The Church of the Latter Day Saints has very similar views to the Catholic Church on homosexuality and along with it seems to be determined to try and hold back the tide of approval of same sex marriage that is sweeping the country. You may recall that it was one of the strongest backers of California’s Proposition 8 initiative, pouring money and personnel into getting that measure passed. [Read more…]
Today is Easter Sunday, one of the two times of the year (Christmas being the other one of course) when Christians get past their obsession with the doom and gloom of original sin and death and hell, and look on the bright side of life, seeing in the resurrection of Jesus a new beginning and hope for the future. [Read more…]
Atheists, especially of the ‘new’ variety, are used to being described as angry, shrill, arrogant, strident, rude, militant, and dogmatic (I may have missed a few) just for saying that there is no evidence that god exists so we might as well abandon that belief, and that religions are a negative influence in the world and we would be better off without them. [Read more…]
Sri Lanka has apparently decided that it needs to become the Buddhist equivalent of Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries where any form of disparagement to their favored religion, however trivial, is not allowed. We had the situation of tourists who were arrested for taking a gag photo at a Buddhist temple and R&B singer Akon who was denied entry because one his videos had scantily-clad dancing women with a Buddha statue in the background. [Read more…]
David Brody writes for CBN (Christian Broadcast Network) which is an evangelical website founded by Pat Robertson and which broadcasts the 700 Club show where Robertson muses on all manner of topics, often unintentionally hilariously. [Read more…]
Now that the oral arguments before the US Supreme Court over the two same-sex marriage cases are over, there has been a ton of commentary and analyses. [Read more…]
Reader Susanne sent along an interesting link to a story about a niche German shoe company with a global clientele that found that their packages to the US were far more likely to be delayed or even lost. [Read more…]
The new pope Francis has been getting great press just for seeming like an ordinary human being in his everyday interactions. But we should not overlook the fact that on the major issues that have defined the church so negatively, he seems fully accepting of those reactionary doctrines. [Read more…]
In a post yesterday I discussed the fact that although Buddhism did not have many of the absurd philosophical baggage of other major religions, its philosophy had some negative aspects that warranted concern but usually don’t get as much attention. [Read more…]