Browsed by
Category: Religion

Why are most of us stuck with a belief in the soul?

Why are most of us stuck with a belief in the soul?

David P Barash writes: Few ideas are as unsupported, ridiculous and even downright harmful as that of the ‘human soul’. And yet, few ideas are as widespread and as deeply held. What gives? Why has such a bad idea had such a tenacious hold on so many people? Although there is a large literature on the costs and benefits – psychological and economic – of traditional religion, there is a dearth of comparable research on religion’s near-universal handmaiden, the soul….

Read More Read More

Ignoring antisemitism only makes it stronger

Ignoring antisemitism only makes it stronger

Toby Lichtig writes: Antisemitism is back in vogue. Books, plays, exhibitions, academic studies and New Lines magazine essays alike are grappling with this age-old hatred and why it continues to morph and flare up in our present day. As I write this piece in London, some of my fellow citizens are contemplating their evening plans to go see “The Doctor” at the Duke of York’s Theatre, an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 play “Professor Bernhardi,” which follows a Jewish medical…

Read More Read More

Survey finds ‘classical fascist’ antisemitic views widespread among Americans

Survey finds ‘classical fascist’ antisemitic views widespread among Americans

The Washington Post reports: At points in the past half-century, many U.S. antisemitism experts thought this country could be aging out of it, that hostility and prejudice against Jews were fading in part because younger Americans held more accepting views than did older ones. But a survey released Thursday shows how widely held such beliefs are in the United States today, including among younger Americans. The research by the Anti-Defamation League includes rare detail about the particular nature of antisemitism,…

Read More Read More

How the birthplace of Christianity in Mesopotamia endures

How the birthplace of Christianity in Mesopotamia endures

Rasha Al Aqeedi writes: In 2008, the Iraqi government declared the day of Christmas, Dec. 25, a public holiday. Despite being one of the few Muslim-majority states to acknowledge Christmas, the decision was, in many ways, overdue. Iraq is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, one that played a key role in shaping the country’s rich diversity and endured some of the most gruesome persecution at the hands of various rulers and actors. For the…

Read More Read More

How religion made us a successful species

How religion made us a successful species

Victor Kumar and Richmond Cambell write: For most of history, human populations were limited to small bands of around 150 members. After exceeding that size, a band would split and drift apart, the descendants forgetting their common ancestry. At some point in human history, however, bands were knit together into tribes—groups of groups—geographically distributed but linked by ethnicity, dialect, and common purpose. Tribes had an edge over bands because they enabled cooperation at a larger scale. One vital benefit was…

Read More Read More

After 30 years of violence, rediscovering India’s capacity for harmonious coexistence

After 30 years of violence, rediscovering India’s capacity for harmonious coexistence

Seema Chishti writes: Much of the dominance of the Hindu right in India’s politics today can be traced back to the movement to destroy the Babri Masjid [in the northeastern Indian town of Ayodhya] and build a temple for Lord Rama, a key Hindu deity, where it once stood. Many Hindu nationalists maintain that the mosque stood at the exact spot where Lord Rama had been born. This belief had been popular in the area for decades, starting in the…

Read More Read More

Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of extremist pastors spreading Christian nationalism

Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of extremist pastors spreading Christian nationalism

Vice News reports: Days before the midterm elections, Pastor David MacLellan was ready to preach far-right politics through Bible verses to his small congregation. MacLellan, a hulking man with a long, grizzled black beard, isn’t an ordinary pastor. He proudly identifies himself as a far-right, extremist pastor and a Christian nationalist, someone who believes American politics should reflect fundamentalist Christian values. And he’s part of a growing national religious political movement called the Black Robe Regiment, a modern-day group inspired…

Read More Read More

45% of Americans say U.S. should be a ‘Christian nation’ but there is no consensus on what that means

45% of Americans say U.S. should be a ‘Christian nation’ but there is no consensus on what that means

Pew Research Center: Growing numbers of religious and political leaders are embracing the “Christian nationalist” label, and some dispute the idea that the country’s founders wanted a separation of church and state. On the other side of the debate, however, many Americans – including the leaders of many Christian churches – have pushed back against Christian nationalism, calling it a “danger” to the country.  Most U.S. adults believe America’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and many say they think it should…

