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Heavy Metal Saved Me From Catholic Guilt; RIP Ronnie Dio

…ncerts also did nothing to endear him to the Christian faithful, yet Dio’s use of the horns came from his grandmother’s use of the hand symbol to ward off the evil eye (corna). I have to wonder if Dio’s grandmother ever saw him use it in a concert. Without Dio, and other “satanic” metal groups, right wing Christianity would have had a hard time remembering what to do with the devil. Dio made it cool to question religion, to embrace the darker side…

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The Quietly Crumbling Wall of Separation

…r at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, said the Establishment Clause trend should cause at least as much concern as the Free Exercise one. “I would also agree that the post-Smith ‘equal treatment’ of religion does, indeed, make the Free Exercise Clause a redundancy—and seriously undermines our nation’s commitment to freedom of conscience,” he said. “But ‘equal treatment’ under the Establishment Clause is an ever-greater threat to religio…

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Thinking About God Makes Your Brain Bigger

…notion of what actually exists “out there,” and we document how the brain uses its perceptions to build useful models of the world, other people, morality, and God. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing?     We wrote this book for everyone who has an interest in religious, spiritual, and secular beliefs. We talk about the neural activity in the brains of believers and disbelievers, and we show the benefits of contemplation for eve…

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The Theological Hijacking of Religious “Freedom”

…s that in the recent efforts of many religious Americans, the law is being used to legislate a vision of freedom that defines religious freedom as “freedom from.” Unlike the early American Baptists, who faced serious persecution, these advocates seek to use the law to protect their vision of worship in the workplace as a purity ritual. It is a vision of religious expression free from interference in the form of difference, free from the conflictin…

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Baby We Were Born for War: To Dominionist Christian Groups, No Election is Too Small — and Colorado is Just the Beginning

…dates came in the form of voter guides in English and Spanish intended for use with churches. Consistent with the culture warring themes of the Christian Right in the past year, the guides asked candidates to agree or disagree with five statements regarding “Critical Race Theory,” “Parental Rights,” “Boys Playing Girl Sports [sic],” “Sex Education,” and “Gender Identity Pronouns.” The fine print at the bottom of each voter guide illuminates the in…

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How Conservative Christian Women Came to Claim “True” Feminism

…’t really different from other advocacy groups in this respect. I wouldn’t use the words “tricky” or “manipulative,” because those words imply that there’s a certain moral ineptness inherent in chaos rhetoric. What I’d claim, rather, is what I said earlier: most of us tolerate chaos rhetoric quite well when it’s being used by a group that we like. In other words, various methods of persuasion (in this case, chaos rhetoric) are called “tricky” or “…

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Innocent Until Proven Muslim — A Q&A with Dr. Maha Hilal

…ached multiple times by Cuban government officials asking us not to go because it would cause trouble [with the U.S.] for them. It was a delicate place, because we were a group of Americans and didn’t want to cause trouble for the Cuban government, because Guantánamo is a U.S. naval base on their land without their consent.[5] We camped on a big hill where you can kind of see the naval base and prison in the distance. We did all our solidarity act…

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Almost-Blockbuster Netflix Series ‘The Family’ Exposes a Christian Network Whose God Is Power

…anyone shows up. For space reasons I won’t go into The Family’s multiple abuses of the religious tax exemption. Many RD readers will be familiar with the story of their notorious townhouse on C Street in Washington, which for many years got away with being a tax-exempt “church” even though it actually functioned as a private club for powerful members of Congress who paid a nominal rent to live there. But this abuse pales compared to the major crim…

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Jesus Was Single

…nt levels of “strictness.” For example, if the modern state ever wishes to use racial categories in making policy, then, because of our checkered and very bloody racial history, these discriminating laws and policies will be subject to the very strictest scrutiny. (That is what has bedeviled affirmative action policies of late; even using such categories for the noblest of purposes is Constitutionally suspect, at least at the outset.) If the state…

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There Will Be a Nation

…y as a critique of mythology. This is why this film is worth watching: because it shows how the use of mythological structures and elements can be used against other, perhaps more oppressive stories. Propositional logic (the kind Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens use) offers straightforward, non-fictional language that makes truth claims and offers critiques. That may offer a viable critique of the ideologies of myth, yet here…

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