Religion Dispatches
…misguided, or irrelevant, or unhelpful. Here is one number worth crunching politically. To continue to argue in this fashion as unemployment figures surpass the double-digit mark nationwide is to render your own economic analysis misguided and irrelevant. Where there is rage, there is often a reason. The riots in Paris and Athens and elsewhere could easily be a harbinger of far greater populist unrest right here at home….
Read More…ly on such creationist code words as “teaching the controversy,” “academic freedom,” or “critical analysis.” However, in the case of Florida, the bill’s sponsoring lawmaker Rep. Stephen Wise had proposed similar legislation in 2009. The bill died in committee, but not before he spoke publicly about wanting to see intelligent design taught alongside evolution to promote “critical thinking.”…
Read More
…r family. I think the optimal level is one that would afford a lifestyle similar to what middle class Americans have now for everybody on earth. At that point, we could live as flagrantly, as profligately, as we might wish—not that I’d recommend that, but we could—because there’d be so relatively few of us compared to the number we have now. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to be born on that planet: 200 years in the future. Only 100 mi…
Read More…e hard data pointing to the tangible detrimental health impacts such discrimination induces serve as a sobering reminder that the suggestion that LGBTQ people “just go to another baker” doesn’t begin to solve the problem. Seeing your life, your family, and your very existence vilified, debated, and boiled down to a few overly broad talking points on the national stage has a real cost—and it’s one that many in the LGBTQ community, who already exper…
Read More
…ots. In the case of self-driving cars we are told that while a human being might individually learn from a driving mistake, every new self-driving car will learn from a driving mistake made by a self-driving car. The internet, unlike humans, has the capability for unending improvement; seen this way it’s a benevolent force, empowering people of good will and improving the world. Herzog doesn’t spend much time exploring the everyday experience of t…
Read More…sbians undergo ‘cooperation marriages,’ as reported in China. Oppressive family dynamics to remain gendernormative push some transgender youth to the streets to avoid violence, shame and anguish, as documented in Myanmar. In the region, and globally, personal religious beliefs and affiliation are typically seen as powerful predictors of attitudes about sex, sexuality and gender diversity. However, cross-national differences in cultural orientation…
Read More
…ill go to Mina, etc. There is still no address for the hotels, but a local phone number. There is also information about processing customs at Jeddah, meeting the tour guide, and information that says “the group” will proceed to Makkah—which means the first will have to wait for the last person, which is the beginning of feeling like you are a group. They even include suggestions to “get to know” your fellow travelers. I still had no idea what wer…
Read More
…ch worse than the feedback I got from the “angry atheists.” How did your coming out give your son permission to come out as an atheist, and your brother to come out as a survivor of clergy sexual abuse? I’ve never thought of it this way. When the first person takes the step, it seems like other people have courage to stand up. I’m very proud and supportive of both my son and my brother. What reaction did you get when the Humanist Community at Harv…
Read More
…century. Recent events might seem to only confirm this assessment. A fair-minded observer might plausibly ask, “Are Muslims nuts?” Although, to be entirely fair-minded, for the thousands who did protest against “The Innocence of Muslims,” well over a billion and a half did not. As Megan Reif’s study notes, our media has dramatically exaggerated the response (with Newsweek’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali piling on with her usual opportunistic silliness). Still,…
Read More
…n moral values as a broad commitment to care for all people, while another might have in mind a series of distinct theological positions. The former isn’t likely to clash with the church-state boundary while the latter almost certainly does. Taken as a whole, the survey indicates that Christian nationalism isn’t a popular platform, even among White evangelicals. When respondents are presented with specific pieces of the project, they reject them,…
Read More