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Wiccan Prayer in Iowa House Highlights Religious Freedom Problem

…heon points out, there is a danger that when we understand ourselves to be promoting pluralism, we are enforcing a tacit division between “good” and “bad” religions (what Leonard Primiano called a “two-tiered model of religion”). A recent example is the fracas that occurred last year when The Satanic Temple offered to re-enact a black mass as part of a Harvard cultural studies club. The Temple’s multicultural performance was quickly reinterpreted…

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Time for Jews to Abandon the Old Foundation Myth of Israel?

…; it makes no sense to measure how much blame accrues to any one side, because finger-pointing blocks the way to cooperation. Self-esteem comes from promoting cooperation; if self-esteem must depend on showing one’s strength (an open question), the way to show strength is to show understanding of others, respond to their concerns, and find paths of mutual benefit. Many Jewish peace advocates are not yet aware of the new myth they are implicitly te…

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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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God’s Obituary: A Humanist Response to Mass Murder

…all the answers. Rather, in light of human tragedy, humanists might offer better questions during these challenging times, as well as a space for wrestling with these questions free of cosmic justifications—and a God clearly missing in action.  I write this not to deny comfort for those who have been directly and indirectly touched by this unspeakable act of violence. Mine is an effort to acknowledge and respect grief without so quickly pushing t…

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Everything Was Better When We Had God In Our Schools

…Nicholson’s daughter during her recital. • March 11, 1908, Boston, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Bailey Hardee was shot to death by Sarah Chamberlain Weed at the Laurens School, a finishing school in Boston. Weed then turned the gun on herself and committed suicide. • April 15, 1908, Asheville, North Carolina. Dr. C.O. Swinney shot and fatally wounded his 16-year-old daughter Nellie in a reception room at Normal and Collegiate Institute. He then commi…

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South Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate Called “Raghead”

…ntended in jest,” Knotts said in a statement. “Bear in mind that this is a freewheeling, anything-goes Internet radio show that is broadcast from a pub. It’s like local political version of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ “Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize. I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.” But, as the Free Times reports…

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Driscoll Makes Plagiarism Complaint Disappear

…rence for the gender disparity in its speakers she was criticized, not because she was wrong, but because she dared to point it out publicly: Paul Pastor had criticized Evans for noticing, then asked his readers to join him in a prayer for Christian unity…Pastor draws on a shared value of healthy public speech to distract attention from a case of institutional discrimination. Driscoll, with his fairly low opinion of women, might have taken particu…

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Satire is Religion

…gent than in those parts of the world where charges of blasphemy are still used to violate freedom of religious conscience, whether in Pakistan, where members of the persecuted minority Ahmadiyya Muslim community are accused of “defaming the Prophet”; or in Iran, where seven Baha’i leaders have been unjustly imprisoned since 2008 on charges of “warring against God.” Libertarian Theology I don’t mean to compare Matt Stone and Trey Parker to towerin…

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As Pat Robertson Retires, Here Are 10 of His Most Cringeworthy Moments

…wore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Domin…

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“What’s the Relationship of Technology to God?”: A Q&A with Wired Co-Founder Kevin Kelly

…n is processed. I look to see the ways in which the technology wants to be used or is used by people—not how it’s designed to be used, but how actually it is used on the street—as a clue to what it wants, to the ways in which it is naturally biased. Every system, no matter what it is, has a natural bias in it. I’m looking at that bias to find those things that are going to happen no matter what we do. You speak of technologies as independent and e…

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