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Dalai Lama: “I Am a Marxist, But Not a Leninist”

By Tsering Namgyal

…nstitutions that were allied, during Marx’s time, with the European ruling class. He also provided an interesting anecdote about his experience with Mao. He said that Mao had felt that the Dalai Lama’s mind was very logical, implying that Buddhist education and training help sharpens the mind. He said he met with Mao several times, and that once, during a meeting in Beijing, the Chinese leader called him in and announced: “Your mind is scientific!…

Hey Michele Bachmann,
I Got Your Nobel Laureates Right Here

By Lauri Lebo

…ti-evolution law that would sneak the teaching of creationism into science class. I’ve analyzed the purpose of the law here. What’s really cool about Kopplin’s campaign is that he has lined up support for the repeal from 43 Nobel Laureates. So Kopplin, in an open letter on his web site Wednesday, basically said, “I’ve shown mine, now you, Congresswoman Bachmann, show me yours.” He writes: Does Congresswoman Bachmann really think the public will fa…

AIDS Anniversary: Thirty is the New Eternity

By Susan Henking

…Struggling, admittedly. Focused on what sometimes feels like minor middle-class or neo-liberal concerns like marriage, but it lives on. These are victories, of course. And yet, every year, we’re not sure if the anniversary is something to celebrate, commemorate, or mourn. We’re still here, still queer. And yet too many are not. The 30th wedding anniversary calls for pearls, various websites say. And yet, we have no weddings really, from the feder…

In a Field of Anti-Science Candidates, Santorum Sets Himself Apart

By Lauri Lebo

…rwinian theory. The Dover Area School District has taken a step in the right direction by engaging in the debate and attempting to teach the controversy of evolution. One day after Judge John E. Jones III struck down the teaching of intelligent design in public school science class as unconstitutional, Santorum—on the verge of losing his Senate seat to current Senator Bob Casey—quit the TMLC board. He also denounced the teaching of ID. Santorum s…

Will Huntsman’s Mormon Mojo Work on the National Stage?

By Joanna Brooks

…of Republican 2012 presidential contenders. His campaign team had chosen a classic location very much in the key of Ronald Reagan: Liberty State Park, New Jersey, where the candidate set up his podium against the backdrop of the Hudson and the Statue. (Even though you’d never know it from television close shots that entirely screened out Lady Liberty.) The crowd was small—about 100 supporters. The skies were grey. The mood was low key. And the can…

Do iPads Cause Religious Experiences?

By Andrew Aghapour

…wo piles. The first, what we might call “neurotheologies,” is comprised of books and articles that attempt to objectify and validate religious experiences with data about the brain. These studies were especially common in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when medical researchers and scholars of religion started training neural imaging technologies on the brains of meditators, shamans, and mystics with the hope of isolating neural circuitry that was…

Indonesian Court Rejects Religious Conservatives’ Bid To Criminalize Gay Sex; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…LGBQT community could get worse now that the education minister has banned classes about sexual diversity in schools and even volunteered to help burn all books related to the subject. The ban was implemented in October after the United Nations Children’s Fund issued a guidebook for teachers on avoiding discrimination between girls and boys and achieving gender equality. “We’re not going to promote gender ideology,” Education Minister Enrique Rier…

Too Late for Apologies: Three Steps the U.S. Bishops Should Take to Prevent Another Sexual Abuse Scandal

By Grant Gallicho

…be live-streamed, starting Wednesday, June 15). The bishops will take up a number of issues, from the revised liturgy to assisted suicide, but their conversations are sure to be dominated by an issue that has been dogging them since the mid-1980s: sexually abusive priests and the bishops who enabled them. Ten years after Cardinal Bernard Law became the poster bishop for failed religious leadership, new revelations of episcopal misfeasance threaten…

There’s Something Rotten in Ireland

By Haroon Moghul

…e latest in a series of provocative, offensive, and frankly fratboyish Facebook posts coming from Israel’s embassy in Ireland. They go from digs at Ireland (“naïve”) for joining Europe and much of the world in voting for an upgrade in Palestine’s status at the United Nations, to the most recent—an allegation that, if Jesus were alive today, he would probably be lynched by hostile Palestinians. Nobody at the embassy seems to know who’s writing and…

And What of the Non-Jewish Jews?

By Shaul Magid

…ancestry generations ago, a Jewish spouse, Jewish friends etc. In terms of numbers, Jews by religion or no religion make up 2.2% of the U.S. population, but if you add “People with a Jewish affinity” it rises to 2.7%, so that this category of people who are not considered Jews by the Jewish community but identify as Jews is nearly 25% of the Jews by religion or no religion, those we conventionally call “Jews.” The fact that there are so many Ameri…