Search for "VIPREG2024 1xbet promo code no deposit Costa Rica"

The Cynical Use of “Freedom of Religion”

By Kate Childs Graham

…Alliance Defense Fund (ADF)—who considers itself the antithesis of the American Civil Liberties Union—launched their “Pulpit Initiative” to combat the 1954 Johnson Amendment. ADF considers the restriction a violation of a church’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Pulpit Initiative White Paper states: The prohibition also violates the free exercise of religion. Under the Free Exercise Clause, laws are closely scrutinized by…

Gimme That Old Spice Religion

By Frederick Clarkson

…ews. Doug Phillips on the Vision Forum Web site, explicitly opposes the American cultural and Constitutional doctrines related to religious pluralism, claiming that Jesus is the only lawmaker. He believes that Americans have fallen away from the true biblical order and models for manliness, stating: “the absence of biblical patriarchy leads to male effeminacy which leads to homosexuality. Biblical patriarchy must be re-established within the home….

Gay: The Superior Lifestyle

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…lthy gays and lesbians want to end our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinners they are.” As a Christian, who just also happens to be a lesbian, I take offense at this continuing campaign on the religious right to promote this false dichotomy of gays vs. God. No one in the gay and lesbian community wants to curb anyone’s “religious freedom.”…

Is Christianity Simply About God Entering the Uterus of a Jewish Virgin?

By Eric Reitan

…the only tool we have for evaluating beliefs about what transcends the empirical world. Caricatures can be useful in calling attention to things we might not otherwise notice. But caricatures cease to be useful when they’re confused with the real thing; when the critic invites his audience to deride the real thing based on the absurdity of the caricature. This is what Dawkins does in his little “note” to potential Free Inquiry subscribers. And it…

Angels & Demons: America’s Preeminent Pop Theologian Takes on Religion and Science

By Nathan Schneider

…this process in all its triumph and inevitable tragedy. Angels & Demons caricatures the traditional position well, though with a fraction of the grace. Says a scientist in the book who didn’t quite make it to the movie: Mr. Langdon, all questions were once spiritual. Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in the gaps that science did not understand… Soon all Gods will be proven to be false idols. Scienc…

The Return of Christian Terrorism

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…in this past year—unfortunately coinciding with the tenure of the first African-American president in US history. When Chip Berlet, one of this country’s best monitors of right-wing extremism, warned in a perceptive essay last week on RD that the hostile right-wing political climate in this country has created the groundwork for a demonic new form of violence and terrorism, I fear that he is correct. Christian Warrior, Sacred Battle Though these…

Capitalism and the Anti-Modern Pope

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ture? The answer seems relatively clear. The Church is growing in South America, in sub-Saharan Africa, and is even making significant inroads in the Far East. And what these emerging Catholic populations want is a culturally conservative theology (recall the uproar in these same regions when the openly gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, was confirmed). The code word for most of that uproar is “anti-Modern.” So the irony of Catholic anti-Modernis…

The Gray Lady’s Regard: Ritual and the Wedding Pages

By Kathryn Lofton

…seafood display equipment comprises a professional consultancy. This is America: anything, including society ascendance, is yours for the having. Then you read more closely, and you realize that whatever career fair these folks attended had seriously curtailed options. Words like “associate” and “analyst” and “manager” abound, whereas words like “union” and “paramedic” and “zookeeper” are nowhere to be found. Everyone seems to be a lawyer or a pro…

Rebuilding the Wall of Separation: A Progressive Discussion on Church & State

By Bruce Ledewitz

…, which was accomplished at the federal level without much controversy, America did not practice separation in the sense usually meant today. Since America’s public square always contained references to God and other religious images, it can be said with confidence that at least most leading figures did not see the Establishment Clause as forbidding something like the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or prayers at government-sponsored…

Jennifer’s Body and Why I Like Buffy’s Body Better

By W. Scott Poole

…is parish spent too much time in “company keeping.” After World War II, American car culture increased elder anxieties about adolescent sexual experimentation. By the 1980s, films like Hardbodies and Porky’s suggested that high school and spring break offered unlimited sexual exploration. By the 1990s, a new generation of parents learned from American Pie that not even dessert was safe from the adolescent libido. Horror films in the “slasher” genr…