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Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

…good move. When I got to the lobby another something told me to dig out my phone and check it for messages. Sure enough, I had one from an unfamiliar number. A woman’s voice said Bedi was still sleeping, exhausted from the previous day’s overseas flight, and needed to reschedule our interview for that afternoon. I called the number back, convinced the opportunity was lost. “I’m here at the hotel now, but I’m booked solid this afternoon—” “Hold on,…

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The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

…omething-year-old Deadhead guys hit on my teenage friends by offering them tickets to shows. Deadheads were anathema to my chosen subculture of socially conscious punks. East Bay punks were aggro and in your face about social justice, feminism, human rights; Deadheads, in our eyes, were too stoned and obsessed with their god Jerry to care. Sometimes, I’d be out in Berkeley at night, coming out of a punk show in some basement or garage, and I’d hea…

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More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

…e group did not get a private meeting with Pope Francis, but was given VIP tickets to the pope’s weekly audience in St. Peter’s square. Religion News Service reports that several bishops, including “San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone – point man or the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ battle against gay marriage – had written a letter to the Vatican on their behalf.” A group of LGBT Catholics from London who met up with the New Ways…

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

…applaud this news, a murmur through the convention hall, Blackberries and iPhones tweeting on all sides of me.  “When you come out of the closet, shut the door behind you because you won’t need it anymore,” he continues. (Who’s he talking to? He’s preaching to the choir, isn’t he? As far as he knows?) “If you don’t have a deity,” he says, “you are an atheist.” I’m an English teacher and I agree this may indeed define an atheist—someone without a g…

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Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

…published, to great acclaim. As of October it ranked #273 in Amazon’s book sales category. (Those of us whose books are ranked down in the millions can’t help but feel a little pang of jealousy; it does tell us, however, who is getting read!) Jillette is the vocal member of Penn & Teller, the bad-boy magician duo, and a noted iconoclast. Largely a ramble through his inner monologue, God, No! is the first book to cause me to laugh out loud in years…

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An Architect Reimagines the Synagogue as Ark, Shelter, Floating Fortress

…icipation in the City Council of Glen Cove at the time of the 1990 Avianca airline crash in the nearby Long Island town of Cove Neck—a flight from Columbia to New York that ran out of fuel as it was held circling JFK airport awaiting permission to land, killing 73. In the midst of a subsequent council meeting, the mayor of Glen Cove sequentially cited the heroics of local emergency workers for responding to the crash, and then lamented the presenc…

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‘Have a Blessed Day’ May Not Be a Sign of Christian Nationalism, But it’s Not Innocuous Either

…ngers with “salaam aleikum” rather than “have a blessed day,” we’d be having a very different discussion now—one most likely involving threats of Islamophobic violence and perhaps violence itself, as well as severe backlash against the airline. Christians, in other words, retain a highly privileged place in the American social hierarchy, and it seems to be that our best option for achieving a functional democratic future is to call out and work to…

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Religion and Reality TV: Is God Watching?

…king place when running late for a conference, and the ability to convince airline employees to bend regulations so he could store camera equipment in overhead compartments. Oh, and God also helped Osteen in some Texas real estate ventures that, even on Osteen’s superficial account, sound kind of shady. Perhaps a God concerned with lateness and luggage does get invested in televised talent competitions. One final religious dimension to reality tel…

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The Religious Implications of Nudity

…ance-enhancing drugs. The sense of freedom and fun (and free food, even if airline food) was exhilarating. The airport has now become a place of horror. Do they have full-body scanners? I wonder as I’m herded into a long, bovine line. Abattoir or boudoir? Why is this bothering me so much? Don’t Touch Me There Even cursory reflection reveals my embodiment issues are buried deep in my religious upbringing. I was a teenage fundamentalist. That remark…

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God Makes an Independent Film

…ginning of a journey that will have them owning a Christian theme park, an airline, a series of television stations; they will be the first to colonize another planet. Each new revelation is greeted with enthusiastic shouts and frenzied applause. Throughout it all, Jacobs’ camera captures, with stark verité detachment, the trials of the small community making the film, and dwells on the character of its leader. Who is Pastor Richard Gazowsky? Is h…

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