Religion Dispatches
…nder of Farm Forward, met with Cubit co-editor Andrew Aghapour at a coffee shop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to explore how religion applies to elephants, dogs, chimpanzees, and factory farming. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. As a scholar of religion, why do you think it’s wrong see religion as exclusive to humans? I think most of us have the sense that whatever religion means, it’s not obvious. It’s complicated, perhaps…
Read More…p.” A native of India, Mr. Sen had saved enough money to open a small copy shop. While he had no family in the U.S., he had friends and associates who were part of this new life. While he was a Hindu, Sen had a Muslim roommate with whom he frequently discussed matters of belief. And when they did, Mr. Sen expressed his deep disappointment that there was so much violence in the world on account of religion. No matter Ms. Menendez’ psychiatric state…
Read More
…of criminals and crime. It’s so great that few complain about Uvalde’s cop shop sucking up 40 percent of the town’s yearly budget. The influence of American police departments on public opinion is deeply rooted in the reason cop shops exist—yes, to “protect and serve,” sometimes, but more often to serve as the last line of defense against democratic forces threatening to flatten the old orders of social and political power. Cops are white power in…
Read More
…s still largely up for debate. Religious scholars, journalists, and beauty shop theologians continue to wrestle with the concept. And others have become somewhat trigger-happy with the prosperity gospel tag. Any minister that is somewhat charismatic, wears nice clothes, and/or talks about the blessings of God gets sprayed with the label. This, in my opinion, is neither right nor fair. One can name a host of charismatic and somewhat ostentatious Ch…
Read More
…If not, why? Is it the music (the genre being very particular to the Anglophone world)? the underlying thought of treating “Muhammad as punk rocker?” BU: What an ignorant question. Anglophone world? Punk is ten times bigger in Kuala Lampur than it ever will be in the UK, France, or Germany. Or America. No, the reason for forming the Dead Bhuttos, and the rush to put a single online was to show, at least cosmetically, that Pakistan was as capable…
Read More
…your children are in the gulags as the invaders from foreign lands set up shop in your house, eat the food off your table, and take the toys out of your children’s hands. To prevent this, Posobiec claimed ominously, Trump’s followers will have to: […] get the message across by any means necessary before the unhumans have their way and erase you permanently from the history books. Take the path of the hunter, and with one singular voice, we are go…
Read More
…st centuries. That’s why, for the most part, you’ve never heard of them. Bishops, archbishops and the Vatican do serve as arbiters of hundreds of sightings and miracles each year, addressing and mediating a steady stream of beliefs that arise around the world. Since the creation of new criteria for Marian apparitions in 1978, hundreds of sightings have been studied, and at least 12 were formally approved as of 2008—according to most numbers (altho…
Read More
The Inquisition is back, and this time it has set up shop at the United Nations. Consider the resolution “Combating the Defamation of Religions” passed by a comfortable margin last week at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (and passed by the General Assembly every year since 2005). The resolution decries a “campaign of defamation of religions,” intensifying since 2001, in which “the media” and “extremist organizations” are “perpetuating stere…
Read More
…ressed in their flannels and Doc Martens like they were headed to a coffee shop in Seattle. And then there was the clan of wealthy white male students, whose fathers were top doctors at the best L.A. hospitals or executives at the biggest movie studios, who let their pants sag, tagged anything that didn’t move with graffiti, seemingly wanting to rewrite their own history to appear as if they grew up on the streets of Compton instead of Rodeo Drive…
Read More
The numbers are hard to pin down, but roughly 1.1 million Americans keep kosher in their homes. Around 15 million are vegetarian. Meanwhile, according to a 2013 survey, more than 100 million Americans are trying to cut down on gluten, and (as of 2014) more than 10 million households are gluten-free. Simply put, gluten avoidance is the reigning dietary restriction of our time. The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat Alan Levinovitz Rega…
Read More