Religion Dispatches
…families in concrete ways. He’s talking about a “more family-friendly tax code.” He wants the government to pay people to procreate. It’s a “big government” Republicans can get behind—a “baby government.” Though women of childbearing age are the people Douthat wants to get busy getting pregnant, he doesn’t talk about women very much—or the social, physical, and financial costs women still pay for having kids. Douthat blames women without talking…
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…n. They went 78 percent for Romney, up from 74 percent for McCain. The bad news for the Republicans is that, according to Pew, the evangelical share of the population continues to erode—from 21 percent in 2007 to 19 percent in 2012—while the number of the religiously unaffiliated is rising—from 16 percent to 20 percent over the same period. In other words, “nones” and evangelicals are equivalent in numbers. One explanation for this change in Ameri…
Read More…is aligned with those atheists who find beauty in God and the rise of that newly noted cohort of “religious nones” who still pray. Is the vast conversation sparked by the book, the film, and Green’s internet followers (the Nerdfighters) one of these many new spaces? In the end, after all of their philosophizing and text messages, our heroes cannot escape embodiment. Hazel Grace tells us that Augustus Waters died “when the cancer, which was made of…
Read More…state of disbelief and objectivity into a realm of complicity. In a recent New York Times interview, co-writer Damon Lindelhof suggests, One of the things that we completely own is that in many ways Lost is a mash-up/remix of our favorite stories, whether that’s Bible stories from Sunday school or Narnia or Star Wars or the writings of John Steinbeck. Carlton and I both had to take philosophy classes when we were in college, and we talk about phil…
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…our brains, which makes the admonition “an eye for an eye” in Hammurabi’s code sound less like savagery and more like a way to keep everybody in check. To punish more than the guilt deserves has been a legal problem, apparently, since at least 1792 B.C.E or so. The distinction between justice and vengeance matters, because vengeance costs an enormous amount to taxpayers, and, as reformers on both sides of the aisle argue, our own moral selves. Pe…
Read More…d has been involved in the protests, the archbishop’s soft-pedaling of the new restrictions follows a familiar pattern. “The Diocese of Oakland dealt with the same situation last year,” he said in an email. “The situation there followed the pattern of an initially harsh opening move from the bishop, a general outcry from parents and teachers, a period of reflection and reconsideration followed by the release of language that is less prescriptive i…
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…traditional marriage. It was only in 2000 that the discriminatory ban on ‘promoting’ homosexuality was lifted. Since 2004, Cyprus has implemented an anti-discrimination law (Equal Treatment in Employment and Occupation Law 2004) that explicitly forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment. In 2013, the penal code was amended to include sexual orientation and gender identity thus criminalising all discrimination against…
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…ed—that worldviews can infect and control people’s minds, like a parasite. New Atheist thinkers, such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, have been especially strong proponents of this position after acts of religious violence. Packer took up that line of thinking in his post-Hebdo op-ed. So did many people in the wake of the Charleston shooting who emphasized that white supremacist ideology was to blame for Roof’s actions; or those who, after Elli…
Read More…bishop at the time, because of his marriage. It meant he lost an offer of promotion within the NHS, something he argues amounts to a breach of equalities law. Sean Jones QC, for Canon Pemberton, read the tribunal an email from the Church of England’s communications office highlighting the case. Pink News has more from the tribunal. Taiwan: Taipei begins partnership registration The city government of Taipei began accepting registrations from same…
Read More…ics.” The Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart, reports Naith Payton at Pink News, asked that children in Catholic primary and secondary schools be asked to take a 15-page anti-marriage-equality document home to their parents along with a letter from Australian bishops entitled “Don’t Mess With Marriage.” Korea: Conservative Christians seek to prevent pride parade This week police in South Korea refused the Korea Queer Cultural Festival a pride para…
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