False Saviors: Trump, Cruz, and the Gospel of the Quick Fix
Trump, long up in the polls, stays up; Cruz is rising. What do they have…
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LDS Church Labels Same-Sex Spouses “Apostates,” Bars Children From Baptism
5 things the church can do if it cares about the children.
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Sin is Not a Crime: A Conversation with Patrick Cheng
“For me, as a queer person of color and an Asian American who is also gay, I often feel like I’m never able to bring the two together, I’m always forced to choose. Will I be Asian American today or gay today? In the LGBT community, even where I feel really safe, I rarely hear anything that affirms my cultural background or the racism of notions of beauty in the community.”
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The Cult of Kurzweil: Will Robots Save Our Souls?
Scientists like roboticist Hans Moravec and inventor Ray Kurzweil advocate uploading our minds into robots or virtual reality so that we can live forever. They believe that our minds can be replicated outside of our brains if we simply copy the pattern of neuro-chemical activity taking place in our bodies. That pattern, rather than the brains in which the pattern takes shape, “is” the personality. If it can be transferred to a digital medium, it can be made immortal. Surpassingly intelligent robots—our Mind Children, according to Moravec—will populate the universe, converting physical reality into a cosmic interweb of thinking machines.
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Pastor Rob Bell Catches Hell From Conservatives
Bell, the enormously popular pastor of the enormous Mars Hill Bible Church, has a new book coming out this month called Love Wins in which Bell “puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.” This description launched a frenzy of reactions within the evangelical community.
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Mark Twain’s Blasphemy
A consideration of the legacy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the eve of the 123rd anniversary of its publication.
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