Search for "= Jetblue Airlines Reservations 800-299-7264 Jetblue Airlines Official Site Jetblue Airlines Flights"

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…sed when the American Atheists chose Des Moines as the national convention site. “Why Des Moines?” people kept asking. “Why Des Moines? Because if we go to New York or L.A., we’re just another convention. We were in Atlanta last year and we didn’t raise an eyebrow. The adult toy convention had been there the week before. But we’ve got protesters in Des Moines!” The crowd murmurs, applauds, a few whistles. “It makes us know how right we are, doesn’…

Conservative Media Firm Pushes Claim That Gaza Withdrawal Caused BP Disaster

By Sarah Posner

…ernan runs a ministry, Defend and Proclaim the Faith and, according to the site’s biography, is a “pro-life leader” in central Pennsylvania, where he lives. He’s also the founder of International Cops for Christ because “[t]he Bible refers to the police as God’s ministers and God has granted awesome power to the police for the subduing of evil. This power includes arresting people and suspending their liberty, putting people in jail, starting civi…

God, Guns, and the Confederate Flag

By Sarah Posner

…ful federal authority but Alabama is not one of them,” Moore told the news site AL.com earlier this year. “A federal judge,” said Moore, “has no authority to overturn a state constitutional amendment in the face of a state court’s opinion on the same matter.” In February, when Moore’s Wallace-esque stance made news, he was supported by the Alabama Republican Party chair, Terry Lathan, who had just returned from a trip to Israel, which, he wrote in…

New Ex-Offender Program Puts Church Ahead Of State

By Mark Bergen

…n email, “could raise serious Constitutional problems.” Content on its Web site, he continued, suggests “Out4Life is designed to funnel ex-prisoners to churches for reentry programming. If state funds are being used to support this effort, state money could be unconstitutionally supporting religious indoctrination.” There is not, Out4Life staff claim, a direct line connecting prisoners from PFM programs inside prison to those outside. Their progra…

Satan, Contributor to Teen Vogue‘s New “Sodomy” Section?

By Mark D. Jordan

…ep breath! Yes, you have just read the phrase “anal sex” and not on a porn site. Religious debates lead us to many unusual topics.) Written in a cheery tone, the short article moves from basic anatomy to some elementary cautions about possible risks and problems. It also argues that adolescents deserve information about the range of human sexual practices, including ones they don’t intend to adopt. This optimistic article has provoked extravagant…

“What Kind of Islam Is That?”: Talking With Refugees From ISIS

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…amily along with three other families had created a tent city on an unused site at a street crossing. They poured concrete slabs and illegally tapped into an adjacent power line for electricity. They dug into the ground and connected to the city’s water supply to have drinking water and dug a pit for a latrine. With television and a refrigerator, they managed to create a viable living space. The residents of Erbil were remarkably tolerant—sympathe…

Religious Conservatives Unhappy with Daschle Pick

By Sarah C. Moore

…rought his Catholic faith into question. Headlines from the blogs and news sites of the religious right read “Pro-Life Nightmare” and “Pro-Abortion Catholic to Head Department of Health and Human Services,” interpreting Daschle’s appointment as further proof that the Obama administration will promote a “radical anti-life and anti-family agenda.” After recovering from the outright absurdity of the accusation that the Obama administration will be an…

Secularism in the US is Larger, More Diverse and More Dynamic Than Ever, But You Wouldn’t Know it From the Media

By Chrissy Stroop

…o God, everything is permitted when they were undergraduates and never revisited that proposition with a more mature, critical eye, and an awareness of the great Russian novelist’s reactionary politics, Russian nationalism, and antisemitism. Levin’s frustration with the press is thus entirely valid. The legacy media’s approach to American secularization and secularism, frankly, constitutes journalistic malpractice. To take a recent (admittedly far…

“Flipping the Script” to Win Gays Back to the Evangelical Church

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…re’s always the community. “If we took friendship seriously as a potential site of devotion and sacrifice, far fewer people would feel neglected and unwanted,” Roen quotes from Eve Tushnet. Sure, but friendship can only go so far. I have very few friends willing to reach the level of intimacy needed to fulfill that deep longing for true companionship. Somewhere, a line gets crossed. The other problem here is that the “friendship” offered by so ma…

The Latest Suspicious Ex-Muslim

By Hussein Rashid

…er professional converts have had. [Author’s note: A screen shot of the website is included in case the maintainers of the site choose to update in response the criticisms listed here. The screen capture was made on Oct. 19, 2010. Post continues below screenshot.] There are so many flags with Al-Rassooli’s self-description, I am not sure where to begin. His name is spelled in a way no Arab would spell his name, opting for a corruption of “ar-rasul…