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What Ben Carson’s Pyramid Theory Might Say About His Foreign Policy

…ed by Christianity and U.S. foreign policy. There are many examples of the use of dubious archaeological evidence to advance narratives of racial, religious, and national superiority, and all too frequently, they have been marshaled in an effort to justify policies of conquest. In a speech in 1811, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton argued that the complex burial mounds found throughout North America were built not by American Indians, but by member…

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Please Reverend, Do Something About the Fat People

…increased risk for turning into a carrot. Now I suppose that living in a house with electricity does probably make you more likely to use an electric shaver, but it’s still a leap to go from there to the conclusion that everyone else has a “facial hair problem.” Age, income, overall health, and ancestry can all affect body weight, and they may also correlate with different patterns of religious activity. Perhaps these things were controlled for. (…

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Preaching to the ‘Moveable Middle’: Bishop Gene Robinson on Marriage Equality and the Election

…issue. Part of the intent of the book is to give people the words they can use when someone challenges them about being supportive they have some notion of what to say. My hope is to give them a sample of the kinds of words they can use when they are challenged. Why is marriage so important for gay and lesbian people, and why should straight people be supportive? This is about achieving full and equal rights, and it has as much to do with respect…

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Tweeting ISIS Attacks: A Lesson in Not Learning a Lesson

…ear. The Islamic State began in 2004 as al-Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate, not because its then-leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, discovered that female motorists populate America’s highways, but because America had just invaded Iraq. We can and must fight back against ISIL. We have a moral obligation, not to mention a national security obligation. But we must be careful in that response that we do not fall prey to ideas that have already failed before (and i…

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“We Blew it” on Climate Change, But May Survive Anyway: An RD Discussion with the First Transhumanist Candidate

…e much more inclined to think. And I put these articles out there just because I think it helps broaden my sense of spirituality, because there is a sense of spirituality even in my secularism. It just happens to be very science-fictiony, it’s very far-fetched. I’m not interested in discussing Jesus. I’m interested in discussing why super intelligence might want to have nothing to do with us, except let us run through systems and algorithms for an…

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So What if Psychedelics Are ‘Just’ Spiritual?

…it’s pretty much a commonplace among many researchers that the intentional use of psychedelics in certain environments (what users and researchers refer to as “set and setting”) can mimic and perhaps even produce authentic mystical experiences. Indeed, many who take psychedelics do so mainly for what they consider to be the spiritual benefit of the experiences they offer. Using psychedelics isn’t so much recreational, in this sense, but a controll…

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Douthat, Dionne Push Wrong Lesson on Religious Exemptions

…revious precedents that had been set, or the bishops’ long-term efforts to use conscience exemptions to beat back efforts to expand access to contraception. It was their off-the-cuff, emotional responses to the mandate, which they perceived as an attack (Winters accused the administration of “punch[ing] us Catholics in the nose” while Dionne wrote that “Obama threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus”) that made the original exemption po…

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Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

…y minority opinion. Michael Peroutka didn’t miss out on the presidency because his supporters were ghettoized. He lost because a whole lot of people wanted someone else to be president instead of Peroutka.  And having a minority opinion can be, you know, fine!  I’ve been told I hold many such opinions myself.  But it’s a little bit disingenuous to then say, “What’s this? My uncompromising belief in something almost nobody else believes or comprehe…

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Tutu’s Daughter Marries Woman & Loses Anglican Priest License; Romanian Anti-Marriage Activists Get 3 Million Signatures; Australian State Apologizes For Harmful Sodomy Laws; Global LGBT Recap

…s forced anal examinations The UN Committee Against Torture “condemned the use of forced anal examinations as an attempt to find ‘proof’ against people accused of homosexual conduct,” reported Human Rights Watch. The committee evaluates countries’ compliance with the Convention on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment. Uganda: New documents released in SMUG lawsuit against Scott Lively Sexual Minorities Uganda is represented by the Ce…

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Tragic Violence in Libya: No Excuse for Perpetrators—or for Provocateurs

…rted by us, but that doesn’t mean that the Ayatollahs didn’t strategically use anti-American sentiment to bolster their own power and sideline their enemies. There is no one comparable to the Ayatollah Khomeini in either Egypt or in Libya. In Libya, government forces even battled the attackers who torched the US consulate; Libyan government officials, many of whom began their revolt in Benghazi and knew Christopher Stevens, promptly issued an apol…

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