Read More Read More

Michael Flynn’s holy war stirs up fear and hatred across America

Michael Flynn’s holy war stirs up fear and hatred across America

The Associated Press reports: By the time the red, white and blue-colored microphone had been switched off, the crowd of 3,000 had listened to hours of invective and grievance. “We’re under warfare,” one speaker told them. Another said she would “take a bullet for my nation,” while a third insisted, “They hate you because they hate Jesus.” Attendees were told now is the time to “put on the whole armor of God.” Then retired three-star Army general Michael Flynn, the…

Read More Read More

A plan to turn America into a theocracy

A plan to turn America into a theocracy

Rolling Stone reports: Lance Wallnau, A self-styled “prophet” and one of America’s most strident Christian Nationalists, and Doug Mastriano, the GOP candidate who casts his bid for governor of Pennsylvania as a mission from God, are birds of a feather. They each fired up the faithful at the Jericho March / ”Let the Church ROAR!” event in Washington, D.C., in December 2020, a Christian protest seeking divine intervention to keep Donald Trump in office. And both men were on the…

Read More Read More

Christo-fascist salutes at recent Mastriano and Trump rallies signal drive for world domination

Christo-fascist salutes at recent Mastriano and Trump rallies signal drive for world domination

Jennifer Cohn reports: “I’d like to reactivate what Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain [who fought for the Union in the Civil war] is now handing off to Colonel Doug Mastriano – which is the importance of rallying a remnant, for the sake of an indispensable victory, in the intense heat of battle,” bellowed a middle aged man from the stage of a Sept. 16 rally for Mastriano, the Pennsylvania GOP’s gubernatorial candidate. “And we’ll do that by putting our right hand…

Read More Read More

New York’s failing Hasidic Jewish religious schools have benefited from $1 billion in government funding

New York’s failing Hasidic Jewish religious schools have benefited from $1 billion in government funding

The New York Times reports: The Hasidic Jewish community has long operated one of New York’s largest private schools on its own terms, resisting any outside scrutiny of how its students are faring. But in 2019, the school, the Central United Talmudical Academy, agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students. Every one of them failed. Students at nearly a dozen other schools run by the Hasidic community recorded similarly dismal outcomes that…

Read More Read More

Justice Alito’s crusade against a secular America isn’t over

Justice Alito’s crusade against a secular America isn’t over

Margaret Talbot writes: Some baby boomers were permanently shaped by their participation in the countercultural protests and the antiwar activism of the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Others were shaped by their aversion to those movements. Justice Samuel Alito belongs to the latter category. For many years, he lacked the power to do much about that profound distaste, and in any case he had a reputation for keeping his head down. When President George W. Bush nominated Alito to the Supreme Court,…

Read More Read More

Memory of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses grows hazy

Memory of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses grows hazy

Khaled Diab writes: When it comes to revenge, there is no statute of limitations. This is what Salman Rushdie discovered last week. After evading injustice for so many years, the acclaimed-despised, celebrated-hated, subversive-subverted British-Kashmiri author had finally let down his guard, only for the long arm of the lawless to catch up with him. Decades after the release of “The Satanic Verses,” Rushdie remains one of the most wildly and widely misunderstood contemporary writers in the English language. As a…

Read More Read More

White ‘Christian’ nationalism threatens American democracy

White ‘Christian’ nationalism threatens American democracy

John Blake writes: Three men, eyes closed and heads bowed, pray before a rough-hewn wooden cross. Another man wraps his arms around a massive Bible pressed against his chest like a shield. All throughout the crowd, people wave “Jesus Saves” banners and pump their fists toward the sky. At first glance, these snapshots look like scenes from an outdoor church rally. But this event wasn’t a revival; it was what some call a Christian revolt. These were photos of people…

Read More Read More

MAGA preacher Sean Feucht rakes in millions from his Trump-loving flock

MAGA preacher Sean Feucht rakes in millions from his Trump-loving flock

Rolling Stone reports: As the Supreme Court was handing down its decision to end a constitutional right to abortion, worship leader Sean Feucht was on Twitter exalting his twin heroes: “VICTORY IN JESUS!!!!” he declared, soon adding, “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!!!” But even in this moment of conservative triumph, the 38-year-old praise singer flashed menace, torching, as satanists, the Americans who would soon be protesting Roe’s reversal: “When the devil’s sacrifice is no longer protected by our Supreme Court, watch…

Read More Read More