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$50 Billion Fundamentalist Free Fall

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…s the oldest one on the books, one enabled and exacerbated by a paper-money-and-credit system such as ours. It was, in the word of the day, a “Ponzi scheme”… You know how they go: initial investors receive large and remarkably consistent returns, thereby creating “buzz” (Madoff’s firm provided 8-9% on your money, every year, regardless of so-called market conditions). Later investors provide the cash payouts for these initial investors… and for ev…

Growing Up Cult: A Memoir of Life with Sri Chinmoy

By Brittany Shoot

…public attention—from weightlifting elephants and helicopters on specially-rigged contraptions, to convincing national monuments like the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls to be renamed in honor of the guru—his disciples felt that they were benefiting humanity by making the guru famous. How do you think people generally differentiate between religion and cult, and how do you feel your personal definition compares and contrasts with public perce…

‘Religious Freedom’ Rally Sets Stage for 1st Amendment Collision

By Sarah Posner

…rty hymnal, Hagen’s rhetoric, along with that of Sandra Nettina of the anti-choice group 40 Days for Life, was a textbook example of unscientific anti-contraception propaganda peddled by the Catholic Bishops and their supporters. Nettina claimed the number of abortions increase with greater access to contraceptives, a trope commonly used to assert that contraception fails and therefore does not decrease the number of unintended pregnancies. This c…

PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…ster by either parent, granddaughter, father’s or mother’s sister, daughter-in-law, brother’s wife, wife’s sister, stepdaughter, and his uncle’s wife. Here only first degree of affinity and second degree of consanguinity are forbidden . . .” John Calvin added first cousins to this list in 1546, which makes it very similar to today’s marriage laws. At the time, of course, it would have struck many as a significant break with tradition. 3) Were wido…

The Quixotic Task of Debunking David Barton

By Paul Harvey

…series of posts; how they kept a straight face in covering the virtual self-parody Barton performs with these words is beyond me). They constitute instead a private language that validates Barton’s own self-conception as a defender of Truth against those who, according to him, do not believe in any Truths of any sort. It’s a case study, in some ways, of recent depictions of the neuroscience of political differences, and in particular the way “rig…

Prisoners In the Hands of an Angry God: A Conversation About Religion and Reform

By Andrew Aghapour and Stephanie Gaskill

…the nature of moral rehabilitation. In the following conversation, Cubit co-editor Andrew Aghapour speaks with Stephanie Gaskill, an emerging scholar, about how a faith-based program at Louisiana’s Angola Prison showcases the kinds of nuances that so seldom emerge from polling. ________ Andrew Aghapour: What did you make of “Religious Beliefs and Public Support for Prisoner Reentry,” the study behind this Newsweek article? Stephanie Gaskill: As wi…

Warships, Animals, Pubs Eligible For Blessings From Church of England, But Not Same-Sex Couples; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ropean wide marriage movement” and “an official partner” of the French anti-marriage-equality group, La Manif Pour Tous. France: LePen wants to dump marriage equality, Macron declares sympathy for ‘humiliated’ Catholics The National Front’s Marine LePen is proposing to reverse the country’s marriage equality law and replace it with some form of civil union for same-sex couples. Meanwhile, one of her opponents in the presidential race, Emmanuel Mac…

What do the January 6 Commission, Covid Deaths and Gun Massacres All Have in Common? God’s Chosen

By John Stoehr

…maker Sierra Pettengill in a recent interview with historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. “The Constitution is worshiped as the embodiment of [this] covenant—and so the Constitution for them is the direct word of God giving instructions,” added Dunbar-Ortiz. Every day that goes by takes the United States farther away from this covenant, and closer to God’s enemies. I think every single shooting massacre, one way or another, is rooted in this political co…

Now That ‘Serial’ is Over: 2014’s Best Podcasts about Religion

By Andrew Aghapour

…bout design and architecture that produced two eerie episodes this year. “O-U-I-J-A” offers a fascinating and textured history of the iconic game, weaving together design, cognitive science, and American religious history. “Ten Thousand Years” documents the federal government’s attempt to label an underground nuclear waste repository that will continue to be dangerous for 10,000 years. Are there universal symbols of death and prohibition? Download…

Is Twitter Doing Enough to Remove Extremist Content? An Ex-Employee Weighs In

By Sofi Hersher

…tools it would still constitute one of the world’s largest games of “whack-a-mole.” In light of near universal calls for Twitter, Facebook, Ask.fm and other social media sites to suppress extremist content from public view, a number of questions arise. Some are practical: how many Twitter employees speak or read Arabic or Urdu or Farsi, etc.? Should these requests be given preferential treatment over other offensive content like child pornography…