Religion Dispatches
…ebook, where some 92% of social network users have a profile. Among a long list of virtues, Pew researchers found that: * Facebook users are more trusting than non-SNS users. * Facebook users have more close relationships than non-SNS users. * Facebook users get more social support than non-SNS users. * Facebook revives “dormant” relationships that are lost to non-SNS users. After a couple years of being derided for their brain-rotted shallowness,…
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…year after year? I do not know the longer history of these year-end death lists, or why media both old and new have embraced this annual practice. The lists are neither exhaustive nor comprehensive—most of them are cultural repositories of once living people who are no longer, ghosts now brought to the public eye and representing… what? Fame? Accomplishment? Impact? Tragedy? All these are relevant, no doubt. Sacred Roll Call But there is somethin…
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…di. Tennis instilled the value of fair play and self-discipline. While the list of Bedi’s tennis championships is quite long, she’s quick to point out that sister Anu was the real tennis star of the family. (Ranked number one in India for several years and a three-time National Champion, Anu Peshawaria represented India at Wimbledon, the Asian Games, and Universiad.) Sports also taught Bedi to love the fun of challenge. “I learned that the energy…
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…tates, nor have there been any Iranian or Iraqi terrorists. Donald Trump’s list of banned nations is comprised of nothing more than the most vulnerable of Muslim countries, six of whom we’ve bombed or used in proxy wars. Like all bullies, he has found a soft and weak target to point his finger at. Some may take heart that his order only focuses on a small number of countries, but if his authoritarian tendencies remain consistent, then we should kn…
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…omes down to. You just don’t collect stamps. So how can you be a fundamentalist non-stamp collector? It’s like sleeping furiously. It’s just wrong.” The New College of the Humanities “is not an atheist institution,” Grayling and other spokespeople for the university have stated repeatedly. But it’s hard to imagine Richard Dawkins soft-pedaling on the topic of religion. Grayling insists that he’s not as vehement as his colleague. “I’m the velvet ve…
Read More…every civilization and religious identity was united against the two. In a list of “Future Military Service Medals,” for his new Europe, Breivik describes the “Multi-Cultural Force Medal” that would be awarded “for military cooperation with nationalist Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and/or atheist forces (non-European) on Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish territory. These efforts must be directed against Jihadi or cultural Marxist forces, personnel or interests…
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…e Williams Jennings Bryan,” the late 19th-century Democrat and fervent populist who also had a penchant for gold. To his credit (and our panic), Bannon was surprisingly straightforward about his ideological goals for the next four years. He repeatedly called himself (and by extension, the president) an “economic nationalist,” point-blank admitting that the goal of Trump’s picks for regulatory leadership positions is “the deconstruction of the regu…
Read More…rasound bill “is that, when presented with all the information, every person can make the right choice, the only choice, life.” And if you are thinking of the “wrong” choice? Texas and other states require doctors to warn women of a list of medically-debunked ills that, I noted recently, “reads like a list of plagues God will rain down on a disobedient people.” Trudeau’s satire might work better if he focused on that, rather than repeating the da…
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…tream). Terry Jones is one recent example with his attack on Islam but the list is long and includes such figures as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell. 2. The Christian fundamentalists are not alone in this religious obsession. In fact, most religions project end-of-the world scenarios. Taking a step back from the current focus on Camping and thinking more comparatively, it is clear that most religious movements and communities incorp…
Read More…voting for the final bill, has sued the anti-choice group Susan B. Anthony List for defamation for claiming that he “voted for taxpayer-funded abortion.” Driehaus lost his seat to a Republican challenger last month. On the broader question of the mandate, even before the health care law passed, though, Christian opponents of the individual mandate succeeded in obtaining an exemption for members of health care sharing ministries on religious ground…
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