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Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…might taste nice coming back up.” Not wanting to give too many spoilers, just let me state that if you can read the hairdryer story without ending up snorting aloud, you’re made of iron. But does Jillette accomplish his goal of demonstrating the truth of atheism? Probably not. The problem comes in the form of the issue itself: we are all experts when it comes to religion. Not even a magician can convince us we’re wrong. As the subtitle indicates,…

The Religious Implications of Nudity

By Steve A. Wiggins

…we all share this—at times frightening—humanity. We only want those we trust most intimately to see us naked. To touch us in certain places. Several years ago I lost a secure seminary teaching job for being too liberal. My academic career never recovered (just try to explain that to a search committee repeatedly asking, “but why were you let go?”). For five years I clutched to the lifestyle I knew by living as an adjunct instructor at four differ…

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

By Kara Loewentheil

…rk, you try to make it seem like complying is really in the person’s own best interests: you offer to pay your seatmate to vacate, or you claim that contraception is harmful to women. Third, if none of that works, you create costs for both the authority attempting to regulate you and the innocent bystanders around you in the hopes that if you create enough problems the authority in question will cede way (in other words you block the aisles for a…

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…n an airplane aisle knows there will be some sort of contact as you move past; the space just isn’t big enough for most people to avoid that. If your goal is sincerely to avoid contact, it seems to me that remaining in your own seat, lowering your eyes and simply relinquishing your claim to the armrest would be a more effective means of not touching a woman. It seems hard to believe that “hundreds” of men wound up in the same situation and found i…

The Intellectual Source Code For National Conservatism Can Be Found at This Niche Catholic Publication

By Peter Schwartz

…ed the reactionary and traditionalist political theologies of Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, Juan Donoso Cortés, Julius Evola, and Carl Schmitt, many of whom happen to be influential among the current crop of National Conservatives. What we commonly today refer to as illiberalism, and what we see emerging in predominantly Catholic European nations—most notably in Hungary, but also in Poland, Austria, France, and Italy (and in former Soviet Ea…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…lways did, “don’t you love the song ‘Ripple?’” Maybe I cringed, but he insisted we listen to it right then, so we did. Eventually, through years of conversations, we made it, song by song, through the entire American Beauty album. Steve passed away in June of this year. That was 15 years after our “Ripple” conversation, and today, there are hundreds of Dead songs on my phone and dozens of live recordings in playlists, even a nod when I see a Deadh…

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…believers. However, she says that atheists don’t want to dig up Jesus Christ just so they can crucify him all over again. The audience laughs. “I know,” she says, “that would be awesome, wouldn’t it?” She gives us a very long list of things she hates about religion. I concur with all of them. I too hate honor killings and the way Jerry Falwell blamed atheists and homosexuals for 9/11. She’s still angry about Galileo. Ditto. Another astronomer who…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…[Sister Jeannine] Gramick, speaking by phone from Assisi, the pilgrims’ last stop before heading to Rome. “It’s very heartening to people who have felt alienated and rejected for so long, so we are feeling very hopeful.” “While LGBT Catholics hope for changes, they are realistic enough to know that Francis may not make those changes,” said [Francis] DeBernardo. “But he is doing things that will help their spiritual lives.” In another commentary t…

Wichita, the Sequel: A Clinic Reopens at Ground Zero in America’s Fight over Abortion

By Kathryn Joyce

…r what they called The Summer of Mercy: protests that brought Wichita to a standstill for seven weeks as demonstrators blockaded Wichita’s abortion clinics, particularly Dr. Tiller’s, and were arrested in massive numbers. One local activist told me that nearly 25 anti-abortion groups had been birthed during the Summer of Mercy, some of which are still active. The protests so shaped the city that, 22 years later, both sides recall the fight vividly…

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…forcing immigration law. A federal judge issued an injunction in July against most of the law’s provisions until its constitutionality can be tested in court. Last week, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that similar laws in Hazleton, Pennsylvania were unconstitutional. The number of deaths have increased even as illegal immigration has fallen dramatically in the past ten years. The economic downturn and high unemplo…