Religion Dispatches
…roy successfully included in the Texas’ science standards such creationist code as “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil records.” Another amendment says students will: “analyze and evaluate the scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.” The wording could be used to justify the adoption of pro-intellig…
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…rector of Communications for the Archdiocese, said that, as the court case between Hernandez and Birge is still pending, the church would not comment, but added that volunteers and lay leaders are subject to background checks, and that under no circumstances would an alleged aggressor be transferred to another church, as Hernandez had effectively been moved to Colorado Springs. In 2010, Birge added the Archdiocese as a co-defendant, arguing that t…
Read More…to determine the constitutionality of section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which criminalizes the practice of polygamy, in light of sections of the Canadian Charter of Freedom pertaining to religious and civil liberties. Polygamy-practicing Mormons began fleeing to Mexico and Canada in the 1880s, after US Supreme Court Justices upheld the conviction of George Reynolds on polygamy charges in 1879, declaring polygamy an “odious” “Asiatic” prac…
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…nd active commitment to “social justice,” something that Beck has said are code words for Communism and Nazism. Look, Frank Capra wasn’t exactly known for his subtle messages. Yet, somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market ideological Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks Mr. Potter is the hero…
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…ldare to ER. In Chinese culture, acupuncture is similarly reinforced and encoded as effective therapy. Antibiotics, and apparently also acupuncture, work regardless of your belief system—but they work better if you believe in them. Double-Blind The history of medicine up until the last century was essentially the history of the placebo effect. Double-blind, randomized control trials are now the gold standard in medical research and have only been…
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…ality to Nazism. There was, of course, no need to debate Catholics for Equality’s mission by mentioning Soros. The fact that NOM did speaks to an effort to deploy conservative tropes about who is or isn’t the “real” religious person, and to drop code that political adversaries betray God to support evil. But it was Gallagher who had the gall to call out Catholics for Equality in her prepared remarks. “There is still time to repent,” she said witho…
Read More…ed into the “founding principles,” “Judeo-Christian” foundation, and other code, but they did more. They wept; they told stories about soldiers and family members; they evoked imagery of mountains climbed and enemies vanquished. Mitt Romney, though? Not so much. Speaking directly after Pence, who since the inaugural Values Voters Summit in 2006, has always invoked the language of the religious right base, Romney was at a disadvantage. He was borin…
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…r PPP coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif. There is a long history of disputes between the governor and the chief minister of Punjab before the blasphemy issue came to the center of the storm. So, many questions remain about the murder, the motive, and whether Qadri acted alone. It is also unclear how long the PPP government will last given the steady erosion of their coalition since the the Muslim League (Nawaz) broke away shortly after the elections…
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…d not permit boys and girls to talk to each other, demanded a strict dress code, taught that girls should never run, and demanded that girls style their hair wavy—not straight or curly—because “wavy hair is attractive and becoming—it causes you to focus on the woman’s face instead of her body.” Gothard’s approved wavy hairstyle is meant, she said, “to attract men to your bright eyes, which will attract them to God, instead of your body.” Eliza ela…
Read More…l was also a good way to “house” a lot of people without running into fire code violations. I could not find any other religious events advertised. Could it be that people of other faiths simply held private devotions? Perhaps, but more likely the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and their friends were the major sponsors of the whole weekend but just wanted it to appear more broadly based. The Poli…
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