Religion Dispatches
…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 RPG (role-playing game) component too; players can expect to play as Abraham, and “as the leader of their tribe” they will construct villages and manage resources—even keep a budget. Players will “have to decide between diplomacy and warfare” as they “go on a quest to go to the Promis…
Read More
…happiness and wholeness. They want to reveal how some paths—Gilbert’s—involve class and racial privilege. But they can’t quite bring themselves to clearly say that her path didn’t work for her. I also suggest that, to the extent that any of us believe in the ideal of authenticity (whether or not we can also deconstruct it), we are not far from Gilbert, either. Cultural Incoherence In fact, science may be on Gilbert’s side. Recent studies show tha…
Read More
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…
Read More
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 More…its attention to the gulf oil spill. The SBC is urging churches to get involved in the clean up and to hold both government authorities and big oil responsible. Questions of Christianity and feminism continue to haunt the Tea Party and the Republicans this week. Is South Carolina’s Nikkie Haley Christian enough for the evangelicals in her state? How can Sarah Palin claim to be a feminist? Or is she just another member of the Reproductive Right? Wh…
Read More
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…
Read More
…ged to have planned to commit violent crimes? If so, having appointed ourselves as the arbiters of apostasy, we then cannot describe such people as Christian terrorists or Christian militias because by definition they have auto-excommunicated themselves. Finally, what terms we use depends on the occasion. While the media term of choice for the Hutaree was “Christian militia,” federal prosecutors have carefully avoided religious references. Assista…
Read More
…Earth, Live and In Color But shame, outrage, and despair are not, in themselves, horrors sufficient enough to catalyze a full-blown case of PAEDD. To be truly out of your mind, you must be filled with an infinite love for something that you cannot touch. Fortuitously, as confronting hardship so often involves the magic of paradox, the way into the disease is also the way out from it. Pandora may seem like an exotic and impossible fantasy, but, sav…
Read More