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QAnon isn’t a Cult — a Problematic Term — But Michael Protzman’s Q-Adjacent ‘Negative48’ Certainly Is

…] community that could potentially, and in the Branch Davidian case did, cause harm to children instead of saving them from harm.” The use of the term provokes specific reactions, and those reactions often include state violence against the people we claim to want to protect. All of this is important, because when I say the ~Negative48 group, based in Dallas, surrounding Michael Protzman, is a cult, I do so knowing full well the problematic baggag…

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What Do We Mean By ‘Judeo-Christian’?

…gian Eliezer Berkovitz put it even more succinctly: Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism. Behind these refutations was the bloody history of European Christian persecution of Jews. In a 1963 lecture to German theologians, Richard Rubinstein noted that “for almost 2000 years an honest Judeo-Christian encounter was all but impossible in Europe… Only in modern times has a begin…

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Pope Benedict: Use Protection while…

In a statement on Sunday, the UN World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the pope advised drivers: “Dear brothers and sisters, I implore everyone—drivers, passengers and pedestrians—to listen carefully to the words of St. Paul in today’s Liturgy of the Word: ‘Let us be awake and sober. Our behavior on the road must be characterized by responsibility, attention and respect for others. May the Virgin Mary guide us securely along the road…

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As Psychedelics Experience a Renaissance, Emory’s New Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality Seeks a Novel Approach

…Schedule 1, which classifies them as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” In light of such classification, suggesting that psychedelics might have a religious use seems anathema. The past few times I’ve taught the course, however, I’ve noticed that students seem more receptive to the idea. I know that it’s an anecdotal observation, but it tracks with a growing interest in the potential medicinal and spiritual…

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Turn on the News: Some Abortion Opponents May Opt For a New Vaccine, But Behind Their Skepticism it’s Often a Different Story — of Disinformation, Conspiratorial Thinking, and White Nationalism

…rooted in concerns over abortion. It could be that people are balking because they see vaccination as unnecessary, or because they see vaccines as contaminants, both of which are fairly common objections linked to religious mindsets. And as law professor Dorit Reiss writes in the Washington Post, “We know that Americans game religious exemptions, because they tell us.” That’s a nice way of saying that they lie. Jenkins asks some anti-abortion act…

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Baby We Were Born for War: To Dominionist Christian Groups, No Election is Too Small — and Colorado is Just the Beginning

…dates came in the form of voter guides in English and Spanish intended for use with churches. Consistent with the culture warring themes of the Christian Right in the past year, the guides asked candidates to agree or disagree with five statements regarding “Critical Race Theory,” “Parental Rights,” “Boys Playing Girl Sports [sic],” “Sex Education,” and “Gender Identity Pronouns.” The fine print at the bottom of each voter guide illuminates the in…

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Perhaps Islam isn’t the Only Reason Donald Trump Didn’t Recall Muhammad Ali

…poverty is something to be overcome mainly by heroic individuals who don’t use their identity (racial, ethnic, or religious) as an “excuse” for social patterns of inequality and exclusion, but whose individual merits would be revealed through competition, often aided by their belief in Jesus. As a Muslim and an aging, disabled former athlete faced with a society not usually designed with people of different levels of mobility in mind, Muhammad Ali…

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How the Catholic Church Broke the Health Insurance it Advocated For

…nsurance is per se redistributive. You’re taking money from people whose houses don’t burn down to give it to the people whose houses do burn down. There’s more than a little irony in this given how proud the Catholic Church is of its role advocating for universal health insurance coverage since the early twentieth century. The Catholic Church helped educate the country about the need for shared social benefit programs, then helped tear down the v…

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The Vatican is the Magic 8-Ball of “Family Life”

…don’t grasp the beauty of Humanae Vitae, the encyclical that says you can use family planning, you just have to use a really ineffective form of it that leaves you open to unplanned pregnancy: When treating a couple’s openness to life and their knowledge of the Church’s teaching, with particular reference to Humanae Vitae, the responses clearly admit that, in the vast majority of cases, the positive aspects are unknown… [Catholics] struggle to un…

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Lincoln and Obama: A Precarious Parallel

…e many such evocative comparisons across the media, Obama joins others who use founding texts or identification with American hagiography to shove us from the sad realities of today toward ideals to which we aspire. Like the women of Seneca Falls whose addition of “and women” transformed the Declaration of Independence to the Declaration of Sentiments, Obama (and others) seek to use our history to express hope. In doing so, they re-authorize civil…

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