Honestly, sometimes I think that the Catholic Church goes out of its way to make itself look ridiculous. A prime example is the recent document issued by the archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput. It concerns divorced Catholics who remarry without an annulment of their first marriage which means that the church does not recognize the second marriage as valid. Since they are living in sin, they are forbidden from taking part in the communion rite. But Chaput says that there is a way that they can receive communion, and that is if they abstain from sex and live together as “brother and sister.”
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Pakistan once had the promise of becoming a truly modern secular state but it has increasingly succumbed to indulging religious fanatics who seek to impose a theocracy on the nation. Their blasphemy laws have been used to attack both Muslims and non-Muslims, using bogus allegations that the victims had made statements denigrating the prophet Mohammed or desecrating the Koran.
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Richard Gallagher has written an article reporting on what he has learned about the signs of demonic possession after about 25 years of studying it. He is a practicing Catholic which naturally raises questions about his impartiality so he emphasizes his academic credentials, to assure us that he is not some kind of religious nut. His byline tells us that he is a “board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College.”
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If you thought that the end of the world was imminent because Jesus would arrive any day now, how would you spend the remaining time? One family in Texas clearly felt that teaching their home-schooled children stuff like math and science and other forms of book-learning was a waste of time and so let them just good off.
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As we all know, young people are leaving religious institutions in ever-increasing numbers. This is naturally causing concern in religious quarters and some wealthy people think that the problem is that the young are not being equipped to ‘properly’ answer the kinds of deep questions that occur to almost everyone as they are growing up and becoming independent. By properly, these people mean consistent with what the Bible says.
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As Christian churches in the west fret over the increasing numbers of young people who are leaving institutionalized religion, they have tried various ways to lure them back in. A novel idea is to produce a new Emoji Bible at the low, low price of $2.99
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When I think of the typical churchgoer, the image that comes to mind is an older woman, though perhaps in the megachurches this stereotype may not hold. Such people have been the mainstay of traditional churches as younger and male parishioners fall away. So it should be of some concern to churches that women too are now drifting away in larger numbers.
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