Religion Dispatches
…ario, Jains run a number of large institutions with many employees, a high number of whom are not Jain. At some point, a number of people realize that the current system is a complicated and inefficient way to feed people, and so there are attempts at reforming the system. One of the questions that the would-be reformers have to consider is: What do most people, in fact, eat? That’s important, because they are trying to craft a system that takes i…
Read More…d known for its cultural hostility to gay rights: sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1980, the number of Catholics in Africa has grown by 238 percent. Perhaps more important, 70 percent of them attend Sunday Mass regularly, compared with just 29 percent in the Americas. Some countries with the fastest growth — Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya — have or are considering laws that make homosexual acts punishable by long prison terms or, in some cases, execution. But…
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…single, yet overwhelming, scriptural text. Dictated by Joseph Smith on July 12, 1843, and now known as Doctrine and Covenants 132, the manuscript was forged in the fire of marital conflict, secret teachings, and swirling rumors. It was created for an intended audience of one, yet now remains binding on millions. And the document’s various legacies continue to shape how the modern LDS tradition views gender, marriage, and the church itself. Even th…
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…trend? Sorry. If you compare Obama’s tally with those of the campaigns from 1980 to 2000, there is little significance to the numbers. There are a few anecdotal blips, but there is no trend. Kerry was an unusually miserable candidate, and his numbers were below those from other years. If you look at trends since 1972, we can see blips for Carter (Born-Again) and Reagan (vehicle of the New Right); but since Reagan, the numbers do not suggest that c…
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…m Plurality For the first time ever (or perhaps just since sometime between 1000 and 1600 CE when The Plague decimated the European Christian population, according to footnote #2 of the report), in 2070 there will be more Muslims in the world than Christians. Between 2010 and 2050 the Muslim population is projected to grow by 73%, far outpacing the total population growth rate of 35%. Islam is not likely to keep up that growth rate forever as fert…
Read More…the first quarter of 2015, over 24% of LGBQ Hoosiers reported that they had 14 or more “unhealthy days” each month. By the end of the year, that number had jumped to nearly 60%. Heterosexual people in Indiana did not report any significant increase in the number of unhealthy days, and surrounding regions experienced no similar spikes among LGBQ or straight populations. That suggests that something insidious in Indiana was impacting LGBQ people. Of…
Read More…ral judgeships.” Podesta, they continue, “also worked for Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1995 as White House staff secretary and Assistant to the President,” where he “worked to suppress investigations of presidential wrongdoing and helped shortcut the impeachment of Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky perjury scandal.” In a recent edition of Jerusalem Report, Mike Evans, the head of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, wrote: “The question in the minds of many eld…
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…aseline, and then the wealthiest people with the highest net worth would be 10, 15, 25 times—whatever the economist figured out was best, not the thousand-fold or ten thousand-fold difference that we have now. We have to look at the past, and especially the hunter-gatherer past, through such a tiny peephole. There are just a few hunter-gatherer societies that have managed to survive on the fringes, and not much more. Exactly. They are poor surroga…
Read More…er of nine anti-evolution bills introduced in state legislatures since Jan. 1. The latest is Texas’ HB 2454, which would prohibit an institution of higher learning from “discrimination related to research related into intelligent design.” “PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RESEARCH RELATED TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN. An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or a…
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…ist facing the bewildering array of current economic problems stick to the numbers or engage in psychological analysis? We could do worse than break down the current cast of characters based on that question and that approach. Greenspan was a number cruncher, Brooks observed, and unfortunately for him, human psychology caught up with him in the “housing bubble.” The current debate over Timothy Geithner is being conducted in similar terms. No one d…
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