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Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…ons of ZZ Top, a supermodel, and some very queasy paramedics, creates an almo*]}*st psychedelic mental image up front. Jillette notes laconically, “I decided to have a Cinnabon (‘You pig!’) for breakfast because I thought it 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 de…

The Religious Implications of Nudity

By Steve A. Wiggins

…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 different…

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

By Kara Loewentheil

…the pattern of behavior, which replicates the broader social and political movement strategies we’ve seen on a personal scale. First, you try to convince people to do what you want—so, for example, if you’re an ultra-Orthodox man on a plane, you ask the woman next to you to move elsewhere, or if you’re a conservative religious employer, you argue that contraception shouldn’t be included in mandatory requirements for prescription coverage under the…

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…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 it easier to block the aisles or demand o…

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

By Peter Schwartz

First Things describes itself as “America’s most influential journal of religion and public life.” You might not have heard of First Things—the magazine’s circulation wouldn’t drain a bathtub and its web traffic is quite modest—but its slogan is no idle boast. First Things reports, comments, and offers perspective on the most pressing matters of politics, culture, religion, law, and philosophy from a conservative and (mostly) Catholic perspective…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…began teaching at University of California at Berkeley, getting to know my mostly older colleagues was sometimes a challenge. In my late 20s, I was lost in the sea of 40,000 students from all over the world. One afternoon, desperate for advice, I went to the office of my colleague Steve Tollefson, and we had one of those long, rambling conversations about teaching that inevitably forks into other topics. Steve was in his 50s, but he could talk to…

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

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…lessed hope and it is—this tidy, seemingly impenetrable package by which almo*]}*st everything else is bearable. I lost my job? Well, I still have hope. I have cancer? Bummer, but check it out; I’ve got hope and it’s going to see me through. My kid’s gone missing? My heart is torn open, but look here. My hope is real. It’s solid. It weighs ten thousand pounds. It bolsters me, keeps me tethered, does whatever I need it to do. When I walked away from fu…

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

…: Javier Soto, a pastor from the resort city of Viña del Mar, is among the most outspoken critics of the expansion of relationship recognition and other rights to LGBT Chileans. He said God sparked a massive forest fire in the coastal city of Valparaíso last April because lawmakers were considering the civil unions measure. Soto frequently confronts Rolando Jiménez, president of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation. The Chilean g…

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

By Kathryn Joyce

…Gittrich, a 66-year-old former grocer with white hair and red suspenders. “Most of the time [in a planning commission] you’re trying to provide for the future, and rarely if ever do you know from the past what it’s going to be like. But in this case, we know exactly what it’s like.” Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman, a fratty San Diego activist who moved his group to Wichita—“purgatory,” in his mind—in 2002 in order to target Dr. Tiller’s clinic full…

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…art feet, rocks and crevices that twist ankles—especially in the dark when most of the migrants travel. Sometimes a guide will lead a group. Anyone, injured or otherwise, who can’t keep up is frequently left behind. In the past 12 months, 214 people have died attempting this journey, making this one of the deadliest years on record. In July, the bodies of 57 people believed to be migrants were found here. Most were discovered along a well-known tr…