The Obama administration’s recent decision to require all employers, with the exception of churches and places of worship, to cover contraceptives in health care plans continues to cause a firestorm of controversy. House Speaker John Boehner told reporters on Thursday that the rule is unconstitutional. Catholic bishops continue to call the rule an “attack” on “religious liberty” and are calling on the administration to broaden the exemption and Congress to pass a law that could overturn it. The administration, however, is standing firm on its decision.

Misinformation on how the rules works has leaked into the media. For instance, pro-life and religious groups continue to claim the rule would force employers to pay for drugs that cause abortion, which the administration says is not the case. Senior White House officials held a conference call with reporters on Thursday to clear up any misunderstandings. Here’s a rundown of the most important facts according to those who actually wrote the rule:

Full Story Here: Just the Facts: Churches and the Contraceptive Coverage Mandate | Truthout.

Clare Ellarby says her child wasn’t allowed to take his first Holy Communion because he has Down Syndrome.

In a letter from the Diocese of Leeds, Ellarby was told that her seven-year-old Denum Ellarby lacks the “concentration” necessary to prepare for Communion, according to the BBC. The Diocese also said children can “only proceed to the sacrament of First Communion when they take part in the Church’s life and understand the Church’s faith”.

“It’s just disgusting,” Ellarby told the BBC. “I feel really let down by the Catholic faith

Full Story Here: Denum Ellarby Refused Communion Because He Has Down Syndrome, Parents Say.

And this is precisely why it is so much fun to talk about it.

People, after all, live and die in the names of religious values, so the stakes of what we are playing with couldn’t be any higher. And yet, few fields can make many human beings as unwilling to face the evidence as religion. It is exactly because these ideas are so central to their lives that they don’t want anyone to plant doubts in their minds.

If this is you–if you are afraid of tackling contradictions, if you believe that without blind faith you would be prey to senselessness and desperation, if dealing with complexity sends you running for the reassuring arms of dogma–then do not read any further. What I am about to say will confuse you, anger you and ruin your digestion.

Full Story Here: Daniele Bolelli: Believe It Or Not: 7 Facts You’re Not Supposed To Know About Religion.

Benedict presided over the service in a packed St. Peter’s Basilica, kicking off an intense two weeks of Christmas-related public appearances that will test the 84-year-old pontiff’s stamina amid signs that fatigue is starting to slow him down.

The Christmas Eve Mass was moved up to 10 p.m. from midnight several years ago to spare the pope a late night that is followed by an important Christmas Day speech. In a new concession this year, Benedict processed down the basilica’s central aisle on a moving platform to spare him the long walk.

Benedict appeared tired by the end of the Mass and a dry cough interrupted his homily.

In his homily, Benedict lamented that Christmas has become an increasingly commercial celebration that obscures the simplicity of the message of Christ’s birth.

Full Story Here: Pope Laments Christmas Consumerism, Urges People To Look Beyond ‘Superficial Glitter’.

If anyone tries to make you feel ashamed, or inferior, or like your life will be dreary and intolerable because you don’t believe in this lie they’re telling you that’s not OK.

For those who aren’t familiar with the story, in 1897 a young girl wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun.

“Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?” – Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are right. There is no Santa Claus. It’s a story made up by your parents.

Full Story Here: An Atheist’s Plea on Christmas: ‘Go Enjoy Real Life’ | Belief | AlterNet.

Attending a recent Bar Mitzvah ceremony, I was impressed, once again, by the wisdom of this ancient tribal initiation ceremony. The 13-year-old boy (or girl, in what’s called a Bat Mitzvah) is surrounded by family and friends as he recites the Torah portion in Hebrew and offers a short sermon about the importance of the reading. The ceremony takes place in the context of a regular communal service with the entire congregation assembled.

Seventy percent of the primal cultures studied by anthropologists have some formal adolescent-initiation practice. Some are for males only, some for females only, and some for both. These rites of passage can involve separation, seclusion, physical hardship, psychological stress, deprivation of food or sleep, and sometimes also torture and bodily mutilation. These initiation rites precede marriage, reproduction and adult responsibilities. In the case of contemporary American Judaism, the initiation ordeal involves going to Hebrew school for a couple of years — a form of torture for many of these kids who would rather be playing computer games or hanging out with their friends on the weekend.

The initiation of adolescents intuits something profound about our brains. Neuroscientists now understand that brains grow and evolve throughout life, but especially in childhood. Most of the brain’s structure is laid out by the time a child is 5 or 6. Then, just before puberty, the prefrontal cortex begins to grow again. Located in the forehead, the prefrontal cortex is the brain’s CEO and is involved in making plans, controlling behavior, organizing memory, modulating emotions, delaying gratification and making complex decisions.

Full Story Here: William Grassie: The Neuroscience of the Bar Mitzvah.

The Apostle Paul was, for much of his life, and abject failure who never knew the success of his Christianizing mission. From his letters, written 50-60 A.D., we know that most of his relationships deteriorated in the midst of his overbearing personality, Jesus’ original 12 disciples could hardly tolerate the man, he had to constantly fight to see that the congregations he started stayed true to his teachings, and he failed on numerous occasions to complete his missionary journeys because of disputes back in Judea. And yet, Paul was incredibly talented in one key measure: being divisive.

Interlaced within his Epistles, and other New Testament texts, lies a challenging narrative concerning the founding of the Christian Church. A narrative that leads up to one event that shaped the religion for generations to come, that led to Paul’s violent death, and set forth an understanding of Jesus, the Christ, which was a far cry from the underclass, largely unlettered, first-century Palestinian Jew. The event, occurring between 58-60 A.D., was the supposed thirdrd Jerusalem Council, where Paul expected he could finally make amends with Jesus’ original followers. Yet, as Gerd Ludemann flatly states, “Paul miscalculated this situation.”

