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Tea Party 2.0, Ready For Post-Election Launch

By Julie Ingersoll

…hey distributed “6 million voter guides, 8 million mail pieces, 15 million phone calls, 500,000 doors knocked on by volunteers, and radio advertising covering 56 congressional districts and 22 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races,” they are now (apparently as I write this) surveying voters to learn “who went to the polls and why.” Instructive for those of us who follow the influence of the religious right on the tea party movement (arguing that it’…

If You Were Faced With Him

By Amina Wadud

…picked up quickly and loaded the dishwasher, I said yes. Then I checked my phone. Like many people, I keep it on silent unless I’m expecting a call, so I missed a called from my youngest daughter. Instead she left a text message. It read: “your hajj packgat came” (sic) I burst out crying. So much so that my other daughter came forward and said, “What’s wrong?!” I couldn’t speak. I just showed her the text message and cried and hugged her. To her c…

Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

By Daniel Schultz

…ould soon be at war. Traffic stopped, there were no planes in the sky, the phone didn’t ring. I supported the war to come, with only the reservation of who held the keys of command. Still, the enemies of the good must be punished, must be denied the safety of even a parched rocky hillside in a poor land. In 2002 and 2003, the grim infection of another war became more and more certain. I did not support this war. It was wrong, and I said so from my…

Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

By John Horgan

…athematics exam. Others were less likely to let a classmate use their cell phone. “Some philosophical analyses may conclude that a fatalistic determinism is compatible with highly ethical behavior,” the psychologist Jesse Bering comments in an article on these studies, “but the present results suggest that many laypersons do not yet appreciate that possibility.” Theologians have proposed that science still allows faith in a “God of the gaps,” who…

Facebook: Internet Highway to Hell

By Anthea Butler

…become the latest “sinful” activity. Perhaps Rev. Miller should get on the phone to Sarah Palin, and counsel her about her kids’ activity on Facebook. Bristol Palin found time from her “Dancing with the stars” practice to get on Facebook with her sister Willow to ride on a friend who had the chutzpah to say “Sarah Palin’s Alaska is failing so hard right now.” Willow’s response was to call the poster a gay slur, and Bristol jumping in the fray to r…

Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

By Holly Welker

…lt, particularly since the church wouldn’t leave me alone. (I got repeated phone calls, letters, and visits to my home from missionaries and people in the congregation, despite formal requests that they stop.) Eventually I sought a community of people also striving to come to terms with what it meant to have been but no longer be a devout Mormon. Luckily a diverse community of ex-, post-, or lapsed Mormons (we differ on what to call ourselves) thr…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…ou need to know to keep on reading? I’d cheerfully watch that man read the phone book. So, when my buddy Rev. El Mundo sent me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the pie…

Pope Invites his Flock to Join Facebook: Is the Digital Reformation Here?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…g with regard to religious practice in particular. Both internet and smart phone users were more likely to participate in religious or spiritual groups than were people who do not regularly use digital media. By “participate,” the researchers were referring to physical, geographically located, face-to-face engagement: attending meetings, volunteering, taking leadership roles, and donating money. In all of these categories, participation was higher…

Looking For Answers at the Oscars: A Guide to This Year’s Contenders

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…etimes communication technologies facilitated that friendship (a letter, a phone call). In the new age the structure is reversed as friendships are built upon those very communication technologies. We are now databases, plugged into a network. Face-to-face friendships have become interface friendships. A more ethereal ethernet was evoked in Inception. Here too people are linked to each other through a social network, and here too identities are…

Lila Rose Targets Planned Parenthood with Lies

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…And commenter Karen West writes: “Lila has the beauty and brains to do any number of things, but instead, she is laying down her life for those most innocent of all.” But not everyone on the religious right believes that Lila Rose is acting out God’s will, let alone laying down her life. After all, Lila Rose lies in order to get the footage she seeks. She and her colleagues pose as underage pregnant teens, as sex traffickers, as statutory rapists….