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“I’ll Pray For You”—Powerful or Pointless?

By Christine Wicker

…en, who directed Dallas’ Thanksgiving Square, to give me an example of the best prayer. Jesus had already directed Christians on how to pray, of course. Since, no one in Dallas, Texas, was going to challenge that. I was looking for second best. Elizabeth’s answer changed my entire framework for prayer. She said, “The name of God.” “And then?” I asked. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s all that’s needed.” Elizabeth’s answer made no sense to me until…

What the Hell is Wrong With Us? A Muslim Response to America’s Failure to Change

By Haroon Moghul

…ask the reader of the Qur’an, over and over again, to reflect, to use her best judgment, to make her best effort, and to learn from others? If the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last Prophet—and Islam certainly insists on as much—then everything he communicated has to be universal enough to be meaningful but flexible enough to reflect the nuances and characteristics of different experiences. This is one thing a lot of people don’t u…

Trump In Colorado: When the “Facts” Are No Longer Checkable

By Paul Harvey

…at world. Any such claim is laughably unpersuasive, despite James Dobson’s best efforts. Rather, I mean “faith” not in any specifically theological sense, but more in the sense of the evidence of things not seen. (The “substance of things hoped for” is what Trump alone can provide, judging from his RNC address). Initially, this came in thinking about Trump’s RNC portrayal of an America in grave peril of mass death from drunk drivers who happen to…

As U.S. Went to Hell, R.E.M. Hung in Without Cynicism

By Brian K. Pennington

…kids’ awakening to the artistry and moral challenge that rock music at its best can deliver, Nirvana will provide the soundtrack to the fading images of one friend after another lost to the heroin that hit the alternative music scene in Atlanta as Nevermind hit the charts. Could anything be further from the nihilism of Nirvana’s distorted and driving chords than R.E.M.’s qualified insistence that the articulation of meaning and the comfort of comm…

SCOTUS Likely to Support Memorial Cross; Should We Even Care?

By Andrew L. Seidel

…there and run the option, or a cover two, or just to go out and play their best. That’s religious neutrality. A secular government is not a government that promotes religion or atheism, it’s a neutral government. This is the only fair solution in a diverse society and it’s what our Constitution demands. Our government has no religious authority. Politicians occupy an office temporarily. The office belongs to us, to “We the People.” That office is…

Does Atheism Have a Misogyny Problem?

By Julia Galef

…skeptic blogs, which then exploded into a major one when Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of books like The God Delusion, and one of the indisputable leaders of the contemporary atheist movement, chimed in to chide her for overreacting. He left a comment on another popular atheist blog, PZ Myers’ Pharyngula, sarcastically comparing Watson’s experience to the much more serious problems faced by women in the Muslim world. He then followed it up…

Jews and Baseball: A Reflection on a Longtime Love Affair

By Rebecca T. Alpert

…Yom Kippur I was telling you about.” The man smiled knowingly. I smiled as best I could, trying to suppress my desire to say what was on my mind, which was something like, “Goddamit, I gave a sermon about baseball exactly once, three years ago…” And it wasn’t really about baseball, but about how the golden age of the black-Jewish relationship existed mostly in the mind of (white) Jews. I wanted to go on about how we as Jews saw Jackie Robinson as…

Mitt Romney, Frontrunner: Deal With It

By Joanna Brooks

…s). He even managed to joke about Sarah Palin’s bus tour antics being “the best thing that could happen” to his candidacy. Right now, Mitt Romney’s greatest problem appears to be Republican Party itself. After opportunistically handing the reins to Tea Partiers and evangelical conservatives to capitalize on unbridled rage against the nation’s first African-American president, the GOP has now cultivated a base most interested in crusading against s…

Satanic Temple’s IRS Recognition Rekindles Fierce Debate Over What Is ‘Really Real’ Church

By Joseph Laycock

…ances. The real reason to seek tax-exempt status is that this presents the best possible evidence that TST is a “real religion” rather than “trolls,” political satire, or—in LifeSiteNews’s terms—an “anti-religion.” The late religious historian J.Z. Smith wrote that, “The Internal Revenue Service is, both de facto and de jure, America’s primary definer and classifier of religion. It reproduces the imperial Roman government’s efforts at distinguishi…

A person holding a sign that says "If you're not angry then you're not listening."

Can Rage Fuel the Struggle for Justice? A Roundtable

By Religion Dispatches

…he American Political Science Association’s 2020 Ralph J. Bunche Award for best scholarly work exploring ethnic and cultural pluralism, and co-winner of the award for best book on race and ethnic politics. Myisha Cherry: Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, Myisha is also the Director of the Emotion and Society Lab. Her research is primarily concerned with the role of emotions and attitudes in public life….