Rant & Reason

India vs. China: Part 2

lgranados — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:34:01 +0000

Last week we looked at the Indian half of the Dalai Lama’s claim that China had a lot to learn about religious harmony from its neighbor to the southwest. Try to find stories about recent events in China similar to India’s Gujarat massacre, India’s burnings of Christian churches, India’s Muslim bombings, India’s continuing religious warfare [...]

Should lower Manhattan be a faith-free zone?

Clayton — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:49:48 +0000

Update: Yesterday CFI issued an updated statement affirming support for religious freedom and stating “CFI’s unequivocal support for the legal right of Muslims to place a community center near Ground Zero does not imply that CFI views the new center as an event to be celebrated…On balance, CFI does not consider houses of worship to [...]

They came first for the Muslims

Clayton — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:12:06 +0000

Yesterday both opponents and supporters of the Park51 Islamic community center project in lower Manhattan gathered for competing rallies. The New York Times was there and reported on some ugliness that took place: Around noon on Sunday, Michael Rose, a medical student from Brooklyn, approached some of the hundreds of protesters who had gathered near [...]

India vs. China: Part 1

lgranados — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:37:34 +0000

The Dalai Lama was sounding off again a few days ago, this time recommending that China should learn about religious harmony from India. “When I see conflicts in various parts of world I try to tell them that people belonging to different races and following different religion can live in harmony.” He boasted that India [...]

Zoned Out

lgranados — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:28:26 +0000

When it comes to zoning, "equal justice" is a sham; God experts have far greater legal rights than the rest of us.

Are You There, Obama? It’s Me, Gay Marriage

sameigh — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:32:54 +0000

The night Obama was elected, my roommates and I huddled around our beaten and battered television amidst term papers and study guides to watch a rare, if not once-in-a-lifetime event occur: history catching up to our own ideals. Obama appealed not only to the “bleeding-heart liberals,” but the youth who needed to believe that change [...]

Democracy Hypocrisy

lgranados — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:28:27 +0000

The reaction of the Catholic Church to last week’s court decision striking down California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 was swift and to the point. Speaking for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George mourned that “It is tragic that a federal judge would overturn the clear and expressed will of the people in [...]

Something Rotten in Utah

lgranados — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:23:16 +0000

The Utah Supreme Court this week reversed the conviction of Warren Jeffs for his role in the statutory rape of a fourteen-year-old girl. Viewing the facts of the case through the prism of Utah’s religious history reveals an ugly picture indeed. Warren Jeffs helped run a small Mormon sect called the “Fundamentalist” LDS that is [...]

Understanding Bullying

Dave Niose — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:13:13 +0000

A humanist analysis of bullying. See link: http://open.salon.com/blog/dave_niose/2010/04/10/understanding_bullying

God on High

lgranados — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:35:59 +0000

Last Friday the U.S. Attorney for Hawaii announced grand jury indictments of 14 people for conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Not earthshaking news, but for the fact that the individuals freely admit what they are doing, and claim their activity is protected because they are part of a church, called the “THC Ministry.” THC is the [...]

A Million Little Conversions

sameigh — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:46:30 +0000

To those unfamiliar with the politics of Liberty University, an institution founded by the Baptist minister Jerry Falwell, the name Ergun Caner may mean little. But in the world of the right-wing Evangelical Christian, Caner’s name has caused a stir, and a great embarrassment to those who once glorified him. Caner was Liberty University’s seminary [...]

The Book of Abraham

lgranados — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:41:58 +0000

We just passed the 175th anniversary of an episode, inconsequential in itself, that kicked off a fascinating chain of events that may well have an impact on the 2012 election. On June 30, 1835, a traveling showman named William Chandler rolled into the little town of Kirtland, Ohio. Chandler had purchased from the estate of [...]

The Empire Strikes Back

lgranados — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:42:53 +0000

The Catholic Church is baring its teeth. The first snarl came from Pope Benedict himself. Feeling his oats after a victory against gay marriage in the European Court of Human Rights, the pope slammed the door on glasnost in the sex abuse scandal, ordering his subordinates not to speak ill of their colleagues. Ironically, the [...]

Accident or Act of God?

jsheehy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:25:38 +0000

Over the weekend, the number of people killed or hospitalized by a falling tree branch in Central Park increased to three so far this year. This is in addition to several individuals who were lucky enough to escape serious injury from falling branches. And it’s only June. At this rate, the park’s trees could easily [...]

Supreme Court: Public University Not Obligated to Sanction Discrimination

Clayton — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:53:37 +0000

Yesterday was the last day of the US Supreme Court’s 2009-2010 term, and it was a busy one. Among the four decisions reached was one of the most important church-state separation cases in recent history, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. The case concerns a public university, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, a campus [...]