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UPDATE: An Abrupt End to Quebec Separatist Plan to Ban “Ostentatious Signs” of Religion

…osely one of the key planks of the proposed Charter, namely to draw a line between ‘ostentatious’ and ‘non-ostentatious’ religious signs, and their respective degrees of permissibility within the public sector workplace.  “From this point on,” it was stated in one government document, “those working for the state must demonstrate their religious neutrality, not only in their behavior but also in their appearance.”  The proposed Bill thus proscribe…

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Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

…ian states and thus interfere with the friendly and constructive relations between non-Asian Asian states (sic). In an effort to combat the support of the American Academy of Religion, the Hindu American Foundation that had protested against Doniger’s work in 2009 published a blistering critique in the Huffington Post on the AAR. In a piece entitled “Academic Integrity: It’s What’s Missing at the AAR,” HAF co-founder and co-Director Suhag A. Shukl…

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The Secret History of Easter

…from Wikipedia). New Testament scholars have noted that since The DaVinci Code became a cultural phenomenon, there’s been a surge of conspiratorial claims about Jesus, the early church, and the influence of Pagan mystery religions. Authors such as Craig Evans and Bart Ehrman have written with bewilderment at the revival of “mythicist” theories of Jesus and “nineteenth-century philosophical hokum” that was long ago dismissed by serious scholars wh…

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Brits Get A Dose of Christian Nation Politicking

…trality, or the role that faith can play in helping people to have a moral code.” That accusation is abruptly followed by the disclaimer that “[o]f course, faith is neither necessary nor sufficient for morality.” Cameron also lays bare his quintessentially 21st century religiosity, proclaiming that “I am a member of the Church of England, and, I suspect, a rather classic one: not that regular in attendance, and a bit vague on some of the more diff…

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Is Army’s New “Humanist” Designation Just Semantic Hooey?

…ndeed, in many religions, choosing a name that expresses a close coherence between self-identity and religious identity and affiliation (or having one conferred) is a defining ritual feature, as in the Sikh Nam Karam ceremony for naming a child according to the first letter of a sacred hymn. Such a name is, as Roland Barthes put it, “the prince of signifiers; its connotations are rich, social and symbolic.” While not personal names, the categorica…

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Brits Get A Dose of Christian Nation Politicking

…trality, or the role that faith can play in helping people to have a moral code.” That accusation is abruptly followed by the disclaimer that “[o]f course, faith is neither necessary nor sufficient for morality.” Cameron also lays bare his quintessentially 21st century religiosity, proclaiming that “I am a member of the Church of England, and, I suspect, a rather classic one: not that regular in attendance, and a bit vague on some of the more diff…

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Red White and Blue No Longer

…tion” uttered out loud any longer. What one does hear, however, amounts to code for the same thing. Thus, R.J. Rushdoony’s still-influential ideas about forging a godly nation—a nation organized according to biblical law—take it pretty much for granted that godly social organization has whites on top. Rushdoony, who lived into the current century, condemned interracial marriage as “unequal yoking.”  Un-dead David Barton, another hugely influential…

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Romney not Precisely Familiar with Questioning Obama’s Faith, but Stands By It

…tands by it, for sure. The Romney camp is working hard at putting distance between the candidate and any race-baiting strategies that might be deployed by its allies. But of course Romney himself—even if he’s not precisely familiar with it now—is not above questioning the president’s patriotism, his commitment to Christianity, and the alleged anti-American-ness of Wright, and therefore Obama. It’s true, of course, that Romney was feebly acknowledg…

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Tennessee Anti-Evolution Update

…on proposed by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes intelligent design. David Fowler, head of the conservative Christian Family Action Council of Tennessee, which is affiliated with Focus on the Family, and is one of the bill’s primary lobbyists. In defending the bill’s language, he has tried to draw on comparisons to the famous Scopes monkey trial that took place 86 years ago in his state. “…[T]oday’s evolutionary…

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Queer Repentance: On Not Surrendering to a Text, to Guilt, or to Habit

…lifetime of repression and sublimation. And for those who refuse to choose between God and gay, it means having to do just what Huck Finn did: transcend religion in order to save it. Of course, this is an essential step for all religious people—but it’s one LGBT religious people cannot avoid. Queer spiritual consciousness is inherently distrustful because it has seen how rules, codes, and even the operation of conscience itself can be tools of opp…

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