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Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice.  Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…

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Capricology: Divine Madness

…s the ability to instantly acquire the skills she needs to get through the flight simulator. She argues in effect that she doesn’t want to do things the easy way; she wants to earn her way through the virtual world. I am reminded of the ongoing debates around multiplayer games about what constitutes cheating and whether it is appropriate for a character to pay real cash to buy a ready-made avatar which can function at higher levels than they have…

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Doonesbury Cartoons Cause Controversy, But for Wrong Reasons

…bortion provider, the patient’s medical history, or—for a relatively small number of women—an aversion to the transvaginal method. Most of the time, however, the transvaginal ultrasound is a useful and common tool that helps providers perform abortions safely and well. As Joffe points out, soon after the transvaginal-as-rape meme took flight, “Will abortion clinic staff who perform the ultrasound be seen as ‘rapists,’ as the provider I mentioned e…

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Pope Francis Dismisses Condoms in AIDS Fight

…no such compassion for those living with HIV/AIDS when asked on his return flight from his African visit if the church should change its prohibition on condom use given the continued spread of the virus. Francis replied with an obtuse mixture of parable and exegesis that made it clear he saw little flexibility in the teaching: The question seems too small to me. It seems to me also like a partial question. The morality of the church is found on th…

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Useless and Useful: A True Sage Reviews The Tao of Happiness

…is about one animal metamorphosing into another animal. Lin titles it “The Flight of the Peng Bird.” This is his version: In the Northern Sea, there is a giant fish. Its name is Kun. Its size is incredibly large. No one knows how many thousands of miles its length measures. The Kun fish is able to transform into a bird, known as Peng. The Peng bird is also incredibly large. No one knows how many thousands of miles its wingspan measures. Peng chang…

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The Faith that Faith Produced

Introduction: That Muslim Was an Atheist   I was on a flight to Los Angeles many years ago, and after a few hours of nobly but futilely fighting the boredom, I ventured a conversation with the middle-aged man fate and ticketing had seated next to me. We started chatting because we were listless, but soon found a common interest.  It turned out that my fellow passenger was a diehard L.A. Lakers fan. Unlike me, he was a successful dentist who lived…

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Moral Mondays: The Battle For Justice Cannot Be Waged Only in the Courts

On a warm day in July 2013, I found myself on the wrong end of a canceled flight out of RDU Airport. I used the opportunity to travel into downtown Raleigh to observe one of the early Moral Monday rallies at the State Capitol. The gathering was ostensibly called to protest the legislature’s newly gerrymandered district map – among the most tortured in the nation. I expected to find a group of committed, passionate citizens (mostly people of color…

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Russian Orthodox Patriarch Blames Gays For ISIS; ‘Christian Nationalist’ Sworn In As Guatemala’s President; Vatican Resists Civil Unions in Italy; Global LGBT Recap

…I to judge?” statement while aboard the papal plane. Since that fateful in-flight press conference, I have been told countless times (often by well-meaning, heterosexual Catholics) that I should find hope and comfort in the pope because he has opened up the doors to mercy for me and my lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer friends. But mercy, it seems to me, is not the door that LGBTQ people need opened to them. Mercy is an act of love, co…

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Why Belief in the Primacy of Language Leads to a Misunderstanding of Richard Dawkins, Islamophobia, and Politics

…a bat?, we immediately come upon the problem of differences— —right, a bat flight simulator! But one of the things that we need to recognize is that . . . human beings experience their worlds very differently. I’m very interested in the phenomenon of disagreement. What does it mean when two people look at the same information and they come to different conclusions? To me, that is in some way indexing how deeply ingrained our affective experiential…

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