Search for "cheap airline tickets from chicago to san diego phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…fined as a vagrant. So members always carried five dollars and money for a phone call. Benjamin Zeller, author of Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion, has also noted that Heaven’s Gate members engaged in a lot of self-deprecating humor because they were aware that mainstream society perceived them as crazy. This research led Jones to conclude that a comedy about Heaven’s Gate might not be as inappropriate as it sounds. “I could never make a come…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…ts Muslim minority. In the decades since India’s independence in 1947, thousands of Muslims have died in incidents of mob violence. More than 7,000 died in the 1980s alone, according to reliable estimates. Major anti-Muslim riots occur about every decade, and dozens are killed annually in smaller or medium-scale anti-Muslims riots. To the extent, then, that Americans are perceived to care more about the plight of Christians than Muslims in India,…

Why It’s Heresy to Read the Bible Literally: An Interview with John Shelby Spong

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ntroversial. I don’t like being controversial. I get abused a lot in mail, phone calls and that sort of thing. I don’t enjoy that. But, if you are controversial in the public arena, the people who have given up on Christianity say, “My God, there must be something more to this story than I realized.” So, being controversial is my doorway to the generation of my own children. “The primary issue in the Christian church today is to get away from orig…

Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…all time and space? When the Cubit recently reached out to Dr. Reiss for a phone interview, though, his answers were surprising. We discussed his methodology, potential applications of his theory to secularism, and Reiss’s own spirituality as a scientist. How does your theory differ from those of past authors that posit just one or two motivations for religion? Ours is based on scientific research, so we ask people what motivates them. At this poi…

Gay, Christian, Pagan, Artist: How Matt Morris Defies the Borders of Spiritual Identity

By Jesse James DeConto

…he performed at Wild Goose in July . He spoke with Jesse James DeConto by phone in June. What did your upbringing impress on you as most important for your Christian identity? I don’t know that I really was having those sorts of conversations. As an Episcopalian I was participating in the liturgy. I was living into the liturgical calendar. I was in Sunday School, with certain stories about Jesus and about Scripture. The discussions about what i…

Oprah, Terrorist Cells, and the Meaning of Life: An Interview with Paul Froese

By Andrew Aghapour

…l world have so many things that others don’t—refrigerators, televisions, iPhones—and that’s completely true, but what that misses is that those don’t provide meaning for you. Ironically, those things might communicate to people that the world is moving on without them. How does religion, as an “overarching system of meaning,” help the disenfranchised? I think that when somebody has a strong moral system of meaning, it’s easier to cope with setbac…

“Even the Rich Suffer”: An Interview with Google’s Jolly Good Fellow Chade-Meng Tan

By Max Zahn

…y still doubles as his nickname: Jolly Good Fellow. Over the course of two phone conversations, RD asked Tan—who was, in fact, quite jolly—if mindfulness is a watering-down of Buddhism, whether meditation can truly save the world, and why he specializes in teaching rich people. You’re one of the only prominent advocates of secular mindfulness who is not white. What’s that like? Not only am I one of the only non-white people, but I’m one of the ver…

US Offers Help For Investigation of Bangladesh Killings

By Peter Montgomery

…oup, the Biblical Foundation Church, and about 200 pastors and churches in Santo Domingo, said the Dominican nation is experiencing moral decay and social product of influence of countries of the European Community and the United States, which they want to impose “the new Moral Agenda” which promotes abortion, marriage between lesbians, gays and transsexuals. The president and director of the Christian Action Group spoke on a panel addressing “The…

Reporting from Paris: A Prayer for Polluters

By Donna Schaper

…e a caucus proposed a stop fracking resolution. We spent hours on national phone calls debating when fracking should be stopped. We finally proposed 2030 as the last fracking date. It was a compromise after many “brackets,” what COP21 calls the matters that are kept in that famous parking lot where we put the things we don’t know how to decide. The Synod amended our so-called radical proposal and unanimously passed 2017 as the final date. We were…

Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…k millennials ages 18-29 comprise 20% of historically black churches. This number is roughly comparable to that of the baby boomer generation. Thus, religious affiliation for young black adults does not show the same kind of downward shift as that of the non-black population (the data on black children in the generation after the millennials suggest high levels of religiosity as well). African Americans in general, and African-American women in pa…