Search for "cheap airline tickets from baltimore to charleston sc phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…t Atheists and Agnostics are not readily blended populations. Finally, the numbers in the Pew report obscure an understanding of American religiosity as it is expressed in practice—that is, as people do religion or spirituality rather than as they believe. While the researchers marked practice in the conventional categories of worship attendance and prayer, other practices that my research has suggested are religiously or spiritually meaningful to…

Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…et. The Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to internationally binding emission reduction targets, was the first climate treaty to emerge from this process. It was passed at COP3 in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005 when a sufficient number of developed countries signed the agreement; the United States did not, hampering negotiations for the next decade. A successor agreement, involving all count…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…gether, or [participate in] any student Bible studies even before or after school”; public schools are no longer allowed to rent meeting space for small churches; Christian organizations on campuses “have shrunk to mere skeleton organizations, and in many states they have ceased to exist”; the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance is no longer led by public school teachers, and the phrase “under god” is ruled unconstitutional. After President Obama…

Crisis in Sudan: ‘If the World Stands Idly By This Time, They Will Bring Genocide’

By Frederick Clarkson

…had some time to talk to RD about this new role as he and his American Episcopalian guides drove East from Denver to Louisiana, up through South Carolina to Washington DC. ______________________ RD: A number of American human rights experts have said that the killing and forced displacement of the Ngok Dinka people from Abyei in May, and their replacement by the Arab, northern-aligned Misseriya, constitutes “ethnic cleansing.” Is ethnic cleansin…

Condemnation, Condolences in Wake of Orlando Massacre and More

By Peter Montgomery

…ted a 37-year old man who had been making abusive and threatening anti-gay phone calls to MP Ben Bradshaw. Europe: Trans activists say Europe shows too much deference to ‘national identities’ Transgender Europe welcomed a statement from the Council of the European Union on LGBTI equality and gender equality, but said the conclusions “are poisoned apples as they lack political aspiration.” More from the statement: Instead of leading by example in f…

The Jihadi Revolution is Dead (But Bin Laden’s Death Didn’t Kill It)

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ave altered the thinking of activists in other cultures as well. Intense discussion is underway in Palestine, where the Hamas-dominated strategy of strategic violence has been largely counterproductive; will a new nonviolent and non-extremist movement of young educated Palestinian professionals create a different kind of impetus for change in their region of the Middle East? The rise of a new nonviolent popularism in the Middle East may seriously…

Fighting Demons, Raising the Dead, Taking Over the World

By Bruce Wilson

…he new paradigm came to the Wasilla Assembly of God via a video that was described in the Christian Science Monitor article “Targeting cities with ‘spiritual mapping,’ prayer.” In the opening sentences of her story, Jane Lampman asked, “Can the ‘spiritual DNA’ of a community be altered? That’s the question posed in a Christian video called ‘Transformations.’” Lampman continued: Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee is convinced that it can be. In 1988, he a…

Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

By Joel Pitney

…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…

Malawi Catholic Bishops Call For Enforcement of Sodomy Law; Ukrainian Thugs Disrupt Equality Festival Opposed by Orthodox Church; Indonesian Islamists Continue Rhetorical War on LGBTs; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ps shouting “kill, kill, kill.” There seems to have been resistance from a number of quarters to the planned event, including from the Lviv Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. It was probably unfortunate timing that the festival was planned during Lent, however Bishop Filaret’s strong language about ‘sinners’ makes it clear that his objections were not linked only to the time chosen. A commentary from Bishop Fil…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…discursive language. Myths can be true or false. A false myth, like a bad scientific idea, is quickly discarded because it does not speak the truth about the world. A true myth survives because it resonates deeply with lived human experience. A true myth brings one face-to-face with reality and has nothing to do with literalism or the ignoring of scientific evidence. To get to my point: There is found in each of these excerpts, a disconnect betwe…