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How Would Religion Respond to Extraterrestrials? A Thought Experiment

By Ed Simon

…changes such radical discoveries might manifest in religion? I’m going to bet that religion is not going to disappear. If anything, the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence might look a bit like the sixteenth century, when Europeans first began to grapple with the fact that the western hemisphere contained two massive continents with millions of inhabitants. But, as to specifics: how could Christians maintain the special election of humanit…

Will SCOTUS Call the “Bluff” of Religious Liberty Activists?

By Kara Loewentheil

…going to allow religious objectors to completely opt-out of laws by continually re-defining the burden on their religious exercise, regardless of the impact on third parties and the harms done to them. And you can bet if that strategy succeeds here, we’ll see it in use very soon in other contexts, like exemptions to LGBT non-discrimination laws and marriage equality protections. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that….

US Offers Help For Investigation of Bangladesh Killings

By Peter Montgomery

…the United States, which they want to impose “the new Moral Agenda” which promotes abortion, marriage between lesbians, gays and transsexuals. The president and director of the Christian Action Group spoke on a panel addressing “The new global agenda and its implications in the Dominican Republic.” They warned that international institutions like the Organization for American States and United Nations are pushing an agenda that would “destroy the…

‘Good Wife’ Alicia Florrick is an Atheist (and Drinks a Lot)

By Lisa Webster

…peats that she is a straight up atheist, not agnostic, not wondering. Safe bet that this is the most often the word ‘atheist’ has been used in a single episode of a network drama. The wrinkle is that her daughter is part of a youth-y evangelical group, having converted a few seasons back. The writers use her for comic effect sometimes, as when the grownups are in crisis around the kitchen table and you suddenly hear a group of teenage girls beltin…

Dinos and Demons and Swedes, Oh My! It May Be Cartoonish, but Evangelical Radicalism Isn’t Just a Sideshow

By Chrissy Stroop

…s in its insistence not only that there is no possibility for adjudicating between competing worldviews using human reason, but that our safest bet is to rely on the Holy Spirit and an essentially literal reading of the Bible for our understanding of truth. Christian presuppositionalists also argue that there can be no neutrality among competing worldviews, which is what allows them to so casually denounce points of view to which they are ideologi…

How Herbalife’s Gospel of Health and Wealth Fuels a Billion-Dollar Deception

By Michael Schulson

…world of prosperity gospel preachers, whose claims about the relationship between faith, donations to the church, and personal well-being strike many outsiders as a straightforward, money-motivated swindle. In the business of hope, there’s already very little overlap between the legal and the ethical—and, it seems, little clarity on where the legal marketing ends and the illegal stuff begins. What’s clear is that dreams are good business. It’s fi…

Country Trumpkins

By Daniel Schultz

…the country and have decided to remain, or return after a few years away. Between the two groups, the self-understanding of the community becomes defined over and against urban life, for good reasons (wanting a small, caring community) and bad (wanting not to live next to black people). All of this can be dealt with, but change comes slow in rural areas. Think generations, rather than years, much less the lightning pace expected by the wired worl…

Hillary Clinton Feeds the Trolls

By Michael Schulson

…a vocal right-wing fringe movement (like Farage’s UKIP) that has limited access to political power than to have a quieter right-wing fringe movement that, by taking over a mainstream party, actually has a shot at national office. I suspect Clinton and her campaign made a good bet. Better to face things head on than to pretend they don’t exist, especially when so much is on the line. But the issue remains thorny. Faced with new, muscular expressio…

Maybe Trump Should Pray About His Problems With Religious Voters?

By Daniel Schultz

…Jews, like members of all the other religious minorities, recognize a bad bet for religious freedom when they see one. They see how Trump treats Muslims, Mormons, and Hispanics, and they know his commitment to them is thinner than his actual hair. Anyway, you might say it’s only one state, but it’s also the one state with a sizable Jewish population and an uncertain outcome. There’s no way Trump is winning in New York or New Jersey, and if he doe…

Lincoln, Clinton, and Trump: From Strategy to Spin to Straight-Up Bullshit

By Martin Jay

…cks the coalition-building skills that a certain bending of the truth can abet. He is willing to insult those whose support might help him actually gain power. The link between politics and politeness—both of which draw on artifice to smooth over conflict—is one he both understands and repudiates. As suicidal as it has proven to be, his refusal to change his behavior to appear more “presidential” has a certain integrity to it, which his supporters…