Search for "cheap round trip airline tickets to san diego ca from san francisco phone number 1-800-299-7264"

A Religious History of American Neuroscience

By Leigh Eric Schmidt

…restless—all busy Marthas, no reflective Marys—James discerned a deep mystical cast to the American psyche and pursued that strain with uncommon intellectual devotion. Yet, when it came to what he labeled “methodical meditation,” James saw little of it left among American Christians and turned instead to homegrown practitioners of various mind-over-matter cures. He particularly accented those New Thought metaphysicians who were pushing forward a d…

If You Were Faced With Him

By Amina Wadud

…had told my middle daughter I would. She needed assistance with the baby because her Canadian in-laws gave her a car, which had to be cleared at customs before local registration. Then we went to the farmers’ market, the flea markets, and the swap meet. She insists on using a baby carrier instead of a stroller. So I held her six-month-old while she pillaged through a sea of clothing. That’s a lot of holding, trust me. When we finally returned to h…

Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

By Daniel Schultz

…e war in Afghanistan. And now that you have reaped what you have sown, you call for more compromise. Because you have failed to take the side of ordinary people—those who live from paycheck to paycheck without security, with precious little hope in their lives—they have turned their backs on you. They have made common cause with those who oppress them, who mean to turn you out of office, to turn back the clock, and undo every good that you have do…

Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

By John Horgan

…confabulation, because our actions actually stem from countless physiological causes of which we are completely unaware. In his book The Illusion of Conscious Will, the psychologist Daniel Wegner notes that we think of will as a kind of force that initiates action. But according to Wegner, will is “merely a feeling.” One moment I think, “I’m going to watch the Jets instead of writing this essay.” A moment later, I press the button on the TV remot…

Facebook: Internet Highway to Hell

By Anthea Butler

…rah Palin’s Alaska is failing so hard right now.” Willow’s response was to call the poster a gay slur, and Bristol jumping in the fray to respondL “you’re just running your mouth to talk sh•t.” I give the Palin girls credit: the apples didn’t fall from the tree. They attack just like their mother. I wonder what the sisters would do to do to the man who shot his television set because he thought Bristol’s dancing is awful. I will be interested to s…

Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

By Holly Welker

…aled both its own and its members’ resources to support conservative political causes. In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, we had church activities where we were required to write letters to our legislators, urging them not to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. (Even at the time, I wondered why legislators would be impressed by letters from high school students, but ever dutiful, I wrote them anyway.) The LDS church was most recently a major player…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…ys anything disrespectful or harsh to Christians. All he does is lay out a case for his atheism, as well as tell a story about how, as a little boy, he came to lose his faith in God. I used to believe in God. The Christian one that is. I loved Jesus. He was my hero. More than pop stars. More than footballers. More than God. God was by definition omnipotent and perfect. Jesus was a man. He had to work at it. He had temptation but defeated sin. He h…

Looking For Answers at the Oscars: A Guide to This Year’s Contenders

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…etimes communication technologies facilitated that friendship (a letter, a phone call). In the new age the structure is reversed as friendships are built upon those very communication technologies. We are now databases, plugged into a network. Face-to-face friendships have become interface friendships. A more ethereal ethernet was evoked in Inception. Here too people are linked to each other through a social network, and here too identities are…

“God Created You”: Bishop Supports Gay Ugandans, Defies Death Threats

By Jocelyn Edwards

…ainst gays at Kato’s funeral, locals from his ancestral village refused to carry the casket to where it was to be buried. Some of the gays and lesbians in attendance grabbed the activist’s white and gold coffin, which was draped with a rainbow flag, and hauled it themselves to a space between the dark green trees and foliage to be buried. They would have had to bury Kato, who identified as Christian, without a blessing from any member of the clerg…

An Immigrant’s Tale: The Pull of the Homeland

By Shabana Mir

…freedom of religion are not relevant here. “Can” we worship? Of course we can. Can we function as religious minorities? Certainly—better than those in our own countries. Can we speak our languages, raise our children in our faiths, avoid forbidden foods, wear religiously approved clothing? Yes, yes, of course—most of the time. But the question of can we is not a question the seeker asks. Hagar did not ask how fast she could run in search of water…