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Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…the Old Testament because they’re long and boring…” Here pauses. “Granted, Numbers is like…” “I like Numbers, but anyway…” mumbles Caleb. “The real impetus for the game,” Thomas resumes, “is to get people to engage in Scripture and read stories they’ve never read before. When a concubine is cut up into twelve pieces, that imagery is really offensive. But a lot of people didn’t even know that story existed in the Bible.” I suspect they’re right; re…

How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God?: An Interview with Jacob Needleman

By Lisa Webster

…e that I saw that it was true. You refer to the idea of the human being as microcosm, or miniature universe, and how self-knowledge can open onto a more universal understanding. But how about the social? What happens when human beings come together? The best and the worst of humanity comes in groups. Think of the difference between a mob and a community. A mob is low level—with no insult intended to animals—but it’s a bestial mass, a herd obeying…

What Can a Real Life Haunting Tell Us About American Religion? [Updated]

By Daniel Wise

…ouse. She reported that, whenever she tried to speak to this friend on the phone in the house about the haunting, the phone connection would be interrupted. As a busy woman with two kids, Maria doesn’t always have a lot of time to devote to spirituality, but when she does, she often relies on intuition. In the case of the haunting, she reports that her intuition pointed her toward the conclusion that it’s the land on which the house was built that…

Will Catholic Voters Support LGBT Rights in Washington State?

By Joanna Brooks

…the decision will be made. We are participating in a Catholic-to-Catholic phone bank that Washington United for Marriage has set up on Wednesday nights and we assist with the larger phone bank at the Jewish synagogue downtown. A great deal of our work is communicating with Catholics on our email list and Facebook. As a Catholic, how does your faith shape your views on marriage for LGBT people? My faith blossomed in the 1960s after Vatican II. I h…

Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data

By Chrissy Stroop

…od, as the pluralism inherent in democracy demands. With respect to the terminology of “coming out,” one of the qualitative responses included in Reality Check, identified as coming from a female respondent in Kentucky, reads in part, “Joining an atheist/humanist meetup group helped me have the courage to ‘come out’ with my secular beliefs. Prior to having a social group, I felt alone without a way to overcome judgement from religious family membe…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ublished a commentary this week arguing that anti-gay discrimination “undermines economic growth and is un-African.” She applauded South Africa’s support for the Resolution on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that, as we reported last week, was adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council, while noting there is much more work to be done to safeguard LGBTI people in South Africa and the rest of the continent. …South Africa must be a…

Education, Texas-Style

By Lauri Lebo

…ng, “You, sir, are a cheater!” Because from the perspective of the literal-minded (and fundamentalists are nothing if not literal-minded), it’s not unreasonable to argue that separation of church is a myth because nowhere in the First Amendment does it actually say that. Of course, such an argument reveals an utter lack of understanding of the inter-workings of the three branches of U.S. governments, the basics of most high school civics classes….

Mormons Prepare to March in LGBT Pride Parades Nationwide

By Joanna Brooks

…ty [women’s auxiliary] meeting was a Proposition 8 organizing meeting—with phone trees and the bishop coming in and saying you’ve got to do this. We just left shaking, and she hasn’t gone back. She never set foot in that building again. Through my kids’ eyes, I see things in a fresh way. So I was thinking about the Utah Pride Parade, which is now almost bigger than the Days of ’47 [Pioneer Day parade commemorating Mormon pioneers]. This is a para…

A Tale of Religious Tolerance… On Reddit

By Joanna Piacenza

…progress for this world in any way I can. After watching his mobile upload turn against him, “european_douchebag” finally apologized to the online community, Kaur, Sikhs in general and anyone else who might have taken offense to his posting. Reddit in search of mindless memes beware: between the cat videos and bizarre news stories you might just find some religious tolerance….

The Lady Vanishes: Trump’s Communications Team Tries to Topple a Monument

By Spencer Dew

…Reactions across the globe—and across the political spectrum—took note of Miller’s misstep, either explicitly evoking the language of religion (“Is Nothing Sacred?” asked the headline in the Guardian, which began with the ominous line: “The surest mark of regime change is when they start attacking the statues.”) or implicitly reiterating the civil faith Acosta bore witness to by running poignant pictures of Lady Liberty as a manifestation of shar…