Religion Dispatches
…ountry has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers.” Another time he paralleled the product with piety. “I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon.” Most remembrances of Carlin have lingered on his wicked wordplay and obscenity. As Slate’s Joshua David Mann remarked, “He got almost 30 years o…
Read More
…, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others. After “associations,” the most important word in the quote from Tocqueville is “progress.” In Dobson’s lament about the harmful impact parents effect when they fail to spank their children, one hardly notices that he…
Read More
…American presidential election. What I inadvertently touched on with my 4-minute, no-budget video was the growing divide in American culture, religion and politics that (according to some well-respected observers) threatens the viability of American Democracy. Beneath the most obvious and salacious details of the scandal lies a Christian subculture that, like a vast chunk of Antarctic ice, had years before begun to diverge from the mainstream mas…
Read More
…larger than Methodists, Episcopalians and Lutheran combined and double the number of “nones” since that last such survey in 1990. And among the 18- to 29-year-old demographic—the leading edge of a new generation of spiritually and technologically iconoclastic seekers and the core audience for media convergence phenomena like Battlestar—“nones” account for a quarter of the total population and an even higher portion of men. Even as traditional bric…
Read More…stitute has already weighed in. Much of it misses the point. In the ninety minute documentary, Stein frames the creation/evolution discussion as a First Amendment Issue: look at all these scientists who were ostracized by the scientific community because they claim Intelligent Design may have some truth to it. Just the making of this documentary has come complete with charges of misrepresentation, with some scientists interviewed for the film sayi…
Read More
…e the Oscars of the Internet. We’ve been honored with a Webby nomination a number of times before and it never gets old. But… we confess we’re starting to nurture a bit of a Susan Lucci complex — always a nominee, never (yet) a winner. In the past we’ve lost to much larger media outlets (such as the public network that rhymes with “Zee Bee Ess”) and this year are up against the likes of Krista Tippett’s “On Being” and others. So, here’s where you…
Read More
…s about the film? Angel Manuel Soto, producer and director: The film is 28 minutes long with credits. 22 Weeks is a drama, but due to documenting true events in a dramatic way, some people call it a docudrama, but I would never say that it’s a documentary. It’s not meant to inform or educate. Rather, it is meant to impact, create awareness, and motivate people to be informed on their own and to study and raise questions. The film is directed and p…
Read More…er a majority vote in favor of the “weakness” language. However, in a last-minute push for alternative amendments, they were able to eke out a majority vote to insert other dubious phrases through a back door. As a result, creationist and pro-intelligent design organizations like the Seattle-based Discovery Institute are now claiming victory “for science education.” But science watchdogs say the board actually created a road map to pressure publis…
Read More…anged the clock itself; so that a.m./p.m. were switched. I had my lovely 4 minute adhan greet me this morning. The other good news was that I found my mp3 player! I’m a little embarrassed to say, it was actually in one of the many pockets of my car. I have only owned this car for a few days before Ramadan, so things like discovering I could plug in the mp3 player and even get the chapters to read out on the screen of my radio were genuinely a surp…
Read More
…s. I am not sure why, but the Moroccan audience—and Bab Makina has a large number of upper-class Moroccans in attendance—really enjoy gospel. It’s an appreciation that appeared to cut across generations. Based on comments I heard, people are aware that many of the songs praise Jesus as the son of God, an idea that is anathema to Muslims. Unfortunately, I could not understand the appeal, outside of the aesthetic, but it was wonderful to see so many…
Read More