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Four Reasons Why Egypt’s Revolution Is Islamic

…similar but far more significant quandary. The nightmare scenario involves free and fair elections in Egypt that put a “radical” Islamist government into power. This government then enacts foreign policy decisions hostile to US (and Israeli) interests and hence serves to “destabilize the region.” The US and Israel lose a key ally in the region, ushering in a new period of unrest.  Forestalling this scenario, commentators are arguing that this is n…

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The ‘Common Sense’ Argument Against Marriage Equality

…r and their children.” (The infertile, asexual, post-menopausal, and child-free by choice need not apply.) Anderson echoes precisely what same-sex proponents have been saying all along with regard to children: that the desire to marry is in fact a desire to be more traditional. As Frank Bruni put it, gays and lesbians are no longer cultural rebels; “We’re aspirants to tradition, communicating shared values and asserting a fundamentally conservativ…

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Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

…ing things like “go back to the Middle East, you pedophiles.” We should be free to criticize all religions, Islam included, but that doesn’t mean we should feel free to deride and scorn its adherents. It should go without saying that this isn’t a problem with atheism, but it is a problem among atheists and it’s one that is being largely ignored. 9/11 is frequently lifted up as the genesis of “New Atheism,” and it’s not uncommon to see people at at…

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Back to Basics: Feminism 101

…ce for me: Allah made me free and equal and anyone who dares to limit that freedom or curtail my equality has no right to do so. They also have no control over my choice to live that equality and justice, save for oppression. The Qur’an is pretty emphatic about that: oppression is human-made and must be human-eradicated. I reject anything and anyone who interferes with my choice and my right to live free and equal. I do so as an integral part of m…

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A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

…g meals or the “click, click, click” of the computer mouse in response to “free shipping!” “40 % off!” or “Buy one get one free!” in the United States, we are gluttonous consumers of material goods (and food, but that is a whole other subject). The value and consequences of shopping in dominant US culture puts the consumer on a roller-coaster ride. One year we are told that excessive, unwise spending and its resultant debt have led our country int…

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Trump’s SOTU Address Was a Christian Nationalist Dog Whistle

…ludes the following line (emphases mine): In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a Christian nation. Time magazine’s transcript, meanwhile, reflects what the president actually said: In reaffirming our heritage as a free Nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation. It’s entirely possible that the speech wasn’t deliberately edited; that Trump, who’s famous for ad-libbi…

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American Infidel: Robert Ingersoll Was the “Great Agnostic” of the (Last) Gilded Age

…aphy recently published: The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought. Secularism and feminism have been Jacoby’s own primary themes, making her Ingersoll’s ideal biographer. Jacoby is unabashed in her admiration for her subject, and she has every reason to be a fan of someone who lived an entirely admirable life. Born in 1833, Ingersoll grew up poor, as his dad, an unsuccessful Presbyterian minister, lurched from one failed pasto…

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The Roberts Court’s “Special Solicitude” for Corporations

…Smith jurisprudence,” she wrote. RFRA didn’t expand the scope of religious freedom rights, and in the case law there is “no support for the notion that free exercise rights pertain to for-profit corporations.” There’s a reason for that, Ginsburg maintained. While the Constitution and the courts have long recognized a “special solicitude” for religious organizations, there is no such solicitude for commercial entities. The reason for that is “hardl…

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Is New Park51 Advisor Any Better Than Feisal Abdul-Rauf?

…d be jailed. A HuffPo news item gives more detail, saying that a person is free to leave Islam without harassment, and should only be jailed if they preach to others that they should leave Islam. (I am relying on second-hand reports as Adhami has numerous lectures and there is no direct link to what the reporters are referring to). For a traditionalist scholar like Adhami, this statement is fairly important. He is moving the question of apostasy f…

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Romania’s “Witch Tax”: Magic Meets Bureaucracy

…nials for her craft. A National Center of Witchcraft? Witches adapted to a free market quickly. Emerging businesses sought their aide, creating a growing clientele for witchcraft.  In 1997, there was an attempt to form a “witches’ union,” in part to counter the claims of dozens of upstart witches that they were descendants of Mama Omida. In 1999, there was even a plan to build a thirty-five room “national center of witchcraft” on the outskirts of…

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