Religion Dispatches
…technology education. Of course, if it weren’t Bill Nye but the person two seats down at the dinner party, you’d hardly look up from your small talk and salad if you heard… AiG fired back with a video of its own attempting to address Nye’s points, though frankly it’s embarrassing. Nye then clarified his point on CNN, noting that in the original Big Think video above he was “talking about the use of tax dollars for science education”; that it’s fin…
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…litical party, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, has yet to win any major political seats (although that could change with the upcoming May elections.) Also, Khan can no longer command the fast ball like he did in the early ’90s. He is prone to political flip-flopping and also outlandish promises such as vowing to end corruption in Pakistan in 90 days. He doesn’t have facial hair, which is a problem even though the rest of his hair is really cool. (IX) The…
Read More…ry dictatorship. The current 2008 constitution reserves one quarter of the seats in both legislative bodies to delegates from the tatmadaw/military. It is hard to imagine Burma going back to its dark ages, yet within recent memory we can recall the dissolution of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia into ethnic and religious enclaves when soviet-style dictatorship ended. I hope for better in Burma, and look to the government of Burma—including President…
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…ere in church vans, are true believers. They were willing to stay in their seats during crucial camera pans so television viewers could feel the anointing, too. They spoke in tongues and were slain in the spirit, but not too much if it wouldn’t play well on TV. The sad genius of it all was the orchestration to make the audience feel like a crucial part of something huge, something God wanted, something that God was going to bless many times over w…
Read More…Tomasi and Scicluna spent some eight hours shifting uncomfortably in their seats, grimacing, lowering their gaze, laughing nervously, denying reality, and feigning gratitude for the Committee’s suggestions, Pope Francis was spending his time with one of the church’s most notorious enablers of violence against children by Catholic priests, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, former head of the LA Archdiocese. Not only did the Pope grant Mahoney an audience; th…
Read More…d that the film was intended to be a provocative political statement assailing the religion. He denied being Sam Bacile, the pseudonym for the video’s purportedly Israeli Jewish writer and director, but AP said the cellphone number it called for a telephone interview with Bacile on Tuesday matched Nakoula’s address. —- For more RD coverage of the events in Libya see “Tragic Violence in Libya: No Excuses,” by Haroon Moghul — ed….
Read More…nts than their quota allows. Most Muslim countries have a quota; a limited number of hajjis permitted from that country in any one year. This number is set by hajj authorities in Saudi Arabia, because, in all fairness, there has to be a cap on how many Muslims converge on the place. Right now, it stands at around 3 million! Countries with large populations of Muslims have many more applicants than their allotted number of pilgrims. This means you…
Read More…o Nazis and Communists. Last week British official released figures on the number of same-sex couples who got married between March 29 – the first day marriage was legally available in England and Wales, and June 30. Of the 1,409 marriages, 56 percent were to female couples. According to Gay Star News, about 120,000 people are in civil partnerships, which they will be able to convert to marriages beginning in December. Costa Rica: Survey Shows Spl…
Read More…ong after, the former acquaintance called to threaten Subhi from a Turkish phone number. Power noted that Subhi spoke at a recent UN Security Council Session, the first-ever dedicated to LGBT rights, which she said was an important precedent to set: But also, it allowed us to convey, in a single voice, and with the authority of the Security Council – which is the premiere global enforcement body for peace and security – it allowed us to convey tha…
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…Faith in the Public Square. In it, I argued that American Christians were selling out their religious identity for cheap political gain, and that they could help ensure their religious integrity if they took that identity off the market altogether by concealing it in public life. This approach would take seriously Jesus’ advice to pray in secret and to give alms without letting “your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3-6)….
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