Religion Dispatches
…Mormon. In 2002, when Warren Jeffs became President and Prophet of the Hilldale, Utah-based FLDS Church, the affiliated Bountiful community split over issues of succession. The case is sure to be watched closely among tens of thousands of FLDS and non-FLDS polygamists in the Book-of-Mormon belt and beyond, and may also have implications for Muslims and other polygamy-practicing people of faith….
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…. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks Mr. Potter is the hero. Check out Jimmy Stewart’s take down of Potter here: And, what was Pottersville, this place that Beck thinks Wilmington would become if they accepted government aid? The clips are long, but gosh darn it, they’re so worth watching—again. And at homes around the country during the holidays, it was always so nice knowing that w…
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…ntly also acupuncture, work regardless of your belief system—but they work better if you believe in them. Double-Blind The history of medicine up until the last century was essentially the history of the placebo effect. Double-blind, randomized control trials are now the gold standard in medical research and have only been widely used for the last fifty-odd years. It is a research protocol that works especially well for pharmaceutical products whe…
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…ticle of faith in the religious anti-gay movement, is that LGBT equality spells a lack of freedom for religious people, an effort to “repress and marginalize” them. Yet her own most unseemly moment — and there were many — was NOM’s distribution of a sheet of paper about Catholics for Equality, “In Their Own Words,” intended to smear the group as an anti-Catholic tool of evil liberals. Its most telling portions: two mentions of associations of grou…
Read More…wouldn’t need financial regulation. (Good luck with that!) See, for Huckabee, if people were moral, then there wouldn’t be juvenile delinquency and we wouldn’t spend government money on programs for juvenile delinquents. It’s a common refrain on the right now — especially as the religious right — that economic prosperity flows from everyone falling in lock-step with their “Judeo-Christian values.” …
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…988. The blasphemy laws (Penal Code 295-298) make it illegal to: “outrage religious feelings,” defile the Qur’an, or deride the Prophet, his family, the first four Caliphs, and the companions of the Prophet. What constitutes outraging or defiling behavior has varied from distribution of purportedly anti-Islamic literature to placing a calendar with passages from the Qur’an onto a work table. The blasphemy laws, along with the hudud ordinance (laws…
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…o your bright eyes, which will attract them to God, instead of your body.” Eliza elaborated on how she was required to live under her father’s authority, even in adulthood. “Girls should be serving their fathers and at times they should do ministry things under their father’s direction—while they were single,” she said. “Make the most of your single years to serve God.” She remains single, something she attributes in part to her parents’ adherence…
Read More…ly based. The Polish seminarians’ banner conveys a message. International delegations from France and Ireland had similarly Catholics flavors. But finding Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Pagan, and other participants was not easy. Evangelical Christians put on a rock concert in a nearby park after the march this year. It was advertised by “Rock for Life” with the logo of a fetus playing an electric guitar. They offered some diversity. The problem is t…
Read More…le in America’s democracy. Ironically, one of the most vocal proponent of religious activism in politics is Mike Huckabee himself, who has repeatedly called Americans to “take this nation back for Christ” and who, while running for president, proudly declared that “what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.” Joel Beinin of Stanford University, writing at Middle East Channel, also notes how the Brotherhood was late…
Read More…ek to impose either secretly or overtly a Taliban-like, religious, strict religious code upon all Americans, which is ridiculous.” Honor killings, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, and other abuses are “un-Islamic,” he said, adding that there is “no debate among serious Muslim scholars about that.” As far as fear-mongering that that Muslims seek to supplant the Constitution with shari’ah, Khan noted, “there is room for individual religi…
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