Religion Dispatches
…ble assertion to make in such a tendentious book. Perhaps there is a small number of Americans losing their lives at the hands of hasty harvesters; even a very small number would be too high. But I had a hard time summoning any outrage. In the end I learned much more from Kagan—ironically because his aims are in a way more modest. He wants to convince you of his physicalist stance; however, he doesn’t want to tell you how to reconcile with death….
Read More…Ya think??? Trouble is, this stuff really isn’t funny. In point of fact, a number of official Catholic statements on sexuality—it’s invariably sexuality and gender they’re riled up about—are downright dangerous. Take, for example, the Ugandan Catholic bishops. As Peter Montgomery reported in RD this week, they joined recently with Anglican and Orthodox bishops “to speed-up the process of enacting the Anti-Homosexuality Law.” This is the bill which…
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…d break from 2020? “December liberty,” as Roman poet Horace called it, the best of days! The Saturnalia used to be a beloved ancient Roman pagan festival, which was held right before the winter solstice, from 17 to 23 December in the old Julian calendar. It was a time of unlicensed celebration referring to a golden age without morality and rules. It praised life, and the mysteries surrounding the sun’s disappearance from our lives. It promoted rol…
Read More…sets out to restore peace and order in the Middle East, I do wish him the best of successes. And when Putin defends marriage and family at the UN, I also wish him all the best. There is not only black and white in this world. There are also many shades of grey. Scotland: Debate Over ‘Conscience’ Clause for Sex Ed Guidelines Among the policy debates that will be taken up now that the referendum on independence has been held is the ongoing developm…
Read More…ition: Mr. Abbott, a conservative leader who is a polarizing figure at the best of times, is doing badly in the polls, two years after taking office. His position on same-sex marriage is only one factor, but it is one that analysts say goes to the core of his political vulnerability. “His issue is his inability to reach out beyond a core group of conservative voters,” said Jessica Elgood, a director at the polling firm Ipsos, who added that he had…
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…crisis of faith and morality, he has been divorced three times and to the best of many of his associates’ knowledge doesn’t attend church—pretty much the definition of a practicing Catholic. The conservative Catholic provocateur Austin Ruse, who has used his organization C-FAM to embed a conservative Catholic presence at the UN, described him to O’Loughlin as a “nonpracticing orthodox Catholic,” or “somebody who for whatever reason is not practic…
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…Revenge is key to far-right rabbi Meir Kahane, Ben-Gvir’s hero. Kahane is best known in the U.S. for founding the Jewish Defense League, and who saw the establishment of a Jewish kingdom in the Land of Israel as commensurate with revenge against the Gentiles who had historically humiliated the Hebrews. In his view, Jews take revenge against their oppressors not only for their own redemption, but for God’s. “A Jewish fist in the face of an astonis…
Read More…dy. “We had originally planned not to have kids, but now we have to do our best to repopulate the city with Christians.” The religious right consistently promotes policies that defund any kind of government efforts to improve the conditions of working families. They support politicians and policies that strip poor, working and middle class families of social support. Everything from food stamps to public education to health care are on the choppin…
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…you. Since you have not been out in the world long enough to know what is best for you, we are going to spell out for you what is in your own best interest. First, you need to stop obeying men. Those men. Fathers, brothers, husbands, uncles, burly sons, imams, mullahs. You need to have a mind of your own. We understand that the peculiarly Muslim pathology is hard to overcome, but we urge you to struggle. Be bold. Make your own decisions. How do y…
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…ishment” is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point… [W]e do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank… So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist…
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