Search for "Copa Airlines800-299-7264 Phone Number Change Flight Reservations"

The Problem with Pew’s Science & Religion Poll

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…et of Americans respond to leading questions, posed by strangers, over the phone. But it’s science! Public opinion polling ends up existing in a strange gray space between science and journalism. A Pew report is definitively not a scientific paper: its goal is to serve media outlets, not to advance a body of academic inquiry. It’s not peer-reviewed. Its methods lack the scope and rigor of a formal social science study. That doesn’t make these repo…

Gay Marriage Opponents Running on Empty

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…. At the first, about a dozen volunteers spent the night making almost 300 phone calls and collecting pledges of volunteer support and contributions from 50 new supporters. Add that to the five other locations holding similar phone banks or collecting post cards of support, and I’m sure we easily got our 300 today. In addition, Equality Maryland hosted an interfaith meeting to mobilize supportive faith leaders. It was so great to see such a wonder…

Sex, Violence, Art, and Religion

By Kent L. Brintnall

…ould make me happy. Then, of course, there are the people I can name whose numbers aren’t in my cell phone: Murat Aymedir, Leo Bersani, Lee Edelman, Amy Hollywood, Kaja Silverman, Ernst van Alphen, to name a few. Are you hoping to simply inform readers? Give them pleasure? Piss them off? I certainly hope there’s pleasure to be gained in reading this book. I hope I’ve been able to capture a tiny fraction of the pleasure (or, the ecstasy, which is a…

A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…one, that new gadget, that new dress. And yet the minute you purchase your phone or laptop, it is obsolete. Every six months, fashion editors tell us our entire closet is out—our clothing is disposable. Shopping is not only a lifestyle, it is a form of entertainment. Whether it is infomercials and shopping networks or makeover shows, we not only shop, we watch people shop. The act of shopping has also become increasingly depersonalized. In the age…

Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…hin] the National Association of Evangelicals. In addition to changing the numbers, polling also changed political perception, [by implying] that evangelicals were a voting bloc. That made sense to journalists because Catholics were a voting bloc for John F. Kennedy in 1960—so surely evangelicals must have been a voting bloc for Jimmy Carter. That wasn’t the case at all. Some of the leading, most powerful, influential evangelical leaders were actu…

How Not to Rescue Muslim Women

By Shabana Mir

…er hands in the air. “You know?” she said. “She thinks we should go in and change what people in other countries do, and how they treat women there.” “Why should we go in to change what they do?” Peter said. “Who died and made us president of the whole world?” “Exactly,” Emma said. “And it just doesn’t make sense for us to try to change how they feel. Why should they accept our point of view, when we think they’re wrong? Maybe they think we’re wro…

End-Times Watcher Sees Satan in an Energy Drink

By William R. Black

…anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” The author of Revelation meant that 666 was a person’s name turned into a number via the Jewish numerological practice of gematria. Since every Hebrew letter was also a number, the letters of a name could be added up to produce that person’s number. Here’s an example of gematria using an alphabet we’re more famil…

Women, Girls, and HIV/AIDS: Does Awareness Help?

By Susan Henking

…isseminating “awareness.” And many are engaged in either support for those who are infected or prevention programs of various sorts. But that is not enough. Religion’s role? One answer is that religion should get out of the way of that radical, inclusive change. We can let the others move on beyond awareness into change. Or, we can follow the advice of civil rights leader (now congressional voice) John Lewis and we can, religious and secular alike…

HBO’s Game Change Hits, But Sarah Palin Pic Misses Religion

By Anthea Butler

…he United States. After HBO’s Game Change, the chances of that prophecy coming to pass are dwindling indeed. Still, there’s no doubt that Palin has changed politics and civil discourse indelibly. “Game change” indeed….

The Jihadi Revolution is Dead (But Bin Laden’s Death Didn’t Kill It)

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…may seriously undercut the viability of the jihadi image of violent social change. On the other hand, a significant number of failures of nonviolent resistence may lead to a violent backlash once again. Not all protests will end like Tunisia and Egypt. Others will be ruthlessly crushed, as was the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009. The current protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Libya face an uncertain end. Failure of nonviolent revolution has,…