It did not go as planned.

First some background: Paul, a self-professed Hebrew among Hebrews, was rarely at peace with his original followers back in Jerusalem. James the brother of Jesus, Peter and the other remaining disciples were keen on keeping the movement — then known as The Way — as a Temple-based, ethnically Jewish, messianic mission. They were suspect of Paul, and understandably so. He had once been their chief persecutor prior to his conversion, around 36-39 A.D.

Full Story Here: Robert Orlando: The Polite Bribe: A New Narrative for Paul and the Early Church?.

The religious lobby is on the rise, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The number of religious organizations playing the influence game in Washington has swelled since 1970, according to the Pew study. In 1970, less than 40 groups were involved with lobbying or advocacy efforts. Now, that number has risen to more than 200.

The Pew report notes that lobbying for the faithful is often a multi-million-dollar prerogative.

Pew estimated that more than 200 groups currently spend a combined nearly $400 million a year on lobbying and advocacy work.

Full Story Here: Religious Lobby on the Rise – OpenSecrets Blog | OpenSecrets.

THE NEWS: Pope Benedict XVI is in Africa, where his agenda calls for warning the people about witchcraft and calling on them to turn away from the practice.

THE PROVOCATION: It continually amazes me how the Catholic Church has a tendency to cut off its nose in a valiant effort to spite its face – or, more precisely, to preserve outdated policies that really don’t have much place in the modern world.

Exhibit A: The celibate priesthood. This is a policy that was put in place with a very specific purpose. Priests weren’t allowed to marry so they couldn’t have any heirs. As a result, they were expected to donate their estate to the church. This was significant because, during the Dark Ages and medieval period, sons of wealthy families generally had two choices: serve in the military or join the priesthood. So those who chose the latter course often had quite a nice inheritance to leave the church.

Full Story Here: The Provocation: Catholic Church Fans Flames in African Witch-Hunt Craze.

The claims are familiar: humanity could not control nature, did not understand conception or birth, and feared death, and so we invented a God that brought order to chaos, purpose to life and comfort in death. Next, we developed religion to placate the God we invented to assuage our fears of what we could not understand or control. Then, we wrote the Bible to sanction the religion that placated the God that we invented. Next came clergy, to interpret the Bible. And today, we have academics to challenge the clergy who interpret the Bible that explains the religion that placates the God that we invented.

Such debates over the existence of God are not only tedious, they are also pointless. Those who believe, believe; those who don’t, don’t. Belief is like love: it cannot be compelled; it does not function on logical parameters. As some religions would put it, faith is a matter of “grace.” For these traditions, we do not summon faith; it summons us.

Equally tiresome, perhaps especially to those of us who have invested our lives in seeking to understand what the Bible meant to its original audiences and how it has been received over time, is the frequent claim: “Don’t take a biblical studies course; it will destroy your faith.” For the most part, if one lecture undermines a religious view, then that view requires deeper interrogation.

Full Story Here: Amy-Jill Levine: Biblical Views of God.

The conservatives who criticized Obama and who claim the mantle of the founding fathers are mistaken on both counts. Although “In God We Trust” is the official motto, “E Pluribus Unum” has long been acknowledged as a de facto national motto. After all, it is on the Great Seal of the United States, which was adopted in 1782. Moreover, in the 1770s and ’80s Congress opposed a theistic motto for the nation, and many of the founders worked hard to prevent one from being established.

In July 1776, almost immediately after signing the Declaration of Independence, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were tasked with designing a seal and motto for the new nation. In August John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that he had proposed the “Choice of Hercules” as the image for the seal. Adams believed that individuals should choose to lead moral personal lives and to devote themselves to civic duty, and he preferred a secular allegory for that lesson.

Full Story Here: Dissent Magazine – Arguing The World – Whose Motto Is “In God We Trust”? -.

The culture wars over family values have yet to reach détente and will not until the messiah comes (or returns, depending on the reader’s affiliation). Battles continue over women’s equality vs. a wife’s graceful submission, no-fault divorce vs. attempts to strengthen marital bonds, the ordaining of gays and lesbians and the legalization of “gay marriage” vs. exhortations to “love the sinner but hate the sin,” birth control and abortion, private sexual expression vs. public interest….

People who read the Bible often find themselves on the opposite sides of many of these issues. This does not mean that they are necessarily reading their texts incorrectly. Indeed, before we even ask, “What does the Bible say?” we need to ask, “Whose Bible?” Canons – and so, cannons – differ among various Christian churches as well as between Jews and Christians, as do translations. Moreover, the Bible is open to multiple interpretations: we need to determine what is metaphor and what is to be taken literally, what is case specific and what is timeless, what is a matter of personal choice and what should be legislated.

How then do we read in a manner that is grounded and thoughtful rather than uninformed or soporific? Here are five general guidelines.

One approach is to begin with the broad pictu

Full Story Here: Amy-Jill Levine: The Bible and Sexuality.

There is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God. Two stories recently converged to make us pay attention. Last week, a video went viral of a Texas judge brutally whipping his disabled daughter. And on Monday, the New York Times published a story about child deaths in homes that have embraced the teachings of To Train Up a Child, a book by Christian preacher Michael Pearl that advocates using a switch on children as young as six months old.

What many people may not realize is that in the evangelical alternative universe of the home school movement, tightly knit church communities and the following of a number of big-time leaders and authors, physical punishment of children has been glorified for years.

Full Story Here: Beating Babies in the Name of Jesus? The Shady World of Right-Wing “Discipline” Guides | Truthout.

No sale price or development plans for the 1209 Washington Boulevard building were disclosed. But the move has shut St. Al’s Community Center, also called Canticle Café, and caused a Franciscan friar, a priest and volunteers from St. Aloysius — located across the street from the now-sold structure — now to use bicycles to feed and clothe the downtown needy.

