Religion Dispatches
…e, double personalities from those of their namesakes. In the “real,” historical realm, Locke and Hume were empiricists, they had to see it to believe it, but in the show they are the most fideistic, operating by their hunches and intuitions. Meanwhile, Shephard stands in contrast to his namesake at the beginning of the series as he is the man of science. Eventually he seems to change his stance. Hume also becomes Odysseus, who chases, especially…
Read More…hey leave Kazangula en route to a half dozen other countries in southern Africa? How many towns like Kazangula exist across sub-Saharan Africa? What is the infection rate of the women in those towns? What is the infection rate of the truckers? What is the infection rate of the wives of those truck drivers back in the villages around this region? How do we address it? The town of Kazungula would make an ideal location for a long-term sociological s…
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…mes below the dividing line stand for fictional characters. The same color code was applied to match an author to his/her fictional creation.) First, what this diagram shows is a continuum of diminishing intensity of God-hatred from left to center: from rage, to hatred, to anger, to resentment. And, as we can see, as the intensity of hatred for the “real” God diminishes, it enters a phase where it can coexist with the diminished hatred for a God…
Read More…e Church of Body Modification has run into trouble with her school’s dress code. The 14-year-old is looking at a ten day suspension if she returns to school wearing her prohibited nose ring. In Roswell, New Mexico, a group of students have been suspended for giving their teachers boxes of doughnuts with religious messages attached to them. Romania has decided not to tax its witches and fortunetellers. One reason being that the witches and fortunet…
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…se, whether the editors of Teen Vogue really did make a pact with Satan to promote sodomy. We’ll get to that, I promise. There are a few important things that have to be said first. In case you missed this latest episode of U.S. religious debate, the facts are pretty simple. Earlier this month, Teen Vogue posted an article on anal sex under the heading “Sexual Health & Identity.” (Deep breath! Yes, you have just read the phrase “anal sex” and not…
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…that they would do whatever the diocese instructed. A recent survey by America magazine staff confirmed my suspicions that the process is off to a rocky start: “Of the 196 churches contacted by America Media over the last month, 105 did not respond for comment. (Among these were three churches that were contacted late in the process. This article will be updated to reflect their responses.) Of the 91 that did, the vast majority had planned an ope…
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…ral character. Even respectable white women like Ford must comply with the code of silence protecting toxic masculinity. The demonization of Ford by the right is yet another indication of how low the GOP faithful are willing to go to gut human and civil rights. As ReproAction Network has noted, Kavanaugh’s repugnant record on women’s rights puts him in lockstep with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. His well-documented, insidious appellate co…
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…me that Jewish homosexuals today are far less emotionally stressed by the code that ruled out the possibility of being both Jewish and gay. Even among some Orthodox Jewish communities the issue is being addressed—though not yet resolved. I love your notion of “layered ethnographies”—in which you add to prior ethnographies rather than amend them. So, the ethnography of CBST includes the first and second editions of your book as well as subsequent…
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…ero may break down along party lines, but it also taps into the deep, historical ambivalence about religion and the state. Political Implications Salman Taseer was a businessman, publisher, and politician who knew full well how controversial and dangerous his position on the blasphemy laws was, indeed he tweeted about it on several occasions. Furthermore, he and his party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), were at odds with the regional governmen…
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…I would say that yoga, whether in the context of an Indian ashram or an American strip mall studio, has religious dimensions. Yogis themselves often point to those dimensions, though they don’t call them “religious,” in opposition to state regulation. For instance, yogis argue that yoga is a “way of life” that is “handed down from teacher to student” in the “sacred space” of a yoga studio. They point to yoga’s vastness, arguing that no government…
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