Religion Dispatches
I don’t really buy this whole battleground thing—us vs. them, science vs. religion, evolution vs. creationism. Maybe it makes for good press and sells some books—The God Delusion, The Republican War on Science, Thank God for Evolution, etc.—to people who already agree with the authors anyway. But does it get us anywhere? And what of Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria,” the idea that science and religion each have their own separate d…
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…life. US public opinion hasn’t changed since the fall of Roe; if anything, numbers in support of reproductive rights have risen. Indeed, the issue of abortion rights has remained a losing strategy for the Republican Party since the end of Roe, even in deep-red states. In every major election since, where abortion has been an issue, Republicans have lost. In ballot initiatives and local elections up and down the country—Kansas, Kentucky and Virgini…
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…borne that name. Guns have always symbolized “the frontier.” And for vast numbers of Americans, the cultural idea and ideal of the frontier have symbolized what they think their nation is all about. Out on the frontier, the classic story goes, a man simply must have a gun and the freedom to use it. He couldn’t survive without it. He needs it to get food for his family and to defend them in times of danger. But as long as potential enemies out the…
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…t and hold the Bible as enough.” Todd Burpo and Kevin Malarkey, on the other hand, would have us allow new otherworldly visions to guide us—and would have us buy their heavenly storytelling as a means of expressing our extra-biblical convictions. …
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…thing okay. Everywhere we turn, advertisements tell us “consume this,” or “buy this product,” or “look this way and you’ll be happy.” The world is like a huge vending machine and it’s filled with these idols. My argument is that when we reduce God to that object that will make us complete and whole and happy, we just put our own product in the vending machine. The church becomes the shop front, the clergy become the salespeople and the worship bec…
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…elligence which argued that if the environmental effects of what we do and buy were easily accessed at decision points, that that would be enough. But I think that’s wrong. I think that’s necessary but not sufficient. I think we need a different motivational system on top of that. I was struck by something you said recently that there’s a fork in the road, between mindfulness for stress reduction and mindfulness for liberation and wisdom. I’m eage…
Read More…nd talents, trying to fight not only crime but stereotypes, just like Kamala will probably do with great finesse. So I hope that come February the American public will all buy the new Marvel comics featuring Kamala/Malala/insert-your-own-name-here, and enjoy the journey. I certainly will….
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…from the continuum of women’s health care. Just like in the mid-twentieth century, the bishops seek to ensure that only relatively well off women who can afford to buy it privately can get birth control. Everyone else will just have to pray they don’t get pregnant….
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…alienation in the first place. Freedom becomes a thing that you can either buy, or, lacking that, lead you toward an ever-receding target that tends to promote an unending, anti-political, winding inward pursuit of health and wellbeing. Thus does Paltrow declare in the episode on aging, “I’ve tried a million, different crazy fasts and diets … but this one was pretty incredible.” Freedom without direction, however, very quickly becomes alienation….
Read More…hing I thought about on this trip. I made a last-minute effort to at least buy presents for my grandsons, who already have a quite a collection of T-shirts from various places, if not from the airports on the way out of those places. It’s one of those “thought that counts” kind of things: a way of sharing something from my time away with them. In the dream, one of the members of my tour group lands in the holy city with an inflatable Eiffel tower….
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