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‘Soul of Yoga’ at Stake in Texas Regulation Push

…most people would. And I would say that yoga, whether in the context of an Indian ashram or an American strip mall studio, has religious dimensions. Yogis themselves often point to those dimensions, though they don’t call them “religious,” in opposition to state regulation. For instance, yogis argue that yoga is a “way of life” that is “handed down from teacher to student” in the “sacred space” of a yoga studio. They point to yoga’s vastness, argu…

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The Return of Government as “Idolatry” and the “Second Amendment Remedies”

…, New Hampshire, and Iowa) promoting a creationist film called The Genesis Code, and holding fundraising receptions. The moralistic film follows an unbelieving hockey player and a Christian journalism student who struggle with “reconciling their scientific studies and what’s taught in the Bible” as he falls for her and she uses their relationship to “guide” him “toward God.” You can read a “pro-family” review here that warns of sex (kissing) and n…

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Greatest Hits of 2015: Religion Stories Our Readers Couldn’t Resist

…: I knew Monsanto sues farmers into oblivion, caused a rash of suicides in India, suppresses negative media coverage, and pays politicians, and scientists to lie on its behalf. But there was one story I didn’t believe, because I knew it wasn’t true: Monsanto hadn’t paid me. So I did what any academic or journalist would do, and started learning more about the company that supposedly had me on its payroll. #2 Confront Death by Avoiding Fritos: The…

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The War on Terror is Over; Tahrir Buried It

…ed when they came to power in the national parliament from 1998 to 2004 in India. Though they did attempt to revise classroom textbooks and privilege the protection of Hindu shrines, for the most part they behaved as most other secular political parties behave when they come to power and are confronted with practical policy choices. In Turkey, the Islamic-leaning AKP (Justice and Development Party) has also been a more reasonable political force t…

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The Risks of Remaining Neutral on Egypt

…Need for Collective Self-Esteem Unlike Third World countries like Brazil, India, and China, many Muslim-majority societies traded their organic traditions for authoritarian states that have brought little economic benefit or sense of dignity. (At least a Chinese citizen can reconcile an absence of political freedoms with an obvious escape from poverty). Egypt is, in this sense, the most excellent example. Hosni Mubarak has presided over the impov…

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You Are Not Your Star Sign

…his arms. Ophiuchus has long been part of sidereal astrology (dominant in India, among other places), but absent from the traditionally twelve-signed tropical system most popular with American newspapers until now, with the revised map of the night sky and its influence on human destiny. Just as the revision of the Zodiac had induced popular outcry—people who had long self-identified as melodramatically emotional Pisces were suddenly told, for in…

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Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

…sumably, not just to get atheists to be liked. Among other things, it’s to promote critical reasoning; it’s to advance the view that faith is decidedly not a virtue. Calling our worldview a faith does not seem the best way to achieve these objectives.” Unsurprisingly, the thought that interfaith work requires significant tongue-biting makes many atheists very uncomfortable; it was certainly a concern I had before I started working in the interfait…

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What Would Jesus Chew?, Bishops Bet on B-Ball, The Incredibly Shrinking Brain

…inals. Is corrupt football coach Jim Tressel an evangelical embarrassment? India’s leading yoga guru, Swami Ramdev, is declaring a hunger strike against governmental corruption. No word on how the guru feels about NCAA recruitment violations. Bernice King left Eddie Long’s church in the wake of Long settling his scandal out of court. Texas is ridding public school graduations of prayers and religious terminology. In New York, a federal court ruled…

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What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

…are not limited to hating “fags.” Wikipedia, for example, claims they hate India. And, Phelps’ church itself is pretty darn sure God Hates America (for a variety of reasons like American tolerance of “fags”). And yet, Westboro Baptist is pretty darn fond of the American Constitution since March 2, I suspect.   March 2, of course, was not the first—and certainly not the last—time the Supreme Court has taken or will take a position on picketing. In…

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Dispatches From the Site of a Massacre

…ivative.  But Islam has been in Bosnia for as long as it’s been in much of India, where my family’s from. It’s possible that many South Asians have been Muslim for less time than many European Muslims. The same goes for Istanbul, which came under Ottoman rule after parts of the Balkans.   When we travel, we find such assumptions challenged, and we find that the ways in which the world works right now did not necessarily hold true in the past—in ba…

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