Religion Dispatches
While Americans celebrate Labor Day with picnics, BBQs, and weekend getaways, Germany-based FIAA GmbH is releasing the beta version of The Bible Online: Heroes, the first installment of a projected series of MMORTS (massively multiplayer online real-time strategy) “games” based on the Bible. MMORTS games take place in a world that continues to exist and evolve even while any given player isn’t playing. According to the press release, there is an…
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As quickly as it exploded, the hype around Eat Pray Love, the bestselling spiritual-travelogue-turned-Julia-Roberts movie, has begun to fade. But don’t be fooled: while the movie has earned a disappointing(!) $47.1 million at the box office, the book behind it continues to fuel a cultural phenomenon. Since appearing in 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir of sensuous travel as road to personal and spiritual wholeness has sold nine million copies and…
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A friend snapped this photo on the way to work in Colorado Springs: Apparently, these pictures have been popping up around the country, with sightings from Erie to Waco to the Bay Area. Harold Camping, owner of Family Radio and Christian radio host, is the leader of this campaign. To clarify, May 21 is not the actual end of the world, according to Camping’s WeCanKnow.com. Rather, that’s merely the day of the Tribulation and Christ’s ret…
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Focus on the Family is accusing Google of giving its gay and lesbian employees special treatment. The information giant announced a new policy that will compensate its gay and lesbian employees for the federal taxes they must pay on when they take advantage of domestic partner health benefits. The perk, however, hasn’t been extended to unmarried heterosexual couples on the payroll, though, for obvious reasons, because heterosexuals “have the opti…
Read MoreNow that the hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin’s book tour has somewhat subsided, it’s time to figure out just what’s so important about it. Only a few glimmers of reality have surrounded the coverage. For my money, Max Blumenthal, Saturday Night live, and Levi have it all figured out—and Billy Graham has allowed himself to be co-opted. Simply put, many people, conservative and liberal alike, have underestimated Sarah Palin. She is a one woman wreck…
Read MoreI just love stories about young people taking a stand for justice. Not much else gets the tears flowing for me more than a good story about some little kid figuring out that civil liberties is a guarantee in the Constitution that should apply to everyone, so if somebody’s suffering from bigotry or discrimination, then, gosh darn it, that kid’s going to do something about it. How can any American reading such stories not feel a little proud rush…
Read MoreIn case you missed all of the witty headlines, Jesus was struck by lightning and burned to the ground this week. But despite the $700,000 in damages, the Solid Rock Church vows to rebuild “Touchdown Jesus.” Meanwhile, in the wake of his recent scandal, Tim Wilson at Killing the Buddha outlines how the Church of Tiger Woods is also burning to the ground. Baptists are using their presences in the military to oppose the repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tel…
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The results of an online survey published in the latest issue of Skeptic Magazine show that atheists in America fear paying a high social price in coming out as a non-believer. “The Stigma of Being an Atheist: An Empirical Study on the New Atheist Movement and its Consequences,” written by Tom Arcaro, was based on the results of 8,200 people who identify as atheists or non-believers in God. The survey, “Coming Out as an Atheist,” was posted live…
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The arrest of the Michigan-based Hutaree Militia has drawn worldwide attention, and in so doing surfaced one of the knottiest issues we face as a culture to which religious freedom and free speech are so central: How do we think about and describe religiously-motivated violence? The Hutaree’s plans to murder a police officer and use IEDs to attack the funeral procession in order to catalyze an uprising against the federal government was shocking…
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I have recently fallen victim to a new mental illness: Post-Avatar Ecological Depressive Disorder (PAEDD). Don’t try to look for it in the DSM-IV; that book is full of imaginary pathologies. This one is real. My symptoms include hissing at cars, wishing I were twelve feet tall and blue, feeling a painfully nostalgic yearning to “return” to the magical world of Pandora depicted in James Cameron’s latest film Avatar, and simply wanting to die as I…
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