Bin Laden’s Death Does Not Prove that Torture Works
The assassination of Osama bin Laden has revived the so-called torture debate. Even if it did help in his capture (which it didn’t), torture is still wrong.
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Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World: An Excerpt
Finally, something Christians, Jews, and Muslims can agree on: Apocalypse. But as the theological end-time visions of the three Abrahamic faiths converge, it is not the wrath of heaven that threatens life on Earth, but all-too-human fundamentalism and fearmongering.
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The Legacy of Bush, Gambler of Other People’s Fortunes, Is Still With Us
A look at Bush’s gambling habit is instructive as Obama works to fix the problems of his predecessor with a team cut from the Bush administration cloth.
Read MoreWhen Conservatives Turn Revolutionary
The tragicomic Napoleonic Era reveals eerie similarities to the Bush Doctrine…
Read MoreBy the Way: Bush Commencement Opposed by Furman Faculty
It’s not easy for faculty to stand up to the administration; especially at a small conservative school.
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RDPulpit: Religious Bloggers Campaign to Stop Torture
Religious bloggers push the media to go beyond “soundbite theology” to challenging questions about torture and America.
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Talmud v. Torture: The Jewish Case Against “Enhanced Interrogation”
During the Bush Administration, Rabbi Melissa Weintraub wrote a definitive condemnation of torture according to Talmudic teaching and Jewish collective memory. With the release of the CIA “torture memos,” these essays are worth revisiting. And, as Israel celebrates the 61st anniversary of its independence how does the Jewish nation itself stack up to these ideals?
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Is Torture Utilitarian?
As politicians argue, and our pragmatist-in-chief tries to find an angle, we can agree that not all moral dilemmas can be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis of pleasure and pain. There are some kinds of pain a morally serious person ought never to inflict.
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The Shoe Thrower: What Bush Didn’t Understand
A young Iraqi woman, frustrated and in tears, explains to her classmates: “If Iraqi people come at you with shoes, you have lost their hearts and lost the war and God help us all.”
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Physicians, “Conscience,” and the Denial of Options
New federal regulations, enacted by the lame-duck Bush administration, privilege the religious or moral scruples of physicians over a patient’s right to treatment. 40 million Americans have physicians who will not present them with all the options for treatment.
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