Religion Dispatches
…t roles of John Locke, David “Desmond” Hume, and Rousseau in the course of Western world history. What is intriguing in Lost is the way that each character seems to have alternate, double personalities from those of their namesakes. In the “real,” historical realm, Locke and Hume were empiricists, they had to see it to believe it, but in the show they are the most fideistic, operating by their hunches and intuitions. Meanwhile, Shephard stands in…
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…mes below the dividing line stand for fictional characters. The same color code was applied to match an author to his/her fictional creation.) First, what this diagram shows is a continuum of diminishing intensity of God-hatred from left to center: from rage, to hatred, to anger, to resentment. And, as we can see, as the intensity of hatred for the “real” God diminishes, it enters a phase where it can coexist with the diminished hatred for a God…
Read More…e Church of Body Modification has run into trouble with her school’s dress code. The 14-year-old is looking at a ten day suspension if she returns to school wearing her prohibited nose ring. In Roswell, New Mexico, a group of students have been suspended for giving their teachers boxes of doughnuts with religious messages attached to them. Romania has decided not to tax its witches and fortunetellers. One reason being that the witches and fortunet…
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…se, whether the editors of Teen Vogue really did make a pact with Satan to promote sodomy. We’ll get to that, I promise. There are a few important things that have to be said first. In case you missed this latest episode of U.S. religious debate, the facts are pretty simple. Earlier this month, Teen Vogue posted an article on anal sex under the heading “Sexual Health & Identity.” (Deep breath! Yes, you have just read the phrase “anal sex” and not…
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…reply to my later email, I was directed to three local parishes in my zip code to find out about attending their listening sessions. A priest from one of the three I contacted replied courteously but had to report that the parish has nothing in place yet. He assured me that they would do whatever the diocese instructed. A recent survey by America magazine staff confirmed my suspicions that the process is off to a rocky start: “Of the 196 churches…
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…ral character. Even respectable white women like Ford must comply with the code of silence protecting toxic masculinity. The demonization of Ford by the right is yet another indication of how low the GOP faithful are willing to go to gut human and civil rights. As ReproAction Network has noted, Kavanaugh’s repugnant record on women’s rights puts him in lockstep with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. His well-documented, insidious appellate co…
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…ctatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq from 1977-1988. The blasphemy laws (Penal Code 295-298) make it illegal to: “outrage religious feelings,” defile the Qur’an, or deride the Prophet, his family, the first four Caliphs, and the companions of the Prophet. What constitutes outraging or defiling behavior has varied from distribution of purportedly anti-Islamic literature to placing a calendar with passages from the Qur’an onto a work table. The blasphem…
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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…
Read More…untries in southern Africa? How many towns like Kazangula exist across sub-Saharan Africa? What is the infection rate of the women in those towns? What is the infection rate of the truckers? What is the infection rate of the wives of those truck drivers back in the villages around this region? How do we address it? The town of Kazungula would make an ideal location for a long-term sociological study…or a movie. Kazungula is a small village on the…
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…ished our news Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use All the strangers came today And it looks as though they’re here to stay… Oh! You Pretty Things Let me make it plain You gotta make way for the Homo Superior _________________________ Notes: 1. Matthew 5: 38-9. 2. 1 John 4:8. 3. The third definition given for “boogie,” in The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, ed. Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor (New York, NY: Routled…
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