who, like us, dare to die for the future benefit of all—and who, like us, will rely on patient persuasion, not disdainful coercion to accomplish the good they desire. We cannot say with any degree of confidence what motivates t…
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…rom NOM President Brian Brown’s description of the bus in the U.S. as the “free speech bus,” the National Front for the Family is calling their version the “freedom bus.” GayStarNews reports that in Guadalajara LGBT activists wrapped the bus in a rainbow flag: Jaime Cobián, a protestor, said ‘these right-wing groups want to remove the rights’ of the most vulnerable people. ‘Gay people are not what you fear,’ he said. ‘They are your sons, fathers,…
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…omatoes use their hands every day, work outside, get regular exercise, are free from the restraints of a cubicle, and even live in “tiny home” communities (formerly known as “trailer parks”). It may sound idyllic to the young, well-educated, and the restless masses of yesterday and today. But not many of us are seek employment alongside migrant laborers because of the near constant physical pain and discomfort, regular exposure to toxic chemicals,…
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…um Comedy is Not Pretty, Martin mockingly plays the role of a gadget-happy free-spender in search of the perfect sound system. “I bought a stereo. Wow—two speakers. Wild!” It was great for about a month, he says, until he heard the four-speaker “quad” system. “So I got rid of the stereo and got the quad. And this was the sound I was looking for. So I listened to it a couple of days and I said ‘Hey, this sounds like shit.’” He switches to the dodec…
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…is latest wonderful aphorism. If Medvedev gave his presidency the slogan: “Freedom is better than non-freedom”, then, thanks to Medvedev’s felicitous saying, Putin’s third term has a good chance of being known by a new aphorism: “Prison is better than stoning.” I would like you to think carefully about the following reflection by Montaigne from his Essays written in the 16th century. He wrote: “You are holding your opinions in too high a regard if…
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…secular and democratic Bangladesh, where people have secure life and enjoy freedom of speech, freedom to publish, and freedom to express.” Still—what has he and his family lost? And what is Bangladesh losing as a result of this unchecked mayhem? Who Will Remain? As the attacks illustrate a deep problem in Bangladesh, these two stories illustrate a deeper success: since February 2015, more than a dozen writers, publishers, and activists—and, in som…
Read More…United States Capitol with his band of fear-stoking propagandists. Gaffney is right. The Constitution is under attack. The panic that the Constitution is so weak that it would collapse under the weight of a few contracts providing for alternative dispute resolution, or wither from upholding the Free Exercise clause for Muslims or conducting criminal trials in accordance with it, has actually caused a mortal threat to the Constitution and the free…
Read More…a young woman she cajoled away from Planned Parenthood with a promise of a free pregnancy test. The buffer zone cases really aren’t about free speech, they are about the evolving nature of protest in the anti-choice movement. In this evolution, the protest (“the act of objecting or a gesture of disapproval“) has been portrayed as “compassion,” with words that can only accurately be described as meddling portrayed as “caring.” But it is still a fo…
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