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The Problem with AMC’s Sci-Fi Hit Humans

…human form isn’t always best for the job. Take, for example, the synth telephone operator. Why create a physical robot for this job which has to receive audio through a wired earpiece and then respond via speaker into a microphone? Couldn’t synth software do the trick without complex parts that mimic the functions of ears and a mouth? Furthermore, wouldn’t it make better economic sense to distribute artificial intelligence across multiple hardware…

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New Report: Muslim Terrorism a ‘Minuscule Threat’

…er annum, it is 0.001%. If we take a more realistic number of 4 million American Muslims, the numbers become 0.005% over a decade, or 0.0005% per year. Last year there were 14,000 homicides in the U.S., and with a population of 300,000,000, that’s about 0.0005% of the population are murderers. The report ends with this sage advice: “This study’s findings challenge Americans to be vigilant against the threat of homegrown terrorism while maintaining…

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Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

…all reputable scientific and professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric—and the list goes on (and on). But like many fundamentalist institutions, Liberty sees no issue with this bogus practice. Instead, the university finds much to celebrate in regard to Emerick’s attempts to fight against homosexuality. In fact, in Liberty’s official announcement of…

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Gambian Prez Rails Against Gay ‘Evil Empire’; Irish Priest Comes Out During Mass; Trans Talk on Tunisian TV Sparks Debate; Global LGBT Recap

…d this: An April 2013 survey by the Social Weather Stations found that the number of Filipinos identifying themselves as Catholics fell to 81 percent from 88 percent in 1997 and one in every 11 Catholics has considered leaving the church. Weekly church attendance among adults dropped to 37 percent in 2013 from 53 percent in 2006. There are signs that church attendance has ticked up in anticipation of the visit. “The line to a blockbuster movie? Ho…

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Muslims in America, Fifty Years Later: New Poll Shows Pride and Optimism In the Face of Bias

…reveals a remarkably hopeful community. There was no polling of Muslim Americans in 1967, but historical research on Muslim Americans has revealed something similar. Despite all the negativity surrounding the image of Islam and Muslims and the real prejudice that Muslims faced in the 1960s, Muslim individuals and communities on the whole found the strength to believe in a better future. Muslim Americans also report that the number of non-Muslims…

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Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…

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Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

…er words, now that same-sex marriage is legal, what’s next? According to a number of pundits, such as Fredrik DeBoer at Politico, it’s polygamy. I count myself among this group. This question is pressing in light of the fact that support for polygamy has risen rapidly (from 7% to 16%) among Americans over the past few years. Some liberal commentators, understandably, have been quick to insist that legalizing polygamy isn’t on the horizon. Writing…

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How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative

…f death? They will have died in an out-of-the-ordinary time―a kind of historical hinge point in our relationship to death and community. Could the unwelcomed ubiquity of death rupture our contemporary hesitation to discuss death openly, making death-talk less taboo? Rather than a typical American avoidance of any serious talk about death, will we turn toward one another in collaborative dialogue about end-of-life questions and advance directives,…

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Breivik’s Religious Pluralist Vision: A COEXIST Bumper Sticker Without the Crescent

…claiming various Hindu genocides at the hands of Muslims in different historical periods. For Breivik, Vyas provides an example of Muslim violence and imperial expansion. Breivik returns to South Asia again and again for examples of Muslim violence such as the Hindu Kush article to portray right wing anti-Islam Hindus as allies in the fight against Islam. Under the heading “Modern Jihad” Breivik writes, “Islam has systematically murdered more than…

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Data-Mining The Denominations: The Southern Baptists in Four Charts

…se members. In 2013, the SBC claimed 15,735,640 members, and in 2014, that number fell by 236,467 to 15,499,173—that’s a 1.5 percent decline. However, on this stat alone, the claim could be made that churches are simply clearing out the cobwebs and tidying up their membership rolls so their numbers more accurately reflect their active members. The problem is, membership isn’t alone in its decline—it’s joined by baptisms and weekly worship attendan…

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