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Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

By John Horgan

…es move. This disconnect may explain why we so often fail to carry out our most adamant decisions. This morning, I vowed to write all afternoon rather than watch football, but somehow I ended up watching the end of the Jets game. These experiences recall Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Imp of the Perverse,” about a man who feels possessed by an evil other. Brain disorders can trigger much more dramatic experiences of this kind. Schizophrenics p…

‘The Quiet Damage’ Details the Heartbreaking Effect of QAnon on Five American Families — But Critical Questions Linger

By Susannah Crockford

…r in the study of radically different beliefs that it is, by this point, almo*]}*st hackneyed. In repeating commonplace metaphors of conspiracy theories as brainwashing, something that, “took her mind,” as Cook writes of one QAnon adherent, little is added to help understand the particularity of conspiracy theories. Why, when there are two sisters raised together in the same social and material conditions, does one accept QAnon and the other does not?…

Eclipseville, USA: The Birthplace of ‘Little Green Men’ Proudly Hosts The Point of Greatest Eclipse

By Matthew Bowman

…longer than anywhere else on earth. The people of Hopkinsville are for the most part happily bracing for the event. Hopkinsville leaders have dubbed their town “Eclipseville” and are expecting tens of thousands of visitors to crowd their hotels and restaurants. They say Hopkinsville is big enough “to make your solar eclipse experience memorable” but also “small enough to make sure you feel at home.” In addition to encouraging visitors to sample th…

Religion or Insanity? Two Upcoming Murder Trials Will Ask the (Burning) Question

By Joseph Laycock

…o a game of “heads I win, tails you lose,” in which whatever interests are more established get to make the rules as they go along. There is a larger pattern in which deviant religious groups are deemed insane when they invoke their religious rights while deviant criminals are deemed religious when their lawyers make insanity pleas. Whatever happens in the trials of Dobson and Christensen, let us hope for a more logically consistent approach to th…

I Owe, Therefore I Am: Why Struggling Against the Banks is a Holy Obligation

By Peter Laarman

…e lovely side note in Geoghegan’s account is the way in which he makes a famous movie villain—Lionel Barrymore’s Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life—look positively angelic in relation to today’s big boys at Citi and Chase and Bank of America. At least Mr. Potter wanted his loans to be repaid. But in the new lending environment where there’s no limit on interest, today’s bankers would actually rather that borrowers don’t pay. They can collect fa…

Gay Suicide and the Ethic of Love: A Progressive Christian Response

By Eric Reitan

…identity. On the contrary, the vote became an occasion for those with the most hateful views to be handed a microphone and afforded the chance to tell the community just how sick, sinful, perverted, and disgusting their gay and lesbian neighbors are. According to the Tulsa World report, Harrington’s father “said he feels his son may have glimpsed a hard reality at the Sept. 28 council meeting, a place where the same sentiments that quietly tormen…

Missouri Pastor Goes Viral on Gawker: ‘Separation of Church and Hate’

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…Springfield. It was actually one of the easier speeches I’ve ever written, mostly because so much of it was quoted material. After all of this started going viral, I was especially taken aback when a friend of mine informed me that one of the more popular quotes I used was actually related to slavery, not segregation, which of course drives the point home all the more. Walk me through how you came to the convictions you hold: your religious convic…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…ly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the piece, it’s actually more of a sweet thoughtful response to all the people who ask him and other atheists why they don’t believe in God. And as my husband noticed, Gervais i…

A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…reaker Here’s a little story. When my ex-husband and I became Christians almo*]}*st forty years ago, we were ecstatically happy and in love with each other, other Christians, sinners, you name it. He was overjoyed to find another Christian at work. This man, however, was reluctant to accept my ex-husband as a TRUE believer. He made a checklist and asked my ex to agree or disagree with specific creeds: Trinity? Check. Unlimited atonement? Check. Persev…

Why is Liberty Institute Still Defending Phillip Monk?

By Rob Shryock

…(Monk had lied) but did not punish him, I figured Monk’s defenders would just stop caring, since the story no longer fit their worldview. I was very, very wrong. The Liberty Institute, which represents Monk legally, is doubling down. After the release of the Air Force investigation, they produced two documents which show that Monk’s transfer date was moved from September 30th to August 14th. The Liberty Institute believes that, This documentation…