Religion Dispatches
…llion atheists in the U.S., a full 26% of the country. The most charitable number I could find was from Gallup, putting the number of Americans in 2014 who say they don’t believe in God at 11%. To make things frustratingly worse, other atheists have been calling Silverman out for falsely inflating the number of atheists for more than four years. And last year, I specifically asked Silverman if he would stop reporting the stats on “nones” as being…
Read More…on 8 campaign” read in part: “As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions—Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay—we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 app…
Read More…t a premium in Rome during the summit. This dilemma, this selective use of papal power, points to the fundamental problem at hand. It’s the need for new ecclesial structures rooted in a realistic theology that would mitigate power inequities and begin to reshape the global Catholic Church into safer, more participatory communities with the full participation of women and lay men in every facet of church life. To that end, the undisputed highlights…
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…ed.” But the pope — who did not say the word “gay” as he has before in his papacy, or use the word “homosexuality” as his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, preferred — told bishops the solution to responding to a society that no longer agrees with church doctrine is not to rehash the church’s views, but instead reach out to spread their faith through friendship. “Gratitude and appreciation should prevail over concerns and complaints,” Francis said….
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…on this in a moment.) *88% want active American involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and a slightly smaller number would tolerate pressure being exerted on both sides. *69% were in favor of negotiations with a Palestinian unity government that included Hamas, and 76% percent expressed some degree of support for the “two-state solution” as outlined in the 2000 Camp David and Taba talks. (This was the agreement, often said to have been rej…
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…t tradition. A couple of geek notes here: “Sample” refers to the number of participants in the PRRI poll, out of a total of about 40,000. They’re roughly proportional to the size of that group in the population. I’ve given the vertical axis a log scale so you can make out the smaller groups. PRRI divides certain groups into Evangelical and Mainline camps, hence the “Ev.” and “M” in front of some labels. These results aren’t terribly surprising. It…
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…has no space or place in the Jewish religion,” he says. “We oppose the occupation because we are Jewish.” Payos hang down on either side of his face; he wears a fedora and a Palestinian flag wrapped around his neck. “This was given to me by an Arab,” he later explains. Thousands of miles away an American émigré from Brooklyn takes the train to Sderot from his apartment outside of Jerusalem. He wants to see what is happening in Gaza for himself, so…
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…d States military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, drone bombings in Pakistan and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, there are far more relevant pretexts available than an Ivy League book that may not even warrant review in major newspapers. The peddlers of Islamophobia in the media, popular trade books, and blogs would have us believe that radical extremists are lurking everywhere just waiting for an excuse to promote violence. To suggest tha…
Read More…his “ostentatious humility,” (apparently he preferred Benedict’s flair for papal bling, including his red shoes or fur-lined, ermine-trimmed winter cape). He speaks of Francis’ “maneuvers” and calls him the “chief plotter.” And he repeats the question of conservative journalist Edward Pentin’s recent book about whether last year’s synod was “rigged,” echoing its conspiratorial overtones. Of course he fails to note that Pentin’s book, which amounte…
Read More…d syringes to squirt poison into their mouths. But this staff was aided by parents, make no mistake about that. In addition, a number of senior citizens are reported to have been injected with poison, but it’s impossible to determine how many. This leaves the problem of how many adults voluntarily drank the “Kool-Aid.” Suicide is, of course, called into question if they were surrounded by armed guards, though the guards themselves died at the end…
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