Religion Dispatches
…dismay turned to laughter when I saw immediately below Winters’ screed the code of conduct for comments on National Catholic Reporter. His post is a primer on violating NCR’s own rules for respectful conversation. Maybe someone at NCR can give him a much-needed tutorial. NCR Comment code: Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Use appropriate language. Avoid vulgarities and slurs. Keep to the point. Deliberat…
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…ge your day-to-day relationship with tempting foods. Chocolate cake has to code-switch, from “a thing I want and must resist” to “a thing I don’t want right now,” and that happens in the ACC. As Roundling’s study shows, religious thoughts seem to help with short-term code switching because they offer a concrete set of alternative values. Similarly, when Warren says that caring for his body is a “stewardship issue,” he might be actively molding his…
Read More…Poland in 1939, Hitler tried to reassure doubters, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Will the imminent disappearance of our awareness of the fate of the Syrian Kurds in the “dust and dirt” of the Syrian deserts only confirm Hitler as a media-savvy genius? A soldier’s honor is a fine thing, but how much does it weigh in the scales of justice against genocide? How much greater the suffering of the Kurds if Mattis h…
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…ink a life-or-death question like that is unimportant, but using the legal code as a vehicle for a slogan is totally important and a good use of their time. 3. I would like them to say whether they think that families who’ve used assisted reproduction—like in vitro fertilization—should not have the children they have. And if that’s not what they think, then how can they explain why they’re supporting this legislation? 4. I would like them to say t…
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…with breaking away from what I was anchored in, and trying to find my own code. But it was a code that was birthed from parents who were strong believers in a higher set of ways of living your life. And that’s what they bequeathed to me. So precious. Do you think that some people are just better at religion than others? Christopher Isherwood talks about the idea of the “religious genius.” Do you think that’s possible? Why not? It makes sense. I t…
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…ligious concerns about clothing were the motivating force at all. “It is a free country,” he said. “The problem is how they ride on it,” added a Hasidic man named Abraham while checking his mailbox on Bedford. “They don’t care about the kids.” Both a bicyclist and a school bus driver, he enjoyed using the bike lane but now is glad, for the sake of safety, that it is gone. Bicyclists, meanwhile, contend that Hasidic drivers are particularly hostile…
Read More…atican, and the World Evangelical Alliance have worked together to issue a code for how Christians ought to evangelize. No word on how this code effects the use of Chick Tracts. A village in the Philippines celebrates its patron saint, John the Baptist, with a Mud People Festival. Reminds me of my weekend at Bonnaroo 2004. The Pope tweeted—from an iPad, no less. It’s all part of the Vatican’s new multimedia news portal, news.va. Biblical criticism…
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…re about the “film noir” feel of Caprica. It’s a cross between a 1930s pre-code movie and Metropolis. The cops, the smoking, the old-fashioned cars; I thought Caprica was supposed to be technologically savvy, not a cross between the future and the past. What does this say about its inhabitants—and the show’s creator? I agree with Diane, this week seems to be a placeholder for something to come, but in the process, I did not learn much. To be fair…
Read More…ed faith.) Still, West is correct. Discovery Institute folks had long been promoting critical analysis – when they weren’t busy also promoting intelligent design. As is their modus operandi, they switch between intelligent design and coded phrases like “teach the controversy” when it serves their purposes. For an example of their promotion of intelligent design in public school science class, see their 1999 booklet Intelligent Design in Public Sch…
Read More…chool boards “to create and foster an environment” in public schools that “promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” In addition to state-approved textbooks, teachers “may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze,…
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