Final Thoughts on Religion and the DNC
Still trying to close the supposed “God gap,” Dems still don’t get it.
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The Quixotic Task of Debunking David Barton
A pair of evangelical professors have written a point-by-point refutation of the religious right’s favorite historian. The question remains: does it matter?
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Can Atheist Billboards Kill Religion?
Billboards, rallies, biting commentary—all this is meant to deconstruct the cultural worlds framing sacred texts and ideas, and to do deep damage to the stronghold religion has on life in the United States. I’m in favor of billboards, as well as other organized efforts to advance progressive values and life-affirming ethics. Why should theists alone be allowed to present their ideas in grand ways? The anger coming from theists when confronted with the absurdity behind some of their own faith commitments shouldn’t silence non-theists, and it doesn’t require special handling by public figures.
Read MoreObstacles for Secularists
The latest bloggingheads.
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A Pope, a Poet, and a Drug War
For the poet Javier Sicilia, a grieving father whose son was murdered by thugs last year, the pope’s visit is historic as well. Yet for him, and for those wounded voices he seeks to amplify, the pontiff’s arrival has less to do with pushing back secularism than with long-overdue attention to the ravages of Mexico’s drug wars.
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The Shari’ah Spring: Media Gets It Backwards
If we read the Arab Spring as a zero-sum game between Islamists and secularists, we’re going to miss what’s happening; if we imagine Arab democracy will look like secular Western democracy, we will likely be disappointed. And if we assume reference to Islam and democracy reveals only hypocrisy, insincerity, or ideological confusion, we’re likely to be surprised.
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No Need to Choose Between Religious and Secular America
In the concluding volume of his trilogy on religion and secularism, the author argues that there is no chasm between religious belief and non-belief; certainly not in terms of politics and not even in personal terms.
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The End (of Religion) is Near, Scientists Say
Something is clearly up (or down) with religious affiliation, but reading that data calls for the art for interpretation, not mathematical modeling. That’s what makes this story far more interesting—and far less funny.
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Updated with Audio: Secular Good, Muslim Bad: Unveiling Tunisia’s Revolution
The assumption that Arab states that aren’t democratic are oppressive Islamist states lazily equates the public practice of Islam with all things undemocratic.
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The Incredible Shrinking Free Exercise Clause
How did we get to the point where the infringement of a religious obligation is constitutionally irrelevant despite the existence in the text of a constitutional protection of religion?