Religion Dispatches
…“Biblical image” of an angel falling into hell with the slogan “Happy Holidays from the Satanic Temple.” Temple spokesperson John Porgal explained he would prefer that no holiday displays were present at the capital. Meanwhile, Jex Blackmore and her group erected their “Snaketivity scene” on the grounds of the Michigan capital. The display featured a serpent and the slogan, “The greatest gift is knowledge.” As in Florida, the Snaketivity was buil…
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…oductive rights to win back working class Catholics. Krueger says that the best political way forward for the Democrats is what he calls a “50-state/all constituencies” strategy that includes a strong Catholic outreach component. He notes that Hillary Clinton’s outreach to Catholics was notably less robust than Barack Obama’s. She didn’t recruit prominent Catholic backers the way that Obama did and skipped important Catholic outreach opportunities…
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…Bakkers signature television show, the PTL Club, was broadcast live, five days a week, with little scripting. Tammy once did an episode on a merry-go-round. One cast member threw up in the dog costume he was wearing as they spun round and round, all on live television. At the time it all seemed fresh and, for many, exciting. The sex and financial shenanigans were only interesting because of the size of PTL’s cultural footprint. Did you have a spe…
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…Constantinople also demonstrate this problem. Which brings us back to Thursday’s consecration. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was free from Original Sin, is not a doctrine shared between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In fact, it’s only been an official part of Catholic teaching since 1854. While the Eastern churches agree with Catholics that Mary was free from personal sin, the fact that the Easte…
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…faith through a prism of American nationalism? Not to mention the growing number of Americans without any religious commitment? Beck tells us, “you must fall to your knees and you must reconnect with God. He is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price ge…
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…o “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the wo…
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…ed by businesses like Annex challenge the ACA’s contraception mandate on a number of grounds. The most significant challenge invokes the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, claiming that the insurance coverage mandate imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. Annex Medical lost its claim because the court concluded that the mandate does not impose a substantial burden on religious exercise and in the widely-publicized H…
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…basal ganglia, and other brain regions have been proposed to accomplish a number of specific functions. Imagine, for example, working intently on some task until you notice that your stomach is rumbling and that the daylight has shifted. You think back to when you last ate, gauge how long you’ve been working, and give yourself five minutes to finish up before having a light snack, so as not to ruin your dinner. An MRI scan of this thought proces…
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