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Possible Heir to Dalai Lama Cleared of Corruption Charges

By Tsering Namgyal

…e-in-exile once the Dalai Lama, now 75, is gone. – The Eds. The birth of a scandal I was there in Bodhgaya in the winter of 2006, attending a busy and crowded prayer ceremony organized by the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Devotees and pilgrims from all over the world, including China, had come there. I saw visitors from the Mainland China offering donations in Chinese currency, during a prayer session led by the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorj…

Want a Slurpee with Your Birth Control?

By Patricia Miller

…for, is that such a towering good that it would suffocate the rights of conscience?” It’s one of the bishops’ favorite arguments: that birth control is so cheap and so widely available that it isn’t even a question of whether the religious freedom of objecting organizations should be burdened by having to pay for it. The bishops have been claiming since 2012 that birth control is “ubiquitous and inexpensive” and anyone who wants it can get it wit…

‘We’re all in this together’: The Perils of Kumbaya Rhetoric

By Peter Laarman

Talk is cheap, and sentimental talk cheapens public discourse in dangerous ways at a time when total sobriety is required. Eight weeks into a public health and economic catastrophe, the facts before us should be sobering enough: Disease and death in this pandemic overwhelmingly afflict communities of color (e.g. despite making up just a third of the state’s population, 70% of the dead in Louisiana have been African American; in Michigan the numbe…

Holding Out for a Hero: New ID Book Aims to Save You From Despair of Evolution

By Kriti Sharma

…Dennett is the author of How the Mind Works. That title also requires a lot of chutzpah, but its author is Steven Pinker, not Dennett. The audaciously-titled Dennett book is Consciousness Explained. Also on The Cubit: How not to defend atheism Follow The Cubit, RD’s religion-and-science portal, @TheCubit…

Why The Advocate‘s Choice of Pope Francis for Person of the Year is a Mistake

By Anthea Butler

…ials for performing a same sex marriage ceremony of his son earlier this year. By refusing to give up his credentials, he is forcing the United Methodist church to perhaps take him to trial and strip him of his credentialing—simply because of his belief that the Methodist Book of Discipline is discriminatory. Rev. Schaefer is not just talking, but he is walking the walk—standing up for his son, same sex marriage, and his deeply held beliefs. That…

Turn on the News: Some Abortion Opponents May Opt For a New Vaccine, But Behind Their Skepticism it’s Often a Different Story — of Disinformation, Conspiratorial Thinking, and White Nationalism

By Daniel Schultz

…this shot, other than how it was developed? If not, it seems like a pretty cheap tout. Moreover, touting the drug’s fetal-cell-free origins potentially undermines the adoption of rival medications by keeping alive the far-fetched idea that to use them is to be somehow complicit in abortion. That’s a big enough problem these days, but it could be even worse when the next pandemic comes. As someone who helps to organize COVID vaccine clinics, I’d be…

How To Control Your Ungodly Urges… On a Budget!

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…by … Wait. Guys, you might want to be sitting down, because I’m about to describe a kind of rhetorical genius so intense the words might singe your retinas with their brilliance. (pauses while the readership of RD collectively finds their protective eyewear) Some on the right wing (leading lights like Rush Limbaugh, for example) responded with the unprecedented, totally creative, really-takes-an-intelligent-person-to-come-up-with-it tactic of call…

Hajj Journal: Tawaf: How I Fell in Love…

By Amina Wadud

…the side of the Ka’abah just after the black stone. People who could not descend to this lower lobby are allowed to pray two rakats anywhere directly out from the actual station. In order to pray our two, and to be safe from a stampede of hajjis, we needed to be further out. Fortunately, we were still close and yet safe. We also took turns, such that one of us stood guard over the other—double safe. Anyway, I really got used to the necessity of th…

Seeking Broad Appeal to US Christians, ‘God & Country: The Rise of Christian Nationalism’ Glosses Over Critical Context

By Chrissy Stroop

…he false narrative that “Christian nationalism isn’t Christian” sufficient screen time. Meanwhile, sociologist Andrew Whitehead, who is one of the scholars who first introduced the term “Christian nationalism” into American popular consciousness highlights his data linking Christian nationalist views to racism as du Mez, Butler, Christian historian and author Jemar Tisby, and Katherine Stewart (whose book The Power Worshippers inspired the film) l…

Why Egypt is America’s Enemy

By Haroon Moghul

…llow Arabs, demonized and derided for years, such that their blood becomes cheap. This happens all too often with minorities; what is unique about the Arab world is the degree to which many dictatorships also oppress the majority. My point in that essay about Tunisia was that we in America and the West generally reflexively associate secularism with what is good and democratic, and conservatism (specifically, in Islam) with that which is antidemo…