“St. Francis of Assisi walked among the people where they lived in order to preach the Gospel and to be of service to the poor,” said Brother Al Mascia, who spearheaded the idea of using street vendor bikes equipped with food and clothing. “We are seeking to do that same thing by going out to the people in our downtown Detroit neighborhood.”

Full Story Here: Business | Archdiocese of Detroit sells downtown warming center, soup kitchen | The Detroit News.

OPS: Jesus would have sold the Vatican and fed the World’s hungry.  If you don’t grasp THAT, you are not a Christian, you are a Cult member.

This Tuesday, Mississippians will vote on Initiative 26, a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” This “profoundly ambiguous” amendment will deliberately trample on a woman’s reproductive health and privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion, outlawing contraception like the birth control pill, and even preventing couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization.

It is these consequences that leave even the most staunch anti-choice activists cold. The National Right to Life organization has refused to promote it. Even the Catholic Bishops have refused to endorse the amendment, noting that the bill is so extreme, it could jeopardize their more serious efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade:

Full Story Here: Mississippi Catholic Bishop, Religious Leaders Denounce Personhood Anti-Abortion Bill | ThinkProgress.

The first bishop in the US is indicted for child sex-abuse coverup; meanwhile, his colleagues push for laws that will intrude on our sexual freedom.

Last week, the House’s passage of the now-notorious H.R. 358 — also known as the “Let Women Die” bill — caused deserved outrage. But the bill’s connection to the high-ranking Catholic group that fought for its passage, even while the American church is fighting a horrific new sex abuse scandal, hasn’t been given the attention it deserves.

The new bill (which the president has vowed to veto) would essentially obliterate abortion coverage by both public and private insurers, and most egregiously get hospitals off the hook for refusing to perform abortions for women whose lives are in immediate danger. It would literally allow hospitals to let women die with impunity.

H.R. 358′s easy passage by a majority in Congress (with some defecting Democrats in the ranks) delivered another shock of sexism in a political landscape that has been assaulted by one anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-women’s health measure after another, all firing in a succession of rapid shots from statehouses across the nation as well as from DC. Helping to man the artillery is a largely disgraced Catholic hierarchy.

Full Story Here: Bishops Are Behind the ‘Let Women Die’ Act and the Push Against Birth Control–Even As They’re Under Fire for Sex Abuse Scandals | | AlterNet.

As the Occupy Wall street movement spreads across the country and the world, we must bring attention to the enablers of the top 1 percent exploiting the 99. Fundamentalist religion made this exploitation possible.

Full Story Here: How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1% to Exploit the 99% | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

As a bookend to his top-of-the-show interview with Robert Jeffress, Bill Maher simultaneously bashed Mormonism for promoting cult-like beliefs while acknowledging that Mormonism is just as radical a belief as any other mainstream religion. Maher used the opportunity to suggest that candidates like Mitt Romney should be asked about their religious beliefs because a president’s faith definitely influences their decision-making process.

How screwed up does Maher think Mormonism is? “Tom Cruise would not join it, and Glenn Beck did.”

Maher took note of Romney’s GOP rivals finally playing the Mormon card, and suggested that their outrage was unjustified because of how certain Christian beliefs can be seen (depending on who you ask) as being just as bizarre as Mormon beliefs. However, Maher did concede that Mormonism “takes crazy to a whole new level,” suggesting that while all religions are “magic tricks,” Mormonism is a lower-quality, “intelligence-insulting” magic trick.

Video at link:

Full Story Here: Bill Maher Mormons | Bill Maher Religion | Video | Mediaite.

The interview began with Maher giving Jeffress a copy of his 2008 documentary Religulous, and as an immediate sign this was going to be a unique interview, Maher began by quipping that they have common ground on their hatred of Catholics. Jeffress denied hating Catholics, saying he has many Catholic friends, but did admit he have a few problems with the faith.

Full Story Here: Bill Maher Robert Jeffress | Bill Maher Religion | Video | Mediaite.

Camping has wrongly predicted the Rapture on at least three occasions, in 1992, 1994 and on May 21 of this year.

“I do believe we are getting very near the very end,” Camping said in audio posted on his website. “We’ve learned that there is a lot of things we didn’t have quite right and that’s God’s good provision. If he had not kept us from knowing everything that we didn’t know, we would not have been able to be used of him to bring about the tremendous event that occurred on May 21 of this year which will probably be finished out on Oct. 21. That’s coming very shortly. That looks like at this point, it looks like it will be the final end of everything.”

Full Story Here: ‘Rapture’ preacher makes fourth end-of-the-world forecast | The Raw Story.

The survey, conducted by Nashville-based Lifeway Research, found that when Bible readers were asked if they prefer “word-for-word translations, where the original words are translated as exactly as possible,” or “thought-for-thought translations, where the translators attempt to reproduce the intent of the original thought rather than translating the exact words,” 61 percent chose word-for-word.

In order to be part of the survey, the 2,000 readers, who were polled through an online panel that demographically represented the Christian population in the United States, had to already read the Bible at least once a month on their own or as part of a family activity, and not only in a church or worship setting.

Full Story Here: Readers Prefer Literal Bible Translations Over Common English, New Survey Shows

It’s important to remember that we are talking about people opposing core civil rights for American citizens.

Maggie Gallagher, who has devoted much of her professional life to maintaining separate but decidedly unequal accomodations for gays and lesbians, is very concerned about Americans’ individual rights. Mostly, she’s worried about the “right” of religious conservatives dwelling on the wrong side of history to express their bigotry openly, without having to face the scorn of more enlightened citizens.

