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Why Have So Many Fallen for the Rune Stone Hoax?

…suggested this was actually the Hindu syllable “aum,” which was popular in Western esoteric circles when the stone was discovered.) In 1957 Bishop Peter W. Bartholome commemorated a shrine to “Our Lady of the Runestone” in Alexandria, Minnesota. Just as the Rune Stone Vikings were continually re-imagined, so too were the Native Americans who killed them. Krueger demonstrates how, “The skraeling endured as a convenient symbol for the threats posed…

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Why I Boycotted a Conference at Brigham Young University

…iety and for an individual’s own intellectual growth. But what about honor codes that many universities impose? These are usually attempts to regulate behavior—not thought. They attempt to prohibit, for example, alcohol and pot in student dorms. Prohibitions against thinking, against ideas that are counter to administrators’ beliefs, however, should have no place in a university. Although I am not an expert in issues of religious freedom in Americ…

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What was Pants to Church Sunday Really About?

…tly gender-segregated customs of Mormonism are—like unwritten Sunday dress codes—traditional rather than doctrinal and human rather than inspired. It was also an opportunity to start a conversation about traditional gender inequalities in a community where feminism has been unnecessarily stigmatized as an excommunicable offense.  (And for the record, it is not.) Because really, it’s not pants or the right to wear pants that tops the list of Mormon…

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Jail for Bible Study? Note to Self.

…g for years requirements that he abide by basic building, fire, and zoning codes. So you go back to that Charisma story and the overblown rhetoric about religious persecution, and remind yourself not to take seriously the next thing you read or hear from the Rutherford Institute. And while you can’t be sure, you don’t recall reading that the heat and harsh conditions at Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County Tent City Jail had previously moved John…

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Cornel West, Using His Powers for Good

…prison system, an emphasis on public investment, equitable progressive tax codes, restitution paid by banks and businesses that have abused the system, health care assurances, and a White House conference on eradication of poverty. The appendix carries a letter to the president that can be photocopied or torn out. It calls for a transformation not only of how Americans talk about the poor, but also of what they do for those without homes, secure j…

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Eat, Pray, Kill: The Basic Brutality of Eating

…ding the consumption of food in The Laws of Manu. What she finds, in these codes, is not only an attempt to deal with the old, and apparently always agonizing, moral pain of eating animal flesh. She also spoke of references, in these ancient texts, to the “screaming silence” of vegetables. Doniger finds, in other words, a long history of reflection on the basic brutality of eating, rooted in a reflection on this concept of ahimsa. But, interesting…

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Graham’s Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy Theory Not New

…r this month, I noted: ACT!, along with several conservative websites, has promoted the conspiracy theory that Obama has “quietly” appointed people with Brotherhood ties to top positions in his administration in order to orchestrate uprisings in the Muslim world. According to this theory, American leftists are in cahoots with the Brotherhood through a “consortium of left-wing organizations, Islamic groups, labor unions, and Obama-friendly corporat…

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An Open Letter to Rabbi Dov Linzer on Modesty and Jewish Law

…ort their position by reading closely and deeply the same Talmud and legal codes that you do. Their community embodies an extreme yet also consistent rendering of Judaism founded on the Talmud and the legal tradition it generated. It is true that their egregious behavior steps beyond any acceptable norm. But their more general interpretation of Jewish law does not. Shouldn’t recent incidents serve to show that your anti-misogynist Orthodoxy, which…

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BYU Skinny Jean Controversy: Sexism, Sizeism, or Standards?

…puses in Provo, Utah, Rexburg, Idaho, and Laie, Hawaii have long had dress codes requiring students to dress conservatively, prohibiting shorts, skin-baring cropped tops, and “form-fitting clothing.” The popularity of leggings, jeggings, and skinny jeans (even Mitt Romney has a pair) has produced new attention in LDS communities to how those dress code boundaries are enforced and who bears the brunt of the enforcement. Beginning in November, the B…

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How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

…statistically significant effect” on charitable contributions in those zip codes after a scandal, and not only to Catholic-based charitable organizations. The researchers theorize that perhaps once a person stops attending church, the social pressure to be charitable declines. Interestingly, however, these same individuals mirror the statistical notion that even though an increasing number of Americans consider themselves religiously unaffiliated,…

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