Religion Dispatches
…e church down the street (while the rest of the family “overreacts” at her use—or misuse—of the word). Madea’s home and neighborhood serve as an introduction to black culture for the Needleman family, who enter a “museum for blackness” when they arrive at Madea’s house and experience the discomfort of plastic coverings on the sofa, or the inability to sit on the porch after certain hours. Perry’s exhibitions are not much fun, to say the least, whe…
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…ights and religious rights—we can expect the Native claimants to lose, because in liberal political discourse, property is the paradigmatic right and land is the paradigmatic property. One might say that because of religion’s special status in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, religion actually transcends property relations; that it’s the one thing that’s excluded from property relations. However, in cases like Lyng or Oak Flat, religion do…
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…e people of Donbas rightly opposed the freedom of western civilization because it brought with it a test of faithfulness to God—i.e. pride parades (это гей-парад). By not giving in to this sin, Kirill argues that Donbas (and seemingly Russia as well) are thus strangers to the world (то они не входят в тот мир, они становятся для него чужими.), not welcome in the West because of their oppositional stances on pride parades, which he labels as sin. W…
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…ersonal, theistic sense referring to a transcendent God in heaven and some use it to refer to a pantheistic, immanent power that infuses all of nature? God-hating atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others of their narrow-minded ilk have made a killing tearing down a God worshiped by childlike, blind followers not rational enough to follow lock-step behind the true idols they worship: science and secularism. God-fe…
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…again headed for the Supreme Court. And I only entertain the argument because of its manipulative use of the rhetoric of religion and “religious freedom.” Why take knowledge and practices supported by the medical establishment and cast them as a “religion”? While this rhetorical tactic might seem absurd on its face, it’s surprisingly effective for the Christian Right’s particular approach to authoritarian politics. When I was about 9 or 10, thank…
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…gh I suppose I need to remember that he didn’t write that song in 2015. To use a ripped-from-the-headlines test case, do you think Rogers would be able to accept and celebrate Caitlyn Jenner for who she is? My sense is that Rogers had a comparatively fluid notion of gender roles. He was constantly bending gender on his program in the sense that he showed males and females undertaking activities not normally associated with their gender. We can see…
Read More…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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…based on his work with leading tech companies. The formula helps designers use a system of digital triggers and reward loops to hook users, keeping them engaged. It’s a guide to making zombies, not to curing them. There has been backlash to Eyal’s book, mostly focused on consumer protection policies. In Aeon, Cubit co-producer Michael Schulson argues for government regulation of addictive technologies. Slate magazine founder Jacob Weisberg, writin…
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…ding incident. Rather he said it was because of the Bible on his desk. Because he had refused to remove it, citing religious freedom under the First Amendment, he said he was being persecuted. Students organized a rally for him, bringing their Bibles to school in support. A Web site devoted to Freshwater’s cause is called www.bibleonthedesk.com. But Dennis said the issue was never about the Bible on the desk. And nowhere in the lawsuit’s initial c…
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…therwise compelling story about the need for queer people to make common cause with low-wage workers. She and her spouse are small-time farmers in the Central Valley: in that context they can feel how wrong it would be for them to say “thank you very much” to the Supremes and then proceed to ignore the economic struggles of their neighbors. But the phrase “saved the best for last” thoughtlessly suggests that the other SCOTUS decisions bearing on t…
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