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“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

…arden and times how quickly we snatch for a fig leaf. Krieger is after the codes that get ingrained, that run in the background, that make us think a certain way about, say, virginity, or sovereignty, those triggers that flip circuits such that suffering immediately flashes in the backs of our mind as redemptive, death as sacrifice, and so on. Poison, she might say: brainwashing with a dirty sponge. Despite Simmons’s hagiographic comment regarding…

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Replacing Godless Hollywood with Bible-Based “Cultural Dominion”

…d imaginative; females are dependent, supportive, and submissive. Phillips promotes this family vision in the Academy and Festival by encouraging films that endorse it (in 2007 there was even a special category “Biblical Family”). That year, the “Best of Festival” Jubilee Award went to The Monstrous Regiment of Women, a “documentary” directed by Colin Gunn. The film, which has an all-female cast that includes anti-feminist doyenne Phyllis Schlafly…

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Rites, Rituals, and the King

…o. What is more, one feature of ritual is that the “message” is not self encoded. That is why I keep making a distinction between this and what we mostly understand when we use the word prayer in English. Prayer is all about our immediate status. “Help me get through this”, “Give me an A on the exam”, “make her heart turn to love me”, “Grant me a successful hajj.” etc. Worship responds to a higher level in fact, the highest level of formality. Eve…

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With Release of Pentagon Report, UFO Narrative Belief System is Suddenly Supported by Military Witness Testimonies

…technologically advanced and are often thought to be supportive of humans’ best interests. Harvard researcher Dr. John Mack’s bestselling book Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (1994) featured the testimonies of people whose encounters with alleged extraterrestrials are best characterized as beneficial and spiritual, if frightening. Current UAP military narratives counter the testimonies found in books like Mack’s. They’re replaced with the…

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What Fundamentalist Christian Fiction Can Teach Us About Our American Crisis

…eed to the literary arm of this new social movement: The [New York] Times ‘best-seller’ list was misleading. Evangelical books were often outselling the Times’ best-sellers. But the paper did not bother to count sales in religious bookstores. The people hurt most weren’t evangelical authors (our books sold anyway); rather, the losers were Democratic Party leaders and other liberal readers of the ‘paper of record’ who were blindsided by subsequent…

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Forget the Pope—We Need a New Caliph!

…an make Turkey a truly multicultural democracy, he’ll have resurrected the best characteristics of the Ottoman Empire, which last held the Caliphate, conveniently enough in modern Turkey. The Bad: Erdogan may actually already be the Caliph, which kind of ruins our brackets. Also, his peace with the Kurds might help Erdogan stick in office yet longer, which is kind of like eating Turkish Delight every day. Plus, since the Ottomans were technically…

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Impossible Possibilities: Obama and Power

…all sadness and sympathy for the president-elect’s soul, that despite his best intentions, he must assume the controls of an American neoliberal empire that is inextricably tied to the reinscription of social injustice. Don’t get it twisted. Neither President Obama’s multiethnic background, beautiful black family, or the current economic crisis will fundamentally change the principles of free markets, free trade, or transnational corporate domina…

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Confronting the Rise in Conspiracy Thinking … With Wisdom Literature

…use, last, not everything is under our control. Walter Brueggemann says it best: “In spite of our best planning, there is an inscrutable mystery about our experience which we cannot master or manipulate.” That includes the mystery of suffering, as Job discovered. Adherents of conspiracy theories and other kinds of foolishness often ascribe far too much power and control to the leading figures of their narratives. It’s a primitive way of thinking:…

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Evolution Challenged in ‘Textbook’ Case: As Goes Texas, So Goes the Nation

…Now he says he’s merely interested in making sure students are taught the best science standards from the best science textbooks. After the “strength and weakness” wording was rejected, McLeroy launched into an impassioned speech during the recent hearings about the fossil record. He spoke of the “sudden appearance” of life forms during the 70- to 80-million-year-period known as the Cambrian Explosion and evolutionary stasis, in which life forms…

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Want to Save Marriage? Ban Divorce

…anta. Certainly, divorce is a necessary option for couples. Often it’s the best thing for a couple trapped in a loveless or abusive relationship. People change, circumstances change, and often it’s best for two people to part ways. Even religious institutions, over the years, have come to understand this and don’t tend to vigorously condemn people for the decision. Many churches, in fact, have divorce care groups and other activities specifically…

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