Gallagher, a syndicated columnist, is the former president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and current head of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (a group that lobbies against marriage equality). She is best known for writing favorably of the Bush administration’s “Healthy Marriage Initiative” without disclosing that she was receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services to promote the policy at the time.

Her latest effort for NOM is the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance, launched recently with some fanfare on the right. Gallagher told the National Review that the new group would combat, “an emerging trend we are hearing about: people losing jobs or other economic opportunities because they have written, spoken, donated, or otherwise peacefully exercised their core civil rights on behalf of marriage as the union of husband and wife.”

Full Story Here: Religious-Right Homophobes Whine That They’re Being Oppressed | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

The theology embraced by American religious conservatives may render them immune to evidence and reason when it comes to economic management.

s it merely partisan politics and the misguided ideology of “austerity” that leads conservatives to reject commonsense fixes for this miserable economy? Or is something else going on?

It may well be the latter. A study released last fall suggests that the theology embraced by American religious conservatives may render them immune to evidence and reason when it comes to economic management. The study found that a sizable minority share a uniquely faith-based view of how the economy functions, believing that both good and bad outcomes are an expression of God’s will, and are therefore beyond the reach of mere mortals.

This may help explain the disconnect between the gravity of our economic crisis and lawmakers’ – especially conservative lawmakers’ — decided lack of a sense of urgency in addressing it. Consider for a moment three related facts that, taken together, cast what appears to be the sheer madness of our nation’s economic stewardship in sharp relief.

Full Story Here: How Conservative Politicians Wait for God to Fix the Economy, With Frightening Results | Belief | AlterNet.

A threat to American liberties:

Rick Perry and the New Apostolic Reformation

Two years ago, two NAR ministers explained to Perry that Texas had been anointed by God to bring America to Godly rule.

The most vigorous branch of Dominionism is the New Apostolic Reformation. Rev. Dr. C. Peter Wagner of Global Harvest Ministries in Colorado Springs, is the “convening Apostle” or leading light in New Apostolic Reformation, and he says the reformation or New Apostolic Age began in 2001.

A former professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Wagner is famous for helping develop the “growth model” that was to produce the huge megachurches that now dot the land. He and his followers aim for a post-denominational Christianity shaped by them. Their leaders are God’s new apostles and prophets who have greater power than the original apostles and prophets.

Spiritual warriors must convert adherents of other churches and seek political power. They think the end times will see the perfection of Christianity and they will have a perfected religion to turn over to Christ, when he returns. They will be given great power and crush evil with a “rod of iron.”

Full Story Here: The Rag Blog: Don Swift : Rick Perry and the New Apostolic Reformation.

If you look closely there are promising signs that American attitudes are changing in a way that may blunt the impact of religion on politics and culture.

In between bragging about the number of people they’ve killed and vilifying gay soldiers, the GOP presidential candidates have spent the primaries demonstrating how little they respect the separation of church and state. Michele Bachmann seems to think God is personally invested in her political career. Both she and Rick Perry have ties to Christian Dominionism, a theocratic philosophy that publicly calls for Christian takeover of America’s political and civil institutions. (Even Ron Paul, glorified by civil libertarians for his only two good policy stances — opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and drug prohibition — sputtered about churches when asked during a debate where he’d send a gravely ill man without health insurance.)

GOP pandering to the Religious Right is just one of those facts of American public life, like climate change denial and Creationism in schools, that leave secular Americans lamenting the decline of the country, and of reason and logic. Organized religion’s grasp on the politics and culture of much of Europe has been waning for decades – why can’t we do that here?

Full Story Here: 5 Signs That America Is Moving Away from Religion | Belief | AlterNet.

The essence of the matter is this: A number of conservative writers and political pundits have taken to attacking left-wing investigative reporters, researchers and journalists over their reporting about Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism and the New Apostolic Reformation – three little-known theological and ideological movements gaining ground on the Christian Right.

The subtext of a recent contribution to this newly minted genre appears to be a not-so-subtle message to Jewish writers, researchers and critics of the Religious Right: “Don’t rock the boat.”

‘The Truth About Evangelicals’ is bereft of one thing; truth

Full Story Here: | The Not So Stealth Campaign to Silence Critics of Religious Extremism.

A threat to American liberties:

Dominionists and the ‘Kingdom of God’

They want to take over government and create a theocracy. No wonder they see nothing wrong in playing politics from the pulpit.

Dominionists refuse to accept the separation of church and state. They want to take over government and other areas of society and create a theocracy. No wonder they see nothing wrong in playing politics from the pulpit.

Reverend Ed Kalnins, once Sarah Palin’s pastor at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, has consigned critics of George W. Bush to hell. He even denounced those who criticized Bush’s handling of Katrina. He doubted that people who voted for John Kerry in 2004 would be welcomed to heaven.

He said: “I’m not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I’m sorry.” Kalnins added: “If every Christian will vote righteously, it would be a landslide every time.

Full Story Here: The Rag Blog: Don Swift : Dominionists and the ‘Kingdom of God’.

Enough Already With That Moron,’ Says Almighty

Rev. Pat Robertson’s controversial remarks in which he advised that it was acceptable to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer’s drew a harsh rebuke from God Almighty, who held a press conference today to tell him to “shut the fuck up.”

The bearded King of the Universe, dressed in His trademark flowing white robe and carrying a lightning bolt, spoke to reporters at New York’s Hyatt Grand Central for forty-five minutes in a press conference specifically called to denounce the televangelist.

“I’ve held my tongue while he’s jabbered on and on about me punishing this group and that group with floods and earthquakes and such, but this was the last straw,” He said.  “Enough already with that moron.”

Full Story Here: In Rare Public Statement, God Tells Pat Robertson to Shut the Fuck Up « Borowitz Report.

