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God Promises to Open our Graves: A Theology for the Age of AIDS

…t thin bodies, light or fair-skinned, long brown or blond hair, and a face free of scars and acne, with a small nose, full lips, and clear eyes. As one student put it, “that girl looks healthy… she is so hot!” As for the ideal media male, he is tall, muscular, usually white, blue eyes, short hair, clean-shaven, and free of blemishes—healthy-looking. With these ideals in mind, is it any wonder that my high school students made the choices they did?…

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The Lesser and the Greater Pilgrimage

…exuberance. Sorta like skydiving tandem before following up my lessons for free-fall skydiving. That way I can focus on the details I am trying to learn now and be better prepared. As far as umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, goes; it stands to reason that people can visit the ka’abah any time of the year. And so it is. There are still the same ihram prescriptions. There are still certain rites that should be performed. But unless a journey to Makkah c…

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The Contraceptive Mandate and Animal Suffering

…ther blogs has accused Singer of an “advocacy sleight of hand” in equating freedom of religion with “freedom to worship.” Smith and his crowd want not only an expanded definition of what is to be a religion, they want any activity a group or individual claims is “religious” to fall outside the scope of government control. He says “the exercise of one’s religion involves how the faithful live their lives outside of the church, synagogue, temple, or…

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Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

…ing things like “go back to the Middle East, you pedophiles.” We should be free to criticize all religions, Islam included, but that doesn’t mean we should feel free to deride and scorn its adherents. It should go without saying that this isn’t a problem with atheism, but it is a problem among atheists and it’s one that is being largely ignored. 9/11 is frequently lifted up as the genesis of “New Atheism,” and it’s not uncommon to see people at at…

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Undercover Bosses as Minor Divinities: What Ever Happened to ‘Take this Job and Shove It’?

…a people’s fierce determination to stand tall and breathe the sweet air of freedom. For these nonviolent warriors everyday oppression was real and vicious. Perhaps for today’s abused American workers, there is a just-sufficient illusion of freedom to block any incipient struggle for self-respect from gathering force. So yes, it appears that our workplaces will continue to be marked by servility and deference and self-effacement (and treachery and…

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Is the Satanist Behind 10 Commandments Challenge Sincere?

…legal team. Future plans involve legally ordaining ministers and using the free exercise clause to claim privileges for Satanists. Satanic ministers could, for example, illegally marry a gay couple and then, when the state refuses to recognize the marriage, claim that their free exercise rights have been violated. Other projects involve the Satanic ideal that one’s body is sacred and inviolable. Expressing disgust that corporal punishment is still…

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Impossible Possibilities: Obama and Power

…or the current economic crisis will fundamentally change the principles of free markets, free trade, or transnational corporate dominance that ultimately guarantee a permanent underclass at home and abroad. This is why, aside from skin color and charisma, Martin Luther King Jr. (the actual human rights activist, not the ephemeral color-blind dreamer of American folklore) and Barack Obama have little in common: King desired to revolutionize the wor…

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T-Shirts and Minarets: The Rending of the Social Contract

…enment ideas are, when the refrain one hears is that there is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is atrocious when it comes to matters of religious freedom. However, they do not claim to embrace the Enlightenment or difference. It does not seem to be a good idea to race to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to rights. Either rights are good thing or they are not. It should not be a matter of “rights are good thing, but if no on…

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How U.S. Conservatives Conjured the Jesus of Their Dreams

…s many historians oversimplify by identifying Calvinism as the Ursprung of free market capitalism, Keddie more precisely singles out Arminianism, the deviation from orthodox Calvinism that reserved some room for human effort in the work of salvation. He pinpoints the crucial contribution of Hugo Grotius, whom the Dutch government locked up for his Arminian heresy, in laying the legal groundwork for unrestricted pursuit of private gain and the expl…

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Four Reasons Why Egypt’s Revolution Is Islamic

…similar but far more significant quandary. The nightmare scenario involves free and fair elections in Egypt that put a “radical” Islamist government into power. This government then enacts foreign policy decisions hostile to US (and Israeli) interests and hence serves to “destabilize the region.” The US and Israel lose a key ally in the region, ushering in a new period of unrest.  Forestalling this scenario, commentators are arguing that this is n…

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