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The End (of Religion) is Near, Scientists Say

…ctivity bubble to the surface. Lost in the debate is the large and growing number of thoughtful people who self-identify as “spiritual, but not religious” (that is, as non-affiliated), an admittedly complex phrase than doesn’t allow for easy analysis either. But, as has been frequently noted on RD, religion is highly dispersed in the modern period; it’s not going away, it’s just going elsewhere. Sometimes the “spiritual, but not religious” person…

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Catholic Church Bans Gay Film: This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

…lture leads to the destruction of the world, and therefore we uphold and reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of our compatriots.” Kazakhstan: Alturi Profiles Feminist Activist Alturi profiles feminist activist Jam Gulzada Serzhan, who is “working to protect the rights of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LBT) women in a country where activism of any kind can be dangerous.” Jam and a friend founded a group, Feminita, to work on feminis…

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Creeping Shari’ah… Ahem, Excuse Me… Biblical Law

…te about a similar move with regard to public education here). There are a number of dimensions to the Florida plan but those that interest me are the plans to “privatize” the system by turning even more of it over to “faith based” prison ministries and to reshape the system as whole with a model put forth over 40 years ago by none other than RJ Rushdoony, the founder of Christian Reconstructionism. Governor Rick Scott wants to move prisoners from…

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Marriage equality and ‘the end of Catholic Ireland’; Gambian Prez vows to slit gays’ throats; Colombian govt affirms support for marriage and adoption; global LGBT recap

…f voters in favor of passing the amendment on May 22. That is a staggering number, considering that Irish voters only approved divorce in 1995, and with a margin of less than 1%. It also reflects how diminished the power of the Catholic Church has become over the past 20 years, thanks in large part to devastating sexual abuse scandals that have undermined its moral authority. Catholic bishops have come under fire from some conservative laypeople f…

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Why the Church is Struggling to Hold Onto Millennial Catholics

…nthood, and often speaks in interviews about how much her Catholic faith influences her work. Partially as a response to the dwindling number of young Catholics, the campus ministry group FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), similarly to Opus Dei, sends missionaries – many of whom are recent college graduates themselves — out to secular college campuses, where they run bible studies and other group activities. A version of the FOCUS…

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Don’t Misread Russell Moore’s Disavowal of “Christian Nation” and Anti-Trump Stance

…ive the wrath that is to come in November. We’ll see. Ted Cruz opened door number three on Tuesday: “This man is a pathological liar,” Mr. Cruz said, ticking off Mr. Trump’s distortions, his infidelities, his penchant for conspiracy theories. “The man is utterly amoral.” As I mentioned the other day, the rejectionist route seems to be the one Baptist leaders are taking as well. Any of these options involves some risk, but door number three is a pa…

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LGBT Editor In Bangladesh Murdered by Islamists—and More, In this Week’s Global LGBT Recap

…ve are against Islam. The killings of Mannan and Mahbub brings to nine the number of liberals hacked to death in Bangladesh in 2016… In a 2015 report, Bangladeshi LGBT rights groups said that, “Visibility…can be life-threatening and isolating due to social stigma, religious beliefs and family values that create a hostile environment for LGBT individuals.” Following a 2015 visit, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religious belief…

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Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

…eats made against him). Perce has also made several statements that have inflamed anti-Muslim attitudes in Pennsylvania—his latest being that he plans to publicly flog a Koran on the Pennsylvania state capitol steps next month in protest of a state resolution to name 2012 the “Year of Religious Diversity.” There is No Such Thing as Islamophobia While these issues have been the subject of debate in segments of the atheist movement for some time, ev…

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Why Religious Exemptions Matter

…le for the exemption. This will, Catholics for Choice argues, increase the number of employees of Catholic organizations who would be deprived of contraception coverage, even if they aren’t Catholic themselves (or are Catholics who dissent from the church’s opposition to birth control).  HHS notes in its rule that “the exemption should not exclude group health plans of religious entities that would qualify for the exemption but for the fact that,…

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Speaking for Hinduism in the Absence of a Conversation

…tique of HAF’s stance to assert that the study of religion should not be influenced by religious groups, conflating HAF with Dinanath Batra, the retired schoolteacher who sued Penguin India to “ban” the book in the Indian markets. “Similar to Mr. Batra,” Jerryson asserts, “Ms. Shukla considers religious organizations the controllers and arbitrators of academic discussion.” He then goes on to offer a dubious claim that he had been censored from off…

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