Religion Dispatches
Among the least remarked upon, but most interesting aspects of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was his mention of the “rapid changes” in today’s world, which has been “shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith.” While Benedict has had to deal with a number of volatile political and theological issues in recent years, it may have been the startling changes in communications technology that made the whole thing ultimately untenabl…
Read More…efs; and is a non-profit organization as described in the Internal Revenue Code. Religious organizations protested that this four-pronged test would only exempt houses of worship, but not, say, a church that served people of different faiths through a soup kitchen. Under the new proposed rule (which is still subject to a public comment period), an employer seeking an exemption would only have to meet the forth prong of the test, thus widely expand…
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…tities and prophets” under articles 98, 160, and 161 of the Egyptian Penal Code. According to Egypt News Daily, the prosecution first sought to charge him in connection with disseminating Innocence of Muslims but when this accusation was proven false, they revised their strategy to target the content of Saber’s video blog. Though sentenced to three years and released on bail he was subsequently locked up due to a clerical error before being releas…
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…ignificance is not support for communities of color or fairness in the tax code, but rather alignment with cosmic forces of enlightenment, it makes some sense. Post-millennial lefties tend to be really scary, or really wacky, or both. In pop culture, they inhabit films like Fight Club or the latest Batman flick: utopian idealists who will use any means, including violence, to bring about the transformation they seek. In practice, though, they tend…
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…families in concrete ways. He’s talking about a “more family-friendly tax code.” He wants the government to pay people to procreate. It’s a “big government” Republicans can get behind—a “baby government.” Though women of childbearing age are the people Douthat wants to get busy getting pregnant, he doesn’t talk about women very much—or the social, physical, and financial costs women still pay for having kids. Douthat blames women without talking…
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…abel suggests) are typically represented by what they are not. They—or at least many of them—do not believe in God, they are charged with lacking “values,” and are suspected of not really being American. But this is nonsense. The unaffiliated do have beliefs, just not necessarily about theistic entities; they have just as many “values” as any other group; and their presence is firmly rooted in American history in helping create the world’s first s…
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…global warming. Not a single hand went up. I travelled up the road to the Eastern Mennonite College at Harrisonburg and asked a similar number of Christian students the same question. Almost every hand shot up. 7. An Evangelical to Restore Scientific Integrity in DC? In August, much to the chagrin of new atheist Sam Harris, Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian who headed the Human Genome Project, was appointed director of the National Instit…
Read More…rence to “religious freedom” from Romney. Insiders know that the latter is code for exempting individuals and institutions from following government mandates on health care and provisions on anti-discrimination. But to the middle, Romney’s comment surely passed under the radar. And as for Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, even Paul Ryan is for that now. All this in the shadow of an unprecedented legal war against women’s reproductive choices, and an ever-morp…
Read More…ooklet’s content isn’t religious: This may be the first nonreligious moral code based wholly on common sense. It was written by L. Ron Hubbard as an individual work and it not part of any religious doctrine. Any reprinting or individual distribution of it does not infer connection with or sponsorship of any religious organization. It is therefore admissible for government departments and employees to distribute it as a nonreligious activity. (Repr…
Read More…wants to make us slaves again. Sigh. Palin’s over the top proclamation was coded in one of her specialty word salads that few can translate. Since I have been called the Palin Whisperer by one of my Twitter followers, let me give you the short version: Obama wants to make white people slaves!!!! In case you don’t want to watch the video, here’s the transcript: PALIN: Well, what we can glean from this is an understanding of why we are all on the ro…
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