Religion Dispatches
…to defend “traditional” marriage and defend “religious liberty,” which is code for defending the religious right’s ability to bully gay and lesbian people at will using God as their shield. But, wait, there’s more. Gingrich has hit the conservative Christian trifecta by sitting down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to affirm that opposition to marriage equality stating that there is a “big difference between saying that you’re to ha…
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…ot points out, philosophy in the ancient world was not so much a system or code as “a way of being.” Philosophy, in this sense, is enmeshed in a life-world. Writers from Marcus Aurelius to Francis Bacon to Ralph Waldo Emerson have conducted such experiments in living as spiritual exercise, a task that entailed writing as philosophic engagement. Philosophy in this mode, Hadot explains, is a continuous process, to be renewed in each instant—a practi…
Read More…54 had no legal ramifications: it was not a bill to change the state legal code, as was SB-1433. It also stipulated that the bill would not apply to in vitro fertilization. Well, if any legislators believed this would give them cover, they were mistaken. The pro-personhood folks made it known that a a representative would be bringing a procedural motion to force hearing on SB-1433. Oklahomans for Life sent this memo to house Republicans, stating t…
Read More…80, the coalition that fractures worst loses. 2) Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians have been perceived to be a central piece of the center-right Republican coalition since the creation of the “Moral Majority” in 1979. 3) The landscape, both religious and political, may well be shifting in reaction to the second Bush presidency, signaling the possibility of different coalitions, the emergence of new and different “religious” issues, and dif…
Read More…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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…orse, bracingly in the secular present without regard to any kind of moral code, which doesn’t mean that, certainly in Claire’s situation, there haven’t been moments when she has faced up against.” As Season 3 wore on, even tiny glimmers of moral misgivings in Claire’s mind appeared to be driving a wedge in the Underwood’s strange union. “She definitely has an emotional center than can be empathic and sympathetic, moreso than Frank,” Foley continu…
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…R’s activities internationally. ‘It’s a 7M world’ In his book, God’s Chaos Code, 7 Mountains strategist and thought leader Lance Wallnau, who also serves as a Teacher and Apostle with Message of Life ministries in Loveland, Colorado, mentions such Cyrus-type political rulers as Brazil’s Bolsonaro, Poland’s Andrzej Duda and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. These rulers, he says, would “preserve their nations’ religious values from the Western virus of cultu…
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…. But since I’m a minimalist, I’d be quite content with a randomly ordered list. I’m confident that such a scheme of numbers would find a large and appreciative audience. After all, something like it is already quite popular. We deploy the more or less arbitrary system for numbering biblical verses in order to invoke whole arguments. Very often in public “discussions” of homosexuality, someone will stand up and begin to call out numbers. “But what…
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…ho called it a “religionless religion”), wildly eclectic, zealously materialistic and focused on individual well-being. Basic classes were open to all who paid a modest daily fee and key was the early morning “dynamic meditation,” an hour mash-up of heavy breathing, screaming, jumping and dancing. The multiversity offered then, as it still does, a wide range of spiritual, mystical, New Age and therapeutic teachings and practices. During our stay,…
Read More…, could he possibly come out in favor of arresting women for praying? Or even, with a straight face, say it was a matter of local concern that he wasn’t going to comment on, when he otherwise has (albeit in a perfunctory way) called for the promotion of women’s rights in other parts of the Middle East? And since Obama was promoting the rights and freedom of religious minorities last night, wouldn’t this case fall under his concern? There are good…
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