Religion Dispatches
…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
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…users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls to porn and other “improper” destinations for these conservative groups. The same…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
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…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…
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…ion, and a debrief Q&A with one of MNDFL’s 27 teachers. Special deals are available for your first month of visits. “In this branded form, it offers both health benefits and pleasure, and it can be delivered in the context of a straightforward consumer transaction.” Not counting the orgasmic meditation chain OneTaste, MNDFL is the East Coast’s first for-profit meditation studio. As a cynic might point out, it looks an awful lot like a privatized t…
Read More…rters and allies, can join together to openly and publicly celebrate our work, our identities, and our lives!” says Polina Andrianova, one of the festival organizers….
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…not “misspeaking” or making a gaffe; rather she was signaling to her conservative evangelical base that she too was aware that the Rapture was imminent—and with it would come the fulfillment of biblical prophecy concerning the return of the Jews to Zion. In Going Rogue, Palin wistfully recalls the church of her youth: Back in Wasilla, the most ‘alive’ congregation was our local Assembly of God, so my siblings and I attended Sunday School there and…
Read More…ures, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia college, pending an investigation. The commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels who sat in Dooley’s classroom, listening to the inflammatory material week after week, have now moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military. For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has be…
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…nce classrooms. And the results: students learn to appreciate science, its value, and how it works without rejecting or having to choose one worldview or another, and they learn the relevant science better than in a traditional science classroom. Is it worth rethinking science education? Improving educator training so they can do this effectively? Absolutely. I bet more Americans would be attracted to, appreciate and consider careers in science (t…
Read More…es ECI’s leadership – knows this to be the case. Which makes ECI’s video a cheap lie — yet another in a long litany of desperate efforts by the far right to convert the largely liberal American Jewish community to neo-conservatism, hawkish policies on Israel, and the belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a Muslim. That said, there actually are two interesting forms of antisemitism going on here. First is the antisemitism of ECI itself. To tug at…
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