By the Rev. Howard Bess

I too looked at the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2011, with horror. No one needs to remind me of what happened on that day.

We received a phone call from our daughter about the plane that crashed into the first tower of the Trade Center. Quickly I turned on the television in time to watch in live time another plane assaulting the second tower. I could not believe what my eyes were reporting.

Over the next few hours the magnitude of the terrorist attack unfolded. The Pentagon! Yet another plane, apparently headed for the White House, crashed in Pennsylvania. The estimates of the people killed kept climbing, taking several days for the count to become accurate.

Full Story Here: A Christian Reflection on 9/11 | Consortiumnews.

Slavery’s depravity is so obvious to us today that it obscures the collective mental conversion required to achieve this bit of moral clarity. This conversion entailed a titanic shift from seeing slavery as necessary for civilization (as the ancients believed) to seeing it as necessarily uncivilized. As one of humanity’s most radical changes in social thinking, it is unsurprising that it took centuries to unfold.

Religion is often cast an impediment to slavery’s moral stigmatization. The Bible treats slavery as a social fact (which it was at the time), and over the centuries religious leaders and communities held slaves and (often with qualifications) condoned the practice. One could legitimately argue that this was a major moral failing on religion’s part. What is wholly illegitimate is the claim that secular wisdom dragged religion, kicking and screaming, into the realization that slavery was bad. For example, here’s what University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne claimed in a July 31 USA Today op-ed piece on religion and morality: “Secular morality is what pushes religion to improve its own dogma on issues such as slavery and the treatment of women”

Wrong. Instead, monotheism provided the essential tools for making the colossal change in moral thinking outlined above.

Full Story Here: Matt J. Rossano: Did Secular Morality Shame Religion Into Condemning Slavery?.

Dominionism has different strains. But one is embodied in a group called the New Apostolic Reformation, which helped organize a recent prayer rally for Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry.

How seriously should we take this group, and its goals?

To answer that question, Point of Inquiry turned to Rachel Tabachnik, a researcher and writer who focuses on monitoring the Religious Right. She’s a contributor to Talk2Action.org, and recently wrote about the New Apostolic Reformation on Alternet.org.

Download the mp3 (free) at link below

Full Story Here: Rachel Tabachnick – Exposing Dominionism | Point of Inquiry.

Shocking, isn’t it?

Apparently it is to some people in Murfreesboro, Tenn. They’ve been in state court trying to stop some Muslims from expanding a mosque there.

Why? Well, they just don’t much like Muslims.

As a legal argument, that leaves a little to be desired. And on Monday Chancellor Robert Corlew III of the Sixteenth Judicial District reaffirmed an earlier ruling and shot it down in flames.

“Those who are adherents to Islam are entitled to pursue their worship in the United States just as are those who are adherents to more universally established faiths (in our community),” ruled Chancellor Corlew. (“Chancellor” is a title applied to some judges in Tennessee state courts.)

Full Story Here: | Religious Freedom: Tenn. Court Affirms That Isn’t Just For Christians Any More.

In one of the most of ironic of Rodriguez 49 Washington Post columns, he makes a statement about the controversy surrounding Rod Parsley, John Hagee, and Jeremiah Wright in the 2008 presidential election.

“These spiritual leaders need to focus more on the greatest religious asset in the faith arsenal of the American experience; religious pluralism.”

Full Story Here: | Samuel Rodriguez and the Oak Initiative – Marketing Religious Supremacism as Social Justice.

Federal officials said that Crawford set fire to the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, Oregon, near his home in the early morning hours of Nov. 28, less than two days after authorities arrested a Somali-American man after an FBI sting operation.

Court documents obtained by the Associated Press show that Crawford ranted against Muslims in his conversations with police and said that Christians were also capable of jihad.

Full Story Here: Mosque Arson Suspect To Cops: ‘Christians Can Jihad Too’ | TPMMuckraker.

The most common stereotype about atheists, the most common reason why religious people fear and distrust us, is the belief that people who don’t believe in God have no reason to behave morally. In the view of the planet’s major religions, the way we know what’s right and what’s wrong is that God tells us so, and the reason we follow the rules is because we fear divine retribution if we break them. This worldview is simple and emotionally satisfying and to those who believe it, it’s a natural implication that a person who no longer believes in God has no reason not to indulge their every selfish desire.

Now, I’ve never claimed to speak for every atheist. Because nonbelievers are a diverse and quarrelsome lot, there may in fact be a few who think this way. But if there are, they’re staying well hidden. The vast majority of atheists, like the majority of human beings in general, are perfectly good and decent people. This should be no surprise, as the evidence shows that human beings all tend to have similar moral intuitions, regardless of whether we profess a religion. But that doesn’t address how an atheist justifies acting morally. When we’re wrestling with an ethical dilemma, how do we make up our minds? What can nonbelievers appeal to as a reason for their action?

Again, atheists are a diverse bunch. There are some who would argue that morality is just an opinion, a mere matter of taste, like preferring vanilla ice cream to chocolate. But I reject this view, just as I reject the view that morality can only come from obeying what people believe to be God’s will. I believe that morality is real, that it’s objective, and that it’s a thoroughly natural phenomenon that’s perfectly compatible with a worldview that includes nothing spooky, mystical, or supernatural.

Full Story Here: Believers Think We Need Religion to Behave Like Good, Moral People — Here’s Why They’re Wrong | Belief | AlterNet.

Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson have written extensively about Dominionism and Dominion Theology and point out subtle but significant differences that should be taken into consideration when using the terminology. Berlet has written about the difference between Soft Dominionism or Christian Nationalism and Hard Dominionism, which is theocratic.

Because the New Apostolic Reformation is evolving, it is difficult to know where to place its leadership in the spectrum of Dominionist ideologies. There have been significant trends among some of the leadership toward a more aggressive and political application of their Dominionist beliefs in the last few years, and some are more forthright about their intentions than others.

