Jimmy Carter leaves the Southern Baptist Church [M]y decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero
on Jul 20, 2009 -
157 comments
Marwa el-Sherbini testified in court against a neighbor who had called her a "terrorist" because she wore the hijab. As she spoke, the man she had accused walked across the courtroom and stabbed her 18 times. In the Muslim world, she is now being referred to as
"the headscarf martyr." [more inside]
posted by melissam
on Jul 11, 2009 -
144 comments
Prattville, Alabama, is home to the
Cross Garden of W. C. Rice. Pour yourself a cold drink and take a tour through
this Flickr gallery. Make that drink ice water, as YOU WILL DIE, YOU DO NOTHING TO GO TO HELL, and TO LATE IN HELL FIRE WATER.
posted by Legomancer
on Jul 5, 2009 -
60 comments
“They are brands that may not be considered cool by the often elitist and self-absorbed standards of New York media,” she said. She had taken a car from Manhattan that morning, and wore a pink wool shirt-dress, patent leather Manolo Blahnik heels, and diamond hoop earrings.
Reader's Digest
jumps the shark.
(NYT)
posted by squalor
on Jun 19, 2009 -
177 comments
Biblemap.org is an interactive map system for the bible, which is great for visualising where certain biblical events are said to have occured. It's also great for people who don't subscribe to any kind of organised religion but do like looking at maps (like me!).
posted by Effigy2000
on Jun 14, 2009 -
24 comments
Open to Revisions. "Some religious entrepreneurs have adopted an 'open source' model, where rituals and doctrines can be rewritten as easily as computer code."
posted by homunculus
on Jun 11, 2009 -
54 comments
At 14 months, Spanish infant Osel Hita Torres was brought by his parents to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama decreed him to be the reincarnation of the recently deceased Lama Yeshe. Torres became Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, and spent most of his life growing up in a gilded cage in the Tibetan exile capital, venerated as a living deity and isolated from the corrupting influences of the world.
But then he escaped.
[more inside]
posted by acb
on Jun 1, 2009 -
66 comments
Rev. George Whitefield, an 18th century preacher much admired by Benjamin Franklin, was an astonishing orator. According to a contemporary source, he "could
make his audiences weep or tremble merely by varying his pronunciation of the word Mesopotamia. Garrick once said, 'I would give a hundred guineas if I could only say 'O!' like Mr. Whitefield.'"
posted by lolichka
on May 18, 2009 -
32 comments
The PEW survey recently released; summarised by
Andrew Sullivan reveals that evangelicals are most likely to approve of torture.
This survey coincides with Harpers May edition lead article (
presently behind a subscription firewall)
extracted here. The article is by Jeff Sharlet - (
previously: How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history). The two are not unrelated. The division of the world into God's people and Satan's people enabled the
Bush Administration to support the most devilish behavior imaginable, all in the name of righteousness, as shown by
General Boykin then Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
posted by adamvasco
on May 1, 2009 -
181 comments
Is the west thwarting Arab plans for reform? Few Muslims now invest much hope in the democratic western powers (essentially the US, Britain and France) that back the rulers who oppress them, even if, against the odds, they still admire “western” values, science and culture. There is no endemic or intrinsic conflict between Christians and Muslims. Rather, the root of the problem is that a majority of Muslims is convinced that the west – interested only in a stability based on regional strongmen, the security of Israel and cheap oil – is engaged in a war against Islam and is bent on denying them the freedoms it claims for itself. That is why it is so self-defeating to collude in tyranny as ostensibly a lesser evil than political Islam. [more inside]
posted by kliuless
on Apr 14, 2009 -
32 comments
India’s New Face. "Meet Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat and the brightest star in the Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party. Under Modi, Gujarat has become an economic dynamo. But he also presided over India’s worst communal riots in decades, a 2002 slaughter that left almost 2,000 Muslims dead. Exploiting the insecurities and tensions stoked by India’s opening to the world, Modi has turned his state into a stronghold of Hindu extremism, shredding Gandhi’s vision of secular coexistence in the process. One day, he could be governing the world’s largest democracy."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Mar 11, 2009 -
12 comments
"You take the gatekeeper and you confuse his mind. You threaten him and you throw him in the middle of nowhere. Then nobody knows where the gate is. As soon as you lose the whereabouts of the gate, then you have a culture going downhill. What keeps a village together is a handful of "gays and lesbians," as they call them in the modern world. In my village, lesbians are called witches, and gay men are known as the gatekeepers." The
Dagara people of Burkina Faso.
[more inside]
posted by pinothefrog
on Feb 10, 2009 -
49 comments
Let's Talk About Sex. Challenging the convention that Americans are reluctant to have sexual health issues taught in school, the
surveys show that most parents, along with educators and students themselves, would expand sexual education courses and curriculum.
In the meantime,
some churches are offering their own
curriculum, based on
guidelines developed by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.
posted by lunit
on Feb 3, 2009 -
29 comments
"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
~
George Washington / "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."
~
Thomas Jefferson / "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
~
Abraham Lincoln / "A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." ~
James Madison / "I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice." ~
John F. Kennedy / "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus --
and nonbelievers." ~
Barack Obama
posted by 0bvious
on Jan 20, 2009 -
270 comments
