Religion Dispatches
…passages to make them provide such justification. But the Hebrew Bible and New Testament clearly do not teach (either explicitly or implicitly) that buying, owning, and selling African slaves is next to godliness. The same cannot be said about the normative teaching on human sexuality contained within the Judeo-Christian scriptures — and even more so, within the interpretative and theological traditions that grow out of them. Linker’s attempt to d…
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…mber states “are hung up on homosexuality.” C-Fam, which has organized anti-equality nations to resist recognition of LGBT equality at the UN. C-Fam charged that efforts by pro-equality nations have “undermined the entire human rights concept and led to increased distrust of human rights language from many UN member states.” Russia: Wave of arrests and killings of gay men reported in Chechnya More than 100 gay men have reportedly been detained, an…
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…while you can. Before Tammy gets the news that they’re gone. Two young out-of-work geologists sat next to me. They told me that the loss of wildlife now is bad enough. But soon, the oysters will spawn. An inspired oyster feeling the love takes the initiative and begins the dam’s release. Others follow suit. The young oysters assume the role of males and release sperm. The older, more mature, oysters are the females and release eggs. Nature’s cros…
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…bles and bandages. Around that time, while working on Bad Faith—a yet-to-be-completed book focusing on the financial forces behind the religious right—Mike Reynolds* got wind of the Nashville, Tennessee-based America 21, a nonprofit political action committee that hopes to bring America to God by encouraging “moral leadership from our churches” to be heard “in the halls of Congress and across this nation.” According to Reynolds, an investigative r…
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…all of that, too. People across the Middle East found inspiration in a non-white, non-Christian, non-European power, thinking: If they can do it, why can’t we? The tyranny of low expectations, of longstanding assumptions of inherent cultural inferiority, was shaken, but not overthrown. During today’s Arab revolutions, we heard elites argue that their populations were not ready for democracy. In other words, while a frequently slave-owning, patria…
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…character. This works in many situations, but it fails us at airports, low-income neighborhoods, and other modern arenas of large-scale social forces. It is in our self-interest to improve upon this formula, at the very least so that we can navigate the world more effectively. To do so we can remind ourselves of two simple maxims. First, take a view from the stairwell. Fault occurs at multiple levels, so we should scale up whenever we can and loo…
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…Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Al-Nahda in Tunisia Claim Victories in post-Arab Spring elections to establish new governments and constitutions. 5. Bahrain Continues to Crack Down on Dissent and peaceful protests, violate human rights, and issue extreme sentences on detainees. 6. Rise of Militants in Mali and Libya reflects the growing network of radical extremism operating in Africa. 7. The US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is Attacked—US Ambassa…
Read More…essed the mind-control account offered by John Judge, who wrote what has become the ur-text on conspiracy memes about Jonestown. An analysis of Dr. Leslie Mootoo, the Guyana pathologist who investigated the Jonestown deaths, reveals numerous discrepancies in his reports. And Jeff Brailey, who served in the military as part of the humanitarian task force assigned to remove the bodies from Jonestown, thoroughly discredited Charles Huff, one of the b…
Read More…at the media “Stop Bullying Sarah!” and offering Palin, post Charlie Gibson-interview, comforting words against Washington, D.C. “data robots” who know nothing of heartland values—while at the same time crowing about the hidden power that Palin will tap into. As Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition declares, trying his hand at coining demographic catch phrases, arguing that Palin has energized a groundswell of “Faith Moms.” “…
Read More…they prepare to choose a new pope: According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising “two volumes of almost 300 pages—bound in red” had been consigned to a safe in the papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope’s successor upon his election. The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions, including one whose members were “united by sexual orientation.” In an apparent quotation from the report, La Repubblica said some Vat…
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