Full Story Here: | Quotes on Dominionism From the Apostles and Prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Michele Bachmann and many right leaning politicians have indicated their divine inspiration coming from the same three religious leaders: Francis Schaeffer, Loren Cunningham, and Bill Bright. In an article from the New Yorker Bachmann indicated she got involved in politics after being inspired by a video designed to bring people to a religious movement. After all – as a graduate of Oral Roberts University Law School – Bachmann is no stranger to “Christian Reconstructionism.”

Their work began in the 70′s and 80′s when many of today’s Republican candidates were in college and first getting started. Those three religious leaders came from their own projects – Campus Crusade, Youth With a Mission, and Francis Schaeffer was the author of the Christian Manifesto (the Christian version of the Communist Manifesto) and many credit with being one of the fathers of the anti-choice movement. Their mutual project was called Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture, in which their aim was to take over every element of our society with their right wing ideology.

Full Story Here: The History of The Right’s Religious War | Crooks and Liars.

The study, released Sunday by the American Sociological Association, draws on decades of data from the General Social Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth to conclude that “moderately educated whites,” defined as people with high school degrees, attended religious services in the 1970s at about the same rate as whites with degrees from four-year colleges. In the last decade, however, they attended much less frequently.

“Our study suggests that the less educated are dropping out of the American religious sector similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market,” says researcher W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.

Full Story Here: Church Attendance Falling Among Less-Educated Whites: Study.

Circuit Judge John Schmidt ruled Thursday (Aug. 18) that state officials can cancel contracts with Catholic Charities after church officials said they could not comply with a new civil unions law that could require them to place children with same-sex couples.

“No citizen has a recognized legal right to a contract with the government,” Schmidt ruled, lifting a July 12 temporary injunction that maintained the annual contracts dating back 30 years.

Schmidt said the church had failed to show a “recognized property right” entitling them to maintain the contracts.

Full Story Here: Catholic Charities Loses Same-Sex Couple Adoption Fight In Illinois.

Did hostile classroom remarks about creationism violate the mandate that the government remain neutral on religion? An appeals court says the teacher has immunity from being sued.

A public high school teacher in California may not be sued for making hostile remarks about religion in his classroom, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a student charging that the teacher’s hostile remarks about creationism and religious faith violated a First Amendment mandate that the government remain neutral in matters of religion.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the lawsuit against an advanced placement history teacher at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo must be thrown out of court because the teacher was entitled to immunity.

Full Story Here: US judges rule for teacher who called creationism ‘superstitious nonsense’ – Yahoo! News.

It is never easy stepping into Dad’s shoes, of course. But when the family business is religion, it is especially perilous. That is one of the central laments, anyway, of “Sex, Mom, & God,” a new memoir by Frank Schaeffer. To secular Americans, the name Frank Schaeffer means nothing. But to millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime is not financial profligacy, like some pastors’ sons, but turning his back on Christian conservatives.

Mr. Schaeffer, who is now 59 and lives north of Boston, grew up in L’Abri, a Christian community in Switzerland founded by his parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer. In the 1960s, L’Abri was known in Christian circles as a drop-by haven for intellectually curious evangelicals, who could live in the mountains for a few days or even a few years, talking with Francis and Edith about the Bible, Christian art or existentialism. Mr. Schaeffer grew up surrounded by heady talk and, as he discusses in his memoir, tempted by the young women who passed through. He got one of them pregnant when he was 17, then married her.

Full Story Here: Frank Schaeffer, Son of Evangelical Royalty, Turns His Back, and Tells the Tale – NYTimes.com.

Keith Parsons announces that the “case for theism” is a fraud, and sparks a firestorm.

When philosophy professor Keith Parsons posted an announcement on his blog, The Secular Outpost, explaining why he had decided to abandon philosophy of religion, he expected only his handful of regular readers to take notice. After a decade teaching philosophy of religion at the University of Houston, during which time he founded the philosophy of religion journal Philo and published over twenty books and articles in the field, Parsons hung up his hat on September 1:

I have to confess that I now regard “the case for theism” as a fraud and I can no longer take it seriously enough to present it to a class as a respectable philosophical position—no more than I could present intelligent design as a legitimate biological theory. BTW, in saying that I now consider the case for theism to be a fraud, I do not mean to charge that the people making that case are frauds who aim to fool us with claims they know to be empty. No, theistic philosophers and apologists are almost painfully earnest and honest… I just cannot take their arguments seriously any more, and if you cannot take something seriously, you should not try to devote serious academic attention to it.

To his surprise, the announcement went viral. Posted and reposted on blogs such as Leiter Reports, The Prosblogion, and Debunking Christianity, it generated hundreds of comments in the subsequent weeks about the status of the field and whether Parsons’ criticisms were warranted. “It’s not that often philosophers renounce fields!” says Brian Leiter, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, at Leiter Reports. Parsons’ incendiary choice of words likely also bore some responsibility for the reaction. “I’m afraid what precipitated the thing going viral is that I said it was a fraud, which I shouldn’t have said, because ‘fraud’ implies an intentional attempt to fool people,” Parsons says.

Full Story Here: A Philosopher of Religion Calls it Quits | (A)theologies | Religion Dispatches.

1. Significance of the 50-State “Prayer Warrior” Communication Networks

An analysis in the Washington Post read, “… organizing a prayer gathering in your home state isn’t the same thing as winning votes in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.” This article does not take into account the NAR’s 50-state network of “prayer warriors.” At the moment there are three different national networks under the authority of Dutch Sheets, Cindy Jacobs, and John Benefiel. Both of the last two endorsed Perry’s event.

