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Punks vs. Monks: Rockers Speak Out Against Genocide in Myanmar

…them. Punks’ response also contrasts sharply with that of dissident-turned-party-leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released in 2011 from a lengthy house arrest imposed by the junta. Suu Kyi has spoken up against restrictions on Muslim reproduction, but has avoided addressing ongoing violence against Muslims. She calls reticence necessary for reconciliation, but her critics say it is due to her presidential ambitions, which rely on the Buddhist maj…

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The “Guilty” AIDS Sufferers

…of all things. The idea in Zen is that by developing a keen focus on moment-to-moment existence, this false sense of separation—from what’s happening around us, from people who aren’t like us—will drop away. And in that dropping away, compassion and wisdom spontaneously arise. How does this relate to the unfolding of the global AIDS epidemic? Well, compassion literally means “to feel with” or “to suffer with” someone else who is suffering. The new…

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Seattle ‘CultureMaker’ Nathan Marion: We Need New Abbeys in America to Foster Community, Arts

…an Church become Fremont Abbey? The Church of the Apostles is both Lutheran- and Episcopal-based. The church was able to essentially buy the building through the Lutheran side. It’s a young, creative church, with lots of artists and musicians involved. The founding pastors there wanted the building to be used by the community. They knew that they wouldn’t really have a lot of use for it, besides Sundays anyways. So they helped create that nonprofi…

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Marriage Equality: No More (Word) Games

…ragraph 14, the implicit argument is that marriage is best defined as a one-man-one-woman institution. I appreciated the intellectual care that went into Smith’s analysis. Following the example of some of history’s best thinkers, he took an issue that most people considered straightforward, complicated it, and then redirected the discussion. Ultimately, though, I found his deconstruction unconvincing. Let me explain… Dr. Smith’s article begins wit…

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Jerry Falwell Jr. Is Corrupt, but Liberty U’s Problems Go Far Deeper

…ior, a duo in San Bernadino, California carried out a mass shooting with AR-15 rifles, killing 16. Falwell’s response that day would change the trajectory of Liberty’s public image for years to come: “I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in, and killed them.” He was drowned out by applause from the student body. I was slack-jawed. The Times and the Washington P…

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The Exorcist Files, Getting Mad at God, The Obama Prayer…

…igion. The Army’s “spiritual fitness” test is coming under fire from church-state organizations who claim it is unconstitutional. Despite the new Republican majority in the House, the religious makeup of the 112th Congress is about the same as the previous one. Like the rest of the country, Congress has a majority of Protestants (56.8%) but nonbelievers are underrepresented—there are no “nones.” The man who discovered the “homeless man with a gold…

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2010: A Banner Year for Biblical Patriarchy

…tes of hell will not prevail” against it. Celebrating the success of their San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, they reveled in the fact that their keynote speaker’s Christian films are now available at Wal-Mart and that TV and Christian movie star Kirk Cameron joined them as a featured speaker: “Our movement is maturing, God is blessing the work of principled filmmaking.” Encouraging men to form “godly and devoted friendships,” (later…

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The Battle for the Bible Against Christian Nationalism Seeks to Continue Historic Campaign

…“helped me realize how much we had been deceived.” This repackaging of old-time racism as “pro-life family values,” was the way that the powers that be of the segregationist South, according to Wilson-Hartgrove, persuaded Christians to “to keep the same people in power.” That, he says, was the message that “was sold to my people with organizations and lots and lots of money.” “They started telling us that people were trying to take away our relig…

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Death Couture: Not For Halloween Only

…with the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (November 1-2). These days are marked by colorful processions, visits to the graves of family members, and the construction of altars replete with offerings to the souls of the dead. For devotees of La Santa Muerte, November 1 is set aside as a special feast day—a devotion made notorious by US (and European) news media as a shadowy, macabre, and even gruesome cult venerated solely b…

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What If Animals Believe in God?

…re is the ability to acknowledge our own deep intuitions that, say, my four-year-old is in touch with something that’s not just material, but is something we’d want to call religious. So excluding animals from religion amounts to a kind of intellectual gerrymandering? Yeah, I think that’s a good way to put it. Excluding animals, when we look carefully, ends up forcing us to conclusions we don’t necessarily want to accept. It is a kind of gerrymand…

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