Religion Dispatches
…at it promotes “Constitutionalist Judicial Nominees,” told OneNewsNow, the online news service of Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association, that the “Ten Commandments would be removed all over the place. ‘Under God’ would be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. The death penalty would be banned. There’d probably be constitutional rights to all sorts of new things like human cloning and physician-assisted suicide. Racial preferences would pro…
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…but effective! In a clip from a sermon to evangelical leaders you can see online via NBC News, Coe offers, as an example of a friendship to be emulated, that of Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler. “Just a metaphor,” says Family defender David Kuo, a former special assistant to President Bush, widely respected by liberals for his later turn against the president. Some metaphor. But remember, it’s the methods, not the ends, to be copied. Here’s how Cols…
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…the software of our life, our personal “mind-file” will continue to live ‘online’. For Kurzweil uploading ourselves to a human-made machine is spiritual, because it will exhibit complexity, elegance, knowledge, intelligence, beauty, creativity and levels of subtle attributes such as love. While Kurzweil is reluctant to talk about his own personal belief in God, he does assert that “evolution moves inexorably toward this conception of God, althoug…
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…scientists and teachers in Europe and North America. The Atlas, available online, is full of plain English and nice illustrations, containing many of the usual attacks on Darwin heard from Christian fundamentalists in this country. The author does go a bit further than most, making the intriguing assertion that all science since Darwin—including the fossil record, genetics, and the like—has successfully disproved Darwin, before going on to the us…
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…Mansfield did an interview with Ben Smith, a writer for Politico.com (the online wing of the Politico news organization). In the column, titled “Bush Backer Pens pro-Obama Book,” Smith writes that the book’s “tone ranges from gently critical to gushing, and the author defends Obama—and even his controversial former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright—from conservative critics, and portrays him as a compelling figure for Christian voters.” Accordin…
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…video has been pulled); a recent, heartfelt post in the Washington Post’s online “On Faith” section compared the inspired leadership of soccer and religion in glowing terms; in a recent USA Today post on the intersections of religion and soccer, the reader is left with the seemingly outrageous question: which ranks higher for you, soccer or religion?; and in our own recent feature, Preston Davis asserts that soccer, like religion, “possesses a be…
Read More…icks itself up and to use Diana Butler Bass’ term, “re-traditions.” Those seeking to keep up with this debate might want to check out Maggi Dawn’s list of online articles and blog postings, as well as Diana Butler Bass’ ongoing commentary….
Read More…is part of his Pastafarian religion. A Catholic bishop in Chicago had his online identity stolen by email scammers. The scammers used the Bishop Joseph Perry’s email address and a fake Facebook page in his name to scam victims out of money for an orphanage in Africa that had supposedly burned down. The Catholic Church has canonized the first Australian-born saint. Some are calling Mother Mary MacKillop the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers for her b…
Read More…t, I am not having the best relationship with the tour company I selected (online), so even now I feel a bit uncertain if this will be my year. Few things have made me feel so vulnerable and yet so motivated of late. So I will take this with the small wisdoms or the lessons I learned this Ramadan. In no particular order: Although Allah is always present, in the company of conscientious and devout believers, ones experience of that Divine presence…
Read More…ed as a homogeneous whole. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the online quiz at this point only. However, the pattern I am suggesting for the shorter quiz easily maps out onto the larger survey. Question 2 asks about Mother Teresa’s religion, and two options are “Catholic” and “Mormon.” Pew is either entering a theological debate here, suggesting that Catholics and Mormons are two different religious traditions, or that there is such fam…
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