Full Story Here: | Five Points About Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally Not Yet in Mainstream Press.

Perry’s endorsers are not just a random group of radical evangelists but part of a large and little-understood international religious movement.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry decided to stage a Texas-size prayer event — dubbed “The Response” — on Aug. 6, it no doubt seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It received little critical scrutiny when he announced it back in early June, except on websites that track these sorts of things. But after Rachel Maddow, drawing on these sites, did a segment highlighting some of the more bizarre statements made by Perry’s high-profile religious endorsers, things cooled considerably — even though the real story is still not remotely well-understood.

“Perry’s endorsers are not just a random group of radical evangelists making outrageous statements,” researcher Rachel Tabachnick subsequently wrote at Alternet.org. “These are the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), the biggest international religious movement you never heard of.” Almost simultaneously, investigative rePeter Forrest Wilder of the Texas Observer published an extensive article on Perry’s prayer event and his endorsers, “Rick Perry’s Army of God.”

Full Story Here: The Biggest Religious Movement You Never Heard of: Nine Things You Need to Know About Rick Perry’s Prayer Event | Belief | AlterNet.

THE NEWS: Dominionist Christians are working to turn the United States into a theocracy. These are the same people who continually spout off about America being a “Christian nation” founded by men and women who shared their warped fundamentalist view of the world. Their latest target: video games.

According to Os Hillman, an author and key figure in the movement, “Culture is most defined by arts and entertainment because this is where people’s values can be shaped and games can play a major role in reinforcing Christian values.”

THE PROVOCATION: Never heard of the dominionists? They don’t necessarily go around calling themselves that. They prefer to advertise themselves as Christians who are devoted to the teachings of Jesus. Or they’ll say they’re born again. But there’s more to them than just that: They have designs on turning the United States into one nation under their god, indivisible by such petty inconveniences as diversity and freedom of religion.

Full Story Here: The Provocation: Kingdom of God on Earth? Some Want a U.S. Theocracy.

Funny thing about that thinking – some people see it as dangerous. And a few of those people sit on the school board in Republic, Mo.

The board voted 4-0 recently to ban Slaughterhouse-Five and another book, Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer, after a local resident complained that the books teach ideas contrary to the Bible.

Wesley Scroggins had originally targeted three books, but the board voted to keep one, Laurie Halse Anderson’s award-winning Speak, on the shelves. According to the Springfield News-Leader, Scroggins “challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible.”

Full Story Here: | Yielding To Censorship: Mo. School Board Bans Books That Are `Contrary To The Bible’.

The argument from utility — the defense of religion, not because it’s true, but because it’s psychologically or socially useful — is freakishly common.

“But religion is useful. It makes people happy. It comforts people in hard times. It makes people better-behaved. And losing religious faith can be traumatic. So what difference does it make if it isn’t true? Shouldn’t we be perpetuating it anyway — or at least leaving it alone? Why do you want to persuade people out of it?”

Atheists hear this a lot. The argument from utility — the defense of religion, not because it’s true, but because it’s psychologically or socially useful — is freakishly common. If you spend any time reading debates in atheist blogs or forums, you’re bound to see it come up.

Now, when atheists hear this “But religion is so useful!” argument, our most common response is to say, “Is not!” We eagerly point out that countries with high rates of atheism are also countries with high rates of happiness, ethics, and social functioning. (This doesn’t prove that atheism causes high social functioning, of course — in fact, it’s probably the other way around — but it does show that high social functioning doesn’t need religion.) We’ll point out the many, many examples of religious believers who cheat, steal, murder, and generally behave very badly indeed… entirely undercutting the notion that religion provides an unshakable foundation for good moral behavior. And we’ll point to ourselves, and to other atheists we know — people who clearly don’t need religion, who are living happy, ethical lives without religion, who in some cases are even happier and better without religion — as the most obvious counter-arguments we can think of to this argument.

Full Story Here: The Santa Delusion: Why ‘Religion Is Useful’ Is a Terrible Argument For Religion | Belief | AlterNet.

The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training session “has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed,” said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. “The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society.”

Full Story Here: Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report | Truthout.

A recently released survey (PDF) by Public Policy Polling (PPP) found that only 52 percent of American voters approve of God’s performance, while nine percent disapprove and 40 percent are just not sure.

Among “very liberal” respondents, 19 percent disapproved. Only four percent of “very conservative” voters had a problem with the deity.

At 71 percent, God got His highest marks for creating the universe. His handling of animals was approved by 56 percent, and 50 percent even approved of His handling of natural disasters.

Full Story Here: Poll: Only 52% of Americans approve of God’s performance | The Raw Story.

THE FAMiLY LEADER’S (the lowercase “i” is meant to represent individual submission) radical “marriage vow” pledge is once again undergoing major revisions. The document’s preamble states: “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

That language from the social conservative Iowa-based group elicited furious responses from many African-American bloggers. For instance, Cheryl Contee of Jack and Jill politics wrote, “Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive. I mean, putting aside the statistics on this, which are likely off-base, I could not be more angry. When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or not we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points? It has to stop.” Similarly, Jenée Desmond-Harris, writing for The Root (a leading online publication that offers African-American perspectives), said it was “disturbing” that the pledge would invoke slavery just “to serve as a cheap emotional hook to promote a conservative agenda.”

Politico reports that the LEADER is now stripping its pledge of the language:

Full Story Here: THE FAMiLY LEADER Drops ‘Misconstrued’ Slavery Language From Pledge Following Uproar | ThinkProgress.

A Mennonite college will stop playing the national anthem at sports events, after some complained that the song violated pacifist ideals; the Indiana school’s board of directors said the college’s “allegiance should be to Christ rather than to country,” the Religion News Service reports via Huffington Post. Goshen College sports began playing the Star-Spangled Banner only last year, but after a “thoughtful, thorough, prayerful period of listening, learning and discerning,” the board decided that playing the song “compromises our ability” to pursue the school’s vision. Goshen had banned the anthem for decades, but in February 2010 approved the playing of an instrumental version. Largely non-Mennonite backers of the tune said it “honors our country and improves community relations by welcoming and respecting the views of non-Mennonite students.” The board is on the hunt for an “alternative” song “that fits with sports tradition, that honors country, that resonates with our core values and that respects the views of diverse constituencies.”

Full Story Here: Mennonite Goshen College Bans National Anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.

OPS: Can we end their tax exempt status now?

One might think that a private, decidedly conservative, and totally evangelical Christian University, that was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was openly critical of government programs, would spurn federal dollars.

Au contraire mon ami.

“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” – The Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved

Full Story Here: | Falwell’s Liberty University Raking in Big-Time Money From America’s Taxpayers.

While religious conservatives and Republican political leaders gathered at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington this weekend, another group of religious leaders held a small gathering across the street to warn against the perils of the Republican Party’s fiscal priorities.

Four members affiliated with the religious group Faith In Public Life held a brief press conference during FFC’s afternoon intermission to denounce the GOP’s adherence to the philosophies of anti-government, anti-religion author Ayn Rand. The leaders — Rev. Jennifer Butler, Jim Wallis, Rev. Derrick Harkins, and Father Clete Kiley — asserted that the GOP efforts to cut funding from many anti-poverty programs while balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest Americans were not in line with Christian values:

The sky is falling on poor people in this country. The sky is falling. This time it really is. In the past, when we’ve done deficit reduction — and we’ve done it before — we’ve done poverty reduction at the same time. You can do both together. And every previous attempt there has been a bipartisan agreement to a given, a principle, that poor and low income people are not the ones to make hurt more when you’re making tough decisions. … They don’t bear the brunt of our fiscal irresponsibility because they didn’t cause it. We did not get into fiscal trouble because of poor people. … The poor didn’t cause this. Let’s not make them pay for it.

Full Story Here: Religious Leaders: GOP’s ‘Ayn Rand’ Budget Targets Poor, Goes Against Religious Values | ThinkProgress.

Well, Tim Tebow’s new memoir is out, and it’s being joyously welcomed by those who think that sanctimonious 23 year-old jocks have something important to say about life. I got to hear some deep thoughts on the book and on the admirable life of young Tebow from the crew of The Stupid Show as I drove around yesterday afternoon, and while I’m fine with people believing what they feel led to believe, I have finally had about enough of what’s being done to the word faith.

Everywhere we turn here in this most evangelical of cultures, we hear that word. Faith. We revere those who “have great faith,” even when they’re not entirely rational about it. This a comparatively recent phenomenon, too. When I was a devoted Southern Baptist boy (as recently as the early ’80s) we talked about faith, sure, but it wasn’t the ubiquitous code word that it has become.

Let’s be clear about something. I’m not carping about what people believe. To be sure, I have done so and will again, especially when those beliefs shape policy that threatens the culture’s well-being, but that’s not what this complaint is about. No, this is more about the appropriation of a word, the sinister re-engineering of its DNA, its encoding as a dog-whistle that ultimately connotes something that’s a bit hypocritical.

Full Story Here: Tim Tebow and the problem with “faith” | Scholars and Rogues.

I try to avoid religious commentary, but – Good God! – what is it about confession that the Catholic hierarchy can’t seem to grasp?

The grotesque epidemic of priestly pedophilia that has roiled the church has been under assessment in a five year, $2 million study commissioned by our country’s Catholic bishops. At long last, the report is out – but not the truth. Instead, the panel concludes that this horror is not the fault of the church, nor even of the abusive priests. Rather – cue the heavenly music – the sixties made them do it.

Yes, it’s the Woodstock defense! The diabolical theory of this study is that “social chaos” created by the tie-dyed sexual revolution of the 1960s so discombobulated otherwise chaste and honorable men that they used their religious authority to rape 10-year-olds and teenagers.

Full Story Here: Jim Hightower | “THE SIXTIES MADE ME DO IT”.

If you live in a state with a voucher or corporate tax credit program funding “school choice,” your state’s tax dollars are funding the teaching of religious supremacism.

Are your state’s tax dollars funding the teaching of religious supremacism and bigotry? What about creationism? The answer is undoubtedly yes, if you live in a state with a voucher or corporate tax credit program funding “school choice.”

Religious schools across the nation are receiving public funds through voucher and corporate tax credit programs. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of these schools use Protestant fundamentalist textbooks that teach not only creationism, but also a religious supremacist worldview. They offer a shocking spin on politics, history and human rights.

Full Story Here: The ‘Christian’ Dogma Pushed by Religious Schools That Are Supported by Your Tax Dollars | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

Regardless of what Oklahoma Republicans may think, numerous religious groups view the law as a clear infringement on the First Amendment and are now taking a stand. Last week, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) signed on to an amicus brief urging the 10th Circuit to invalidate the law as it has “the unambiguous effect of communicating official disapproval of Islam“:

“The BJC’s brief argues that the Oklahoma amendment violates the Establishment Clause for two separate and distinct reasons. First, “the amendment’s purpose plainly is to disapprove of the Islamic tradition.” Secondly, “the amendment’s dual specific references to Shari law – and to no other religious tradition – have the unambiguous effect of communicating official disapproval of Islam.”

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Baptist Group: Oklahoma’s Sharia Ban Is Unconstitutional.

The sky turned dark Saturday afternoon, but it wasn’t a sign of the world’s impending doom – just passing rain.

Welcome to the No-pacalypse – a disappointing finish to what doomsday believer Robert Fitzpatrick thought would be the End of Days