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Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…wspaper which encouraged Christian citizens to actively work to restore America to its historically Christian roots, “redeeming the time because the days are evil.” And my family attended a fundamentalist Quiverfull home church, having rejected all the local evangelical and even fundamentalist congregations as “too wishy-washy.” About five years ago, an email correspondence with my long-lost atheist uncle encouraged me to question my “biblical wor…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…East; the Gulf more to India and East Asia than to Arab and Berber North Africa). On a recent trip through the region, via Istanbul, I took some pictures to capture some of the spirit of the place for lack of a better term. When you bring that many people together, chasing after money and the chance to strike it big—again, think American Wild West, for better and worse—you get… things that surprise you. Or, at the least, things you do not expec…

Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

By April L. Bogle

…good move. When I got to the lobby another something told me to dig out my phone and check it for messages. Sure enough, I had one from an unfamiliar number. A woman’s voice said Bedi was still sleeping, exhausted from the previous day’s overseas flight, and needed to reschedule our interview for that afternoon. I called the number back, convinced the opportunity was lost. “I’m here at the hotel now, but I’m booked solid this afternoon—” “Hold on,…

Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…btitle indicates, Jillette believes atheism is more prevalent than many Americans would care to admit. This may be due to the definition of atheism he provides in the book’s preface: “If god (however you perceive him/her/it) told you to kill your child—would you do it? If your answer is no, in my booklet you’re an atheist.” He later qualifies this a bit, asserting that anyone who can’t answer a solid “Yes” to “Does god exist?” is an atheist. Relig…

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…an ad in a local shop or community center. Last minute emergency? Call the airline right away to see about possibilities for accommodating your needs. Likewise, if one is ardently anti-abortion for moral reasons, rather than only focus on making it illegal, prevent it by limiting unwanted pregnancies: help ensure adequate, healthy sex education and contraception are available to those who need or want them. Work to make affordable, quality prenata…

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

By Kara Loewentheil

…h ultra-Orthodox men interfering in your travel, you can just take another airline. If only it were as easy for female employees affected by the numerous lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement to find a better job. *Correction: This post originally indicated that gender separation was due to concerns about women’s menstrual cycles. To read more about gender separation among Haredi Jews in Israel and in the U….

What the Lost Finale is Really About

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…who founded the Soto school of Zen), and the eternal presence of Richard (Ricardo) Alpert, whose namesake was dropping acid with Timothy Leary in the 1960s and eventually reemerged from the counterculture with the name Ram Dass. At the same time, there are the characters who surface in the show, and change and morph. Jack Shephard, for example, is clearly a redemption figure, and it remains to be seen how much redeeming he can accomplish. In earl…

The Religious Implications of Nudity

By Steve A. Wiggins

…ance-enhancing drugs. The sense of freedom and fun (and free food, even if airline food) was exhilarating. The airport has now become a place of horror. Do they have full-body scanners? I wonder as I’m herded into a long, bovine line. Abattoir or boudoir? Why is this bothering me so much? Don’t Touch Me There Even cursory reflection reveals my embodiment issues are buried deep in my religious upbringing. I was a teenage fundamentalist. That remark…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…also to take steps to end discrimination against this community.’ Rosaline Costa, a Catholic who is Executive Director of Hotline Human Rights Trust Bangladesh, said the government must do more than just investigate these killings: ‘God has given us freedom of choice and nobody is allowed to persecute people for their sexual orientation because of so-called traditional values based on conservative religious norms. A truly democratic society can’t…