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Creationists Portray New Science Standards As “Big Government”

By Michael Schulson

…argument for why conservative evangelicals should be distressed about the new standards offers a useful portrait of how anti-evolution writers stoke fear—and a helpful demonstration of why the NGSS is so badly needed. Luskin is an attorney, a writer, and a staff member at the Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think-tank. (I recently reviewed a book by Luskin’s boss. In what might seem like a conflict of interest, Luskin did, too.) Writin…

Predicting the Future of Religion: A Thought Experiment

By Ed Simon

…SIS in Iraq and Syria could possibly signal the beginnings of a terrifying new chapter in religious oppression. Will our future historian write about bloody religious crusades between Muslims and Christians in the new Global South? Or will small but growing secular movements in Africa and Asia prevent this? What will our historian say about the growth of “indigenous” religion? From Max Muller to Mircea Eliade western scholars have often patronizin…

Bristol Palin’s New Book Reveals Heterosexual Agenda

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…s in which they raise their morally incorruptible offspring. But Bristol’s new book belies the true agenda of the heterosexual, according to Burroway. Heterosexuals say they are the true defenders of American values, but the truth is “heterosexual militants have embarked on a systematic assault on American values.” We see this in Bristol’s story as she systematically undermines the American values of sobriety, virginity, sex only within marriage,…

Capricology: Week 2: The Soul of a Robot

By Salman Hameed

…erate outburst. Even as the Zoe/Avatar/Cylon (ZAC) itself struggled with a new identity (“Do I look male?”) and old/new ways of being in the world (bite enemies, hug friends), she was seen for herself by one whose sight could be trusted. Did you catch the family dog snuggling contentedly at ZAC’s feet? Animals don’t lie; at least not on television. This was a come-to-Lassie moment. What makes us human? And why do we assume that being human constit…

New Study: Motivation Doesn’t Improve Group Success

By Arri Eisen

…erage or maximum individual intelligence’ in that group. There’s something new, some emergent property, about being in a group—if the group works. That’s a big if. We’ve all been in groups—whether religion-based or otherwise—that drive us nuts. What makes for a group that works, a group with high collective intelligence? Woolley and friends find that some of the kinds of things you’d expect to improve collective intelligence don’t (including the m…

“Charity saved the day… [but] charity isn’t enough”: Kate Bowler on This New Era

By The Editors

…is a Duke Divinity professor, prosperity gospel scholar and author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved. She wrestled with the prosperity gospel’s promise of wealth and health after receiving a stage four cancer diagnosis at age 35. In episode five of Kaleidoscope, Kate opens up about how this crisis changed everything—faith, friendship, romance—and about how surprising beauty can bl…

With the Death of One of the Last Three Shakers, an American Religious Tradition Takes a Step Closer to Extinction

By Ed Simon

…make the world new. As Mother Ann would reflect on her new home in upstate New York, “I saw a large tree, every leaf of which shone with such brightness as made it appear like a burning torch, representing the Church of Christ, which will yet be established in this land.” Like so many other heterodox religious communities that proliferated in early America, Lee saw in the continent an opportunity for remaking society in a more just, egalitarian, a…

The New Church: Sexual and Ethnic Diversity… and Drums!

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…at hasn’t used drums, which leads us label them as “informal.” I discuss a number of the reasons for that in my recent book A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects (see excerpt here), one of which is that as European Christians colonized much of the world they found people playing drums. Since these “other” communities could not possibly have true religion, drums must be associated with false or heathen religions. A history of Christian colonization…

Yale Clings to Racist Legacy… And Cash. Lots of Cash.

By Peter Laarman

…context in which the Yale Corporation voted, in May 1931, to name the then-new college for the South Carolinian serpent, was charged with anti-black resentment in New Haven. In March 1930 Herbert Hoover had appointed an openly white-supremacist judge to the Supreme Court. That nominee narrowly lost a Senate confirmation vote in May, but in July of that same year W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the NAACP’s Crisis, listed all the senators who had voted i…

How Thanksgiving Became All Dinner, No Worship

By Bruce David Forbes

…e remarkable and persistent magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, also from New England. When New Englanders participated in the western expansion of settlements, they frequently campaigned to continue the thanksgiving tradition in their new locations. Hale became their most prominent national advocate, serving as the editor (she preferred “editress”) of Godey’s Ladies Book, the most widely read magazine of its time in the United States. Described…