Religion Dispatches
…n as at best useless and at worst deadly. One of the arguments Dawkins, Dennett, and Hitchens make, for instance, is that one need not be religious to be a moral person. They like to point to the evolutionary origins of our moral sense—or as Dawkins puts it: “the lust to be good”—in order to claim that morality precedes religion and does not require it. While plausible, this argument does not prove that religion has no effect on morality. In fact,…
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…other hand, really, really dislike same-sex marriage, as do evangelical members of the Churches of Christ or Disciples of Christ. Interestingly enough, Orthodox Christians—a tradition hardly known for its liberalism—hover around Hindus, both in size and net approval. My unscientific guess? We’ll probably see both pros and cons continue to move in their respective directions, with precious little left in the middle. And of course, that big blue bal…
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…ect the impulse to be almost as spontaneous, say, as logging onto the Internet. That’s what I intend to do as soon as I’ve formed some of my own thoughts on this. It’s possible I will discover that there is also a heated discussion on whether a person ought to form his or her own thoughts before logging onto the Internet, but I need to digest one controversy at a time. My first thought here and the easiest to dispense with is that some might balk…
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…new suffering among people with disabilities, the elderly, vulnerable children, etc. Because as sure as the sun rises in the east, GOP leaders will use the new deficits their own plan creates to demand huge cuts in the social safety net: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and everything else. Oh, and did I mention Fun Fact #3: the GOP plan, for all the pro-worker verbiage attached to it, actually raises taxes for the lowest-income workers? Hey,…
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…Reconstructionist Gary DeMar’s work in “Optional Resources.” Over at AlterNet, Bruce Wilson writes that Gothard wanted to use Christian Reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony’s seminal Institutes of Biblical Law for his programs if it weren’t for their disagreement over divorce. In his post, Wilson focuses too much on the issue of the capital offenses for which some Reconstructionists advocate stoning. That emphasis favors sensationalism over more pres…
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…’s 1995 tax returns indicated that the billionaire reported a $916 billion net loss that year, which, experts estimate, means he could have essentially avoided paying taxes for 18 years. Trump managed to pull off that financial sleight of hand without any kind of religious exemption. So it’s only reasonable to expect that, with Pence whispering sweet “religious liberty” nothings into the president-elect’s ear, Trump will continue to take advantage…
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…America when the church would establish a kind of Christian social safety net where motherhood was not only supported but also exalted as part of God’s plan for the universe.” The article makes only one brief mention of the pervasive abuse that has been, and still is, associated with such institutions, downplaying it as something that “sometimes” happened. In many American states, institutions like this can use their Christian affiliation as a ge…
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…ently bite his lip, then pledge to burn another piece of the social safety net to the ground ought to understand that. Raising money for the opponents of miscreant politicians just might change their course, though. Symbolic demonstrations representing a moral worldview do nothing. The implied threat that those same people in the streets today are going to make politicians’ lives a living hell tomorrow by tying their offices in knots does. Writing…
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…y founded on the principles of solidarity and cooperation, a social safety net, and the aspiration to be the “most moral army in the world.” Remember the old IDF adage “shooting and crying” (yorim u bokim), to illustrate the necessity of war and the moral conscience that remains. A democracy, albeit flawed, but one that included a meaningful movement with a sincere belief that coexistence was possible. Peace Now, founded in 1978 to promote a genui…
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…ntensity with which they held on to Jesus. People who have no other safety net hold onto their faith with an intensity I’ve rarely seen. That taught me the importance of living in community and the importance of single-minded purpose, especially in dire circumstances. I really saw that Christianity is about more than having a set of abstract theological tenets in your mind. It’s a daily practice as well, and I learned a lot about practicing my own…
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