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Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…et is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various participants bring to…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…a lie detector. Ask the congregants questions after wiring them up. Do you really believe in hell? Did Jesus really walk on water? Those who fail the lie detector test will spot themselves in a Youtube video later, Chapman suggests and the audience cracks up. Yes, yes, great idea, they all nod to each other. Flush out the hypocrites. Here is a big surprise from an industry insider. Heroes aren’t supposed to be atheists, and no one understands that…

Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

By April L. Bogle

…good move. When I got to the lobby another something told me to dig out my phone and check it for messages. Sure enough, I had one from an unfamiliar number. A woman’s voice said Bedi was still sleeping, exhausted from the previous day’s overseas flight, and needed to reschedule our interview for that afternoon. I called the number back, convinced the opportunity was lost. “I’m here at the hotel now, but I’m booked solid this afternoon—” “Hold on,…

NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

By Nicole Greenfield

…ctive is still the easy go-to. “It’s a strange phenomenon,” he told me: “I really do think that in the long run it’s going to hurt the church, and shrink the church in numbers. We’re supposed to be known for our love for one another, and for our compassion, and this is just not it.” Many younger Christian communities around the country would agree with Bakker, and have adopted the kind of positive, inclusive messages he refers to, marking a defini…

The Religious Implications of Nudity

By Steve A. Wiggins

…he Raleigh-Durham Airport and I am returning from a business trip I didn’t really want to take. I am dressed in business casual. I’m about as threatening as your average Gund creation. Having a total stranger employed by the government narrate just how he’s going to touch you is strangely erotic in a nation so squeamish about frank discussions of sexuality; especially involving same-gender touching. In public. Yet, here I stand on big yellow footp…

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…an ad in a local shop or community center. Last minute emergency? Call the airline right away to see about possibilities for accommodating your needs. Likewise, if one is ardently anti-abortion for moral reasons, rather than only focus on making it illegal, prevent it by limiting unwanted pregnancies: help ensure adequate, healthy sex education and contraception are available to those who need or want them. Work to make affordable, quality prenata…

Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…rust I have in the TSA before, Jillette’s rant in “Penn’s Bacon and a Kiss Airline” was like finding a long-lost brother; another guy who feels it is criminal to be viewed naked by strangers—involuntarily—is a true freedom fighter. This is a comedian with a conscience. He may come down on the wrong side of many traditional issues (global warming and sexual mores, e.g.), but he is keenly aware that too many people suffer. Theodicy in motion. In the…

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

By Kara Loewentheil

…t. Second, if that doesn’t work, you try to make it seem like complying is really in the person’s own best interests: you offer to pay your seatmate to vacate, or you claim that contraception is harmful to women. Third, if none of that works, you create costs for both the authority attempting to regulate you and the innocent bystanders around you in the hopes that if you create enough problems the authority in question will cede way (in other word…

Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…ual and social justice community in Los Angeles, told me they have “worked really hard over the past decade to build a culture within the community in which people can hear voices that they strongly disagree with and sit respectfully in conversation nevertheless,” which was something she “felt both aware of and really grateful for” during the height of the Gaza war this summer. “Poisonous Atmosphere” In the Jewish Community Despite its dovish repu…