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America, Religious Values, and the Death Penalty; Or, If it Was Good Enough for Jesus and Socrates…

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…problems with this argument are two-fold: first and foremost, there is no statistical evidence to suggest that it is true. States that had a death penalty, got rid of it, then brought it back again, display no shift whatsoever in their rates of violent crime and/or homicide. The reasons for this are not far to find. Most violent crimes are crimes of passion, not premeditation. Deterrence would presumably only work for crimes that are premeditated…

The Rise and Fall of an American Gang: Religion as Camouflage?

By Spencer Dew

…hey note “wasn’t actually involved in a street gang,” as someone who was just “boasting” rather than plotting. The thrust here seems to be that, like the “candy corn-colored system that rates the levels of terrorism threats against the Unites States” which the authors deride, the case against Batiste and his accomplices is a case of overzealous policing (“all done in the name of homeland security”) rather than a legitimate response to a real dang…

Sanctuary and the Second Amendment: Do Guns Deserve Special Protection?

By Rosalind C. Hughes

…access as “sanctuaries” is a callous appropriation of the term given that statistically speaking, more guns means more gun violence and more loss of innocent life.” Indeed, the tradition of sacred spaces as gun-free (weapon-free, violence-free, force-free) zones makes the use of sanctuary language in recent “Second Amendment Sanctuary” legislation curious. The turn from the use of “sanctuary” from its origins in restricting vengeance, violent enf…

Proof-Texting at the Sugar Bowl: Tebow’s Big Finale

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…se of inscribing Bible verses on one’s cheeks each week? Who is the intended audience for such a thing? One’s self, a television audience, or God? When Mother Theresa was asked what she prayed when she prayed, she a had a startling answer: “mostly, I just listen.” It is the noisiness of the new televised religious machinery, blasting one verse at a time, that makes it very difficult to listen, very difficult to hear, and thus very difficult to thi…

Rick Warren’s Biblical Blowback

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ir policing and judicial functions. But that is not at all what Warren’s most astonishing claim (in bold above) actually calls to mind. Rather, it is utterly and thoroughly of the Old Testament; and it reads those scriptures completely backward. Let me explain why. One of the great mysteries for any careful reader of the Bible is the book of Joshua, with its staggering depiction of what appears to be a God-ordained genocide of Canaanites, includin…

Newt’s Obama-Bashing Trinity

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ed Boston Tea Party involved the destruction of private property as a protest against taxation without representation. Is Newt Gingrich inciting Americans to riot, or revolt? Is he suggesting that we do not have proper representation in the legislature, or simply that it is too Democratic? Is he simply whining about paying taxes in time of war? It is a perplexing symbolic protest that seems designed to weaken the current administration and its cit…

Yale Clings to Racist Legacy… And Cash. Lots of Cash.

By Peter Laarman

…ke in that Sen. Calhoun was no ordinary racist but was, in fact, the foremost and most ferocious advocate of racial subjugation during the antebellum period. Calhoun’s famous “slavery a positive good” speech needs to be read through to get a feel for this man’s snaky brilliance (Calhoun was Yale’s valedictorian in 1804). But it was brilliance put to an evil end. Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson undoubtedly did much harm to African Americans by bringing…

Anti-Gay Tour Organizer Comes Out for Gay Marriage, Renounces Hate

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ple whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people for me almost instantly. For the first time I had empathy for them and remember asking myself what I was doing. Marinelli’s story of conversion is eye-opening, and shows just how even those most virulently opposed to marriage equality can have their minds changed when gay and lesbian people come out and simply show themselves to be the real human beings that they are. The counter-prot…

The VP Debate: Sassy Meets the Statesman

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…as been enormously dangerous. In an election of this magnitude, can we really afford the vacuous persona Sarah Palin continues to put on as her sassiest and strongest suit? +++ See also: You Lost the Debate, By Mary E. Hunt…

Greed, Socialism and the Free Market

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ally harnesses competition, and uses it. Communism and socialism, by contrast, were simply too optimistic about human beings’ cooperative instincts. The victory of capitalism as an economic theory thus relied on its more realistic and sober assessment of human nature. Call it an economic version of original sin. Here’s the puzzling thing, then. If capitalism is more realistic about human greed and human nature, then how does that become an argumen…