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Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

By John Horgan

…nce of an immaterial soul? Science has discovered nothing that contradicts free will. To deny free will’s existence is to deny that our conscious, psychological deliberations—Should I ask my girlfriend to marry me? Should I major in engineering or art?—influence our actions. Such a conclusion flies in the face of common sense. Of course, sometimes we deliberate insincerely, toward a foregone conclusion, or we fail to act upon our resolution. But n…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…

Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

By Peter Laarman

…ffering. The grief we feel on January 20 flows not just from Covid’s awful toll but also from our anguish over the obvious fragility of American democracy and our nation’s ever-worsening structural injustices—appalling inequities that are too often euphemized as “disparities.” I want to focus on suffering and the religious dimension. Just as soldiers once insisted that no one is an atheist in a foxhole, so too were there plenty of non-religious in…

We Went Through Amoris Laetitia Section by Section So You Wouldn’t Have To

By Anthony Adams

…eteronormative uncontracepted sex in monogamous marriage.” Sections 243 and 299 would also disappoint any divorced and remarried Catholics who want to receive Communion openly. Pope Francis says they should be treated with care and kindness and respect, but he stops short of giving them access to receiving Communion. He offers the same condescension to LGBT Catholics in Section 250 when he says should be treated with care, kindness and respect, bu…

Free Arabs: Satire, Disobedience, and Disclaimers

By Nabil Echchaibi

…, the same (almost identically the same) way that Muslim clergy, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, appropriated the Iranian revolution of 1977–1979 entirely for itself, far beyond their own fair share. Free Arabs is right to expose religious anti-intellectualism or fight for the rights of atheists in Arab societies, but their defiance would be much more effective if it rose above colonial constructs of secularists versus Muslims or Islamists. Satirizing…

World Congress of Families Draws Anti-LGBT Activists to Budapest; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…fficials tell media to play down Taiwan marriage ruling According to Radio Free Asia, “China’s state propaganda machine has warned the country’s media not to ‘make a big deal’ of” Taiwan’s marriage equality ruling. The government of Hong Kong has appealed a ruling by the city’s high court that the city must provide spousal benefits to civil servants who married same-sex partners abroad. Alfred Chan, the South China morning post reported that the c…

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ramadan

By Haroon Moghul

…: Sudden boost in revenue at grocery stores anywhere Muslims live in large numbers. Hint: If you think buying food while you’re hungry can help the economy, grocery shopping in Ramadan could save the Eurozone and prevent a Grexit. Suhouri: Suhur: Meal you eat right before the fast begins. Houri: Shatteringly beautiful, apparently human but not actually human companion provided to you in paradise, assuming you make it there. You don’t like the fact…

Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

By José Cabezón

…of learning is being strictly regulated. In reality, there is no religious freedom in Tibet.” It may seem strange to an outsider that the regulation of monastic institutions—for example, the control of the number of monks in monasteries—should be such an important issue for Tibetans. Let me try and explain why monks and nuns risk years of imprisonment, and indeed their own lives, to protest this and other governmental policies aimed at controlling…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…anizations, and individuals from any attempt to curb or obstruct religious freedom or freedom of conscience which are guaranteed by international human rights laws.” Caruana said that although TEAM was aware that marriage equality will not affect religious marriage, it was still concerned about religious rights. “As Christians we believe that according to Biblical teaching, God ordained marriage as a union between one man and one woman for the rea…

In ‘God Hates Fags’ Case, Free Speech Trumps Free Exercise

By Julie Ingersoll

…his religion (as well as his privacy rights). The Phelps case relied on a free speech claim instead of freedom of religion, and they won. So as the Supreme Court sees the right to freely practice one’s religion as “constitutionally irrelevant,” religion has been reduced in popular rhetoric to the right of the dominant religion to be free of any challenges to its dominance: wishing someone “happy holidays” in thought to violate the religious freed…