Religion Dispatches
…ted. Why doesn’t the alarm stay high on global warming (excuse me, climate change)? Read a book about the state of the environment, this one perhaps. If my experience is anything like normative, your blood pressure will go up. When you put the book down you’ll be as zealous as a martyr in first-century Rome. Something must be done! But by the time I step off the bus my mind will be back to something the boss said yesterday. Or the fact that I’ve g…
Read More…bate, Perry’s comments were clearly aimed at a religious audience. Climate change denial is not just hot for energy industry lobbyists, it’s especially rampant among religious conservatives. New social science research by sociologist Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois University shows that sectarian Christians do poorly on basic scientific literacy questions, and therefore have difficulty engaging in scientific discussions involved in public poli…
Read More…ing climate scientist, has written. “It is leading to more widespread drought, more frequent heat waves and more powerful hurricanes.” If that trend continues, as the L.A. Times notes, Sandy may be just the first of many “Frankenstorms” around the world. It’s unclear what role, if any, climate change plays in boosting the temperature of the mid-Atlantic waters. But its possible effect on Hurricane Sandy, [Jeff Masters, cofounder of the website Wea…
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…nized as scripture. In the years since the repeal of the priesthood ban, a number of official steps have been taken to correct prejudice within the Church. The Church published a new edition of the Book of Mormon in 1981, replacing a promise that the righteous would become “white” with a promise that they would be made “pure” (2 Nephi 30:6), but leaving intact a handful of other Book of Mormon scriptures correlating dark skin with spiritual accurs…
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…be able to recruit enough young Catholics to counterbalance the increasing number of Nones, however, is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the more young Catholics start to embrace marriage equality, safe and legal abortion, access to contraception, and the liberal side on many other issues in the culture wars, the more of those same Catholics will also drift away from a church they perceive as incapable of change. Perhaps they’ll attend mas…
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…nment. In some respects, however, it has operated “as if” nothing had been changed by the Occupation policies or the postwar Constitution, which established religious freedom and the clear separation of religion and state (Articles 20 and 89). Given the postwar legal framework, one might assume that those among the bereaved families who wished to have a family member enshrined would indicate this to Yasukuni and request that the ritual be conducte…
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…hat had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name… his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (Revelation 13:16-18) In the early twentieth century, this prophecy became linked to American fears of a powerful federal government. A 1943 letter to the editor of the Pampa Daily News was representative of this growing resentment coupling conspiracy with apocalypticism: We should count it dishonorable for a free people to produce…
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…ctivity bubble to the surface. Lost in the debate is the large and growing number of thoughtful people who self-identify as “spiritual, but not religious” (that is, as non-affiliated), an admittedly complex phrase than doesn’t allow for easy analysis either. But, as has been frequently noted on RD, religion is highly dispersed in the modern period; it’s not going away, it’s just going elsewhere. Sometimes the “spiritual, but not religious” person…
Read More…inciples so it’s kind of important when you see a poll that says a growing number of Americans think you might be a Muslim. The President continues to tell everyone he’s a Christian but yet the number rises. See that? Which came first, the thought he was a Muslim or the lack of trust? If he is a Muslim, he can’t be trusted? Or if you can’t trust him, he must be a Muslim? In any case, Obama strained mightily to placate the likes of Graham and Brody…
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…publicly proclaim their disbelief. These reactions to the increase in the number of people classified as “religious Nones” represent an assumption based on a market approach of religion and an understanding of religion as a binary reality. Just like any other business, success in the religious marketplace is the goal, and it is measured by the number of people who identify with your particular brand of religion (or irreligion as the case may be)….
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