… that ain’t necessarily so.
Here is a list of 76 things that the book of Leviticus bans, many of which are punishable by death. It is nice to have all in one place to use as rejoinders to those who obsess about just one on the list (#39) and ignore all the others. [Read more…]
Yesterday saw two setbacks for gay rights, in India and Australia.
In 2009, the Indian supreme court overturned a 153-year old British law that forbid gay sex and imposed punishments of up to ten years. That decision was seen as a major step forward in a part of the world where attitudes towards the LGBT community can only be described as appalling. [Read more…]
Soon after the Satanists announced their intention to put up a monument next to the Ten Commandments on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds, Hindus have come forward saying that they too want to have their religion acknowledged. [Read more…]
USA Today had an interesting story.
The Republican-controlled Legislature in this state known as the buckle of the Bible Belt authorized the privately funded Ten Commandments monument in 2009, and it was placed on the Capitol grounds last year despite criticism from legal experts who questioned its constitutionality. The Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking its removal.
But the New York-based Satanic Temple saw an opportunity. It notified the state’s Capitol Preservation Commission that it wants to donate a monument and plans to submit one of several possible designs this month, said Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the temple. [Read more…]
In reading Lawrence Wright’s book on Scientology titled Going Clear (that I reviewed earlier) one thing that struck me was the organization’s determination to acquire real estate in major cities. [Read more…]
It seems like every year, I keep forgetting to start the war on Christmas and before I realize it, there are only a few days left for me to destroy the holiday. But then I realized that there are some Christians who specialize in finding some event somewhere that enables them to conjure up how the godless are oppressing them and express righteous indignation over it. [Read more…]
Remember that case where a high school in Ohio grudgingly decided to remove a Jesus portrait that was in the hallway under threat of a federal lawsuit that it violated the Establishment Clause? [Read more…]
Jesus and Mo have figured it out.
When it comes to Christian heresies, right wing Christians think that they are blameless and it is only those permissive left-wingers who support progressive causes who are deviating from orthodoxy. But Chris Hedges, a progressive journalist who is also a Christian and studied for three years at Harvard Divinity school early in life, argues that the opposite is true, and that is the Christian right who are the true heretics. [Read more…]
There is a very good reason why political parties should keep their distance from religious institutions. The former need to be able to adapt to changing social values and new political realities while the latter, locked in as they are to doctrines that are supposedly god given and unchanging, tend to be unable to evolve so easily. So if by a fortuitous set of circumstances, the values of major organized religions and a political party coincide, that may result in short term electoral success for the party but it would be mistake for the party to identify itself too strongly with the values of the religions because at some point the paths will inevitably diverge because social realities change faster than religious doctrines. [Read more…]