Religion Dispatches
…it is easy to ignore a much more alarming source of censorship: a software company called Netsweeper. In July 2010, Hunter attempted to use a library computer to research her Native American heritage. But the library had blocked every site she attempted to access. Glenda Wofford, director of the Salem Library, explained that Netsweeper, the library’s Internet filtering service, blocks all of these sites because they are categorized as “occult” and…
Read More…uropean-Europeans. And if we lose faith, and we lose the culture war and become a completely secular, materialistic society, then we will go the way of the Europeans and we will have no heart to face these people. The problem with the Europeans is that they are completely secular folks, by and large, who see the world through the eyes of reason. Well, these people don’t – these people reject reason. These people say that their lives are governed b…
Read More…ng party lines. President Obama has said he would veto the bill were it to come to him, so the lesson here is mostly anthropological. That lesson is this: There is, evidently, a sort of mind which contemplates a woman coming to a hospital needing an abortion to save her life and thinks, “This should never happen.” Oh, no, not her pain. Not the frightened family. Not the danger. Not the awful decision they face. Not, really, anything having to do w…
Read More…majority of evangelical Christian conservatives? What can Romney do to overcome his disadvantage among religious conservatives as a perceived social moderate and a Mormon? Some data suggests that Perry is polling behind Romney among women voters in general, although there doesn’t seem to be a solid body of public data yet on how the candidates match up among likely Republican female voters. Could gender be an angle Romney works to overcome the Mor…
Read More…Christian-wooing, Tea Party-flattering governor from Texas: Rick Perry is coming! Rick Perry is coming! Some recent polls show Perry (who has not even announced yet) eroding Romney’s frontrunner standing, especially among Republican men and Tea Party supporters. Watch out for that masculinity issue. As we’ve discussed here at RD, Mormon men are raised on a different model of manhood—one that’s all about institutional loyalty, duty, and sentimenta…
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…conversation with Muslims, or anyone who has a different opinion of us, is compromising with evil and therefore even treasonous—well, that seems to be the dominant discourse in the politics of this country. And here I think it goes back to how we have come to understand Satan. If instead of looking at Satan as the manifestation of total evil, but were able to see the evolution of this figure, and the ambiguity it holds, we might not have this knee…
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…lim. He represented more than himself; he was the voice of his community—a community comprised of all the people who came into contact with him. As mayor he had constituents; he was also a man who had many friends. We can only begin by listing the traits that made him a 21st-century Hemingway. Omar Ahmed: Mayor of San Carlos; lover of fine cigars; spinner of great yarns; Silicon Valley entrepreneur; passionate aviator; mountain climber; cowboy boo…
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…as Kay points out, is more fragmented than ever. Information is easier to come across, and bogus information has a way of jumping to the top of Google’s search pages. That fragmentation is happening at a time of intense partisan anger and economic angst. First, the birtherism campaign and the other conspiracies, largely attributed to the left (although not exclusively) are not comparable. They are largely marginalized by the mainstream media, whi…
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…’d recommend that, but we could—because there’d be so relatively few of us compared to the number we have now. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to be born on that planet: 200 years in the future. Only 100 million people. Well, I think it could be a wonderful life. You would have a lot of material goods. You could have cities, you could have towns, you could have outposts. But you’d have large areas of the world that were basically uninh…
Read More…ay, lesbian, bisexual or “unsure” of their sexual orientation. Researchers compared the number of “unhealthy days” reported by residents of each state, using the CDC definition of “the total number of days in the past 30 that people reported that their physical and mental heath were not good,” according to the press release announcing the study’s findings. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System does include a question that allows participa…
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