Religion Dispatches
…oignant, and now sad—to the denial of evolution. Religious thinkers in the Western Bible-based religions have known for over two thousand years that if Chance is given any role at all in determining things, then God has no significant role. This was the core of the Greek philosophy of Epicureanism, which held that we can plan and work, and accomplish some good things, but nothing and no one controls events, for Chance has its way with us all. The…
Read More
…lly tend to reject Marxism as a philosophical source. It is too white, too Western and, tends to include only economic class, not race, in its power analysis. Cone’s theological sources are the bible and black experience. If one is going to argue against his theology, one must argue against these sources not Marx. So far, Beck has said nothing about black experience and nearly everything he has claimed about the bible has been untrue. His objectio…
Read More…immigration in part because the immigration debate has been most heated in western states where Mormons constitute a politically significant portion of the population, such as Arizona and Utah. Russell Pearce, the author of Arizona’s infamous SB 1070, is a member of the LDS Church. And last week in Utah, an anonymous group calling itself “Concerned Citizens of the United States” distributed a watchlist with the names, social security numbers, and…
Read More…Australians, 15 percent of residents of United Kingdom, and 12 percent of Western Europeans. The post sparked a great discussion in the comment thread from readers. Many of the comments were from atheists and non-believers who told poignant stories about being ostracized by family members once they came “out of the closet,” so to speak. So, recently a family member, who is a devout Christian, read the post and told me that she was upset that I di…
Read More…a pack of marginally Mormon polygamists on a murderous rampage across the Western states. Jon Krakauer is not an authority on Mormonism. It’s a pity that Mormon communities are so reticent to speak for ourselves in terms robust enough for the outside world to understand that folks like Krakauer get the job. I have a call in to a friend in Short Creek (the local name for the polygamous communities of Centennial Park, AZ, Colorado City, AZ, and Hil…
Read More
…in New York, which has an enormous pedigree, has done wonderful things in promoting a way of life and developing American society, but at the end of the day is still socialist. This is a slightly disguised echo of the charge that has circulated among anti-Semites at least as early as the October 1917 Communist Revolution in Russia when a pamphlet titled “The Jewish Bolshevism” was circulated along with the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion…
Read More
…a recent report by Israeli think tank the Metzilah Center noted) “the only Western democracy that still lacks an immigration policy.” The old paradigm of Israel as an exclusively repatriation state for Jews is anachronistic. Transparent, coherent criteria for the naturalization of non-Jews—criteria that serve Israel’s unique needs and give advance notice to migrant workers of the conditions of their stay—can help prevent future heart-rending situa…
Read More
…ll policy. In a week during which a federal judge launched the downfall of Western civilization issued a nationwide injunction against enforcement of the military’s DADT rule, the Obama administration looks drastically out of step with the American public by signaling that it may very well appeal the ruling. While there are obviously several political calculations at work there, what might be more telling is an off-the-cuff remark by Obama adviser…
Read More
…them is no small feat. By the time of Chavez’s ritual finale in 1988, the western zeitgeist had been so shaped and informed by Reaganomics that interest among Chavez’s many publics had waned. The fast, tragically, seemed trite and formulaic in the eyes of some cynical global viewers. Chicano journalist Frank del Olmo understood it differently, however, noting in the Los Angeles Times that, “Chavez…uses his body to make the point…He believes in wh…
Read More
…or For Tyranny: When Nations Deny God’s Natural Law: “As America and many Western nations seem to desire to move away from their Judeo Christian foundations and embrace multi-culturalism, this book gives all the answers to dispel all the anti-God myths and equip people to stand for their Judeo Christian heritage.” Do the Shoebats think that Palestinian-born ex-Muslims would be made welcome in the United States without what they disparage as “mult…
Read More