Religion Dispatches
…ted. Why doesn’t the alarm stay high on global warming (excuse me, climate change)? Read a book about the state of the environment, this one perhaps. If my experience is anything like normative, your blood pressure will go up. When you put the book down you’ll be as zealous as a martyr in first-century Rome. Something must be done! But by the time I step off the bus my mind will be back to something the boss said yesterday. Or the fact that I’ve g…
Read More…uch a massive storm is not something God made, but humankind made: climate change. Of course, one monster storm doesn’t prove climate change, but an NPR report notes that the temperature of the oceans are warmer, which contributes to the strength of storms like Sandy. “Overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is heating the planet, shrinking the Arctic ice cap, melting glaciers and raising sea levels,” Michael Mann,…
Read More…bills have cropped up in state houses questioning the validity of climate change and calling for a “teach the controversy” approach. It’s an interesting strategy. By expanding their argument to include climate change, they’re saying that they aren’t anti-evolution—they’re just anti-scientific dogma. “There is a lot of similar dogmatism on this issue,” Discovery Institute’s Jonathan West told the NYT, “with scientists being persecuted for findings…
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…. Say why that’s the case and about how we can still get to the structural change we need under these circumstances. I think most economists and policy people say the biggest step to reducing carbon fast would be to put a hefty price on it that reflects the damage it does in the environment. You could do this in a way that doesn’t beggar people [e.g. fee-and-dividend —ed.]. If you did, we’d all be getting a price signal to change our ways, includi…
Read More…fore have difficulty engaging in scientific discussions involved in public policy debates on issues like climate change. “Sectarian Christians” is the term Sherkat uses for what most reporters and pundits call evangelicals, but by which Sherkat means denominational and non-denominational Christians who believe the bible is the literal, inerrant word of God. Sherkat writes in a forthcoming paper in Social Sciency Quarterly that nearly one third of…
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…religion. It is the underlying right to believe as you will—or not—and to change your mind, free from the undue influence of government or powerful religious institutions. It’s a civil or constitutional right, not to be confused with religion in general, or any particular religion at all. Because all this is so, we need to know in our bones not only what religious freedom is, but also be able to articulate and connect this foundational value to o…
Read More…ith the city, Fernandes will receive a “low-six figure” payment, and a new policy will allow providers with religious objections to “redirect” patients who ask for a given service to appropriate sources in a “nonjudgmental fashion.” While the policy ensures that patients who ask about contraception will receive some type of referral, formal or not, it still falls far short of the current standard of care for adolescent patients. Both the American…
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…used now under various names. But the CNP has a larger agenda, which is to change the Constitution of the United States. These are all just tools for what you refer to as culture wars, to fundamentally change the country. CK: When this election is finished, and we’re in the big ambiguous period of deciding what happens next, and we see armed right-wing insurgents in the streets, and simultaneously, we weirdly see churches and preachers backing tha…
Read More…science, and real data have never been more crucial to the formulation of policy and for helping voters decide which candidates will have the best programs to resolve our pressing crises. Secular, evidence-based reasoning is the only reliable means by which all Americans can evaluate and discuss critical policy questions. A fixation on religion and faith will only serve to obscure the issues and divide us as a people. It is our sincere hope that…
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…he father of us all,” the “us” he referred to was the small group of elite policymakers who brought us the hydrogen bomb and the Cuban missile crisis, the IMF and the World Bank, because (as the NSC-68, which essentially set the policy for the Cold War, put it), even if there were no communist threat, the world had to move toward “some kind of order, on somebody’s terms.” Unfortunately Obama offers no way out of this tragic path. Though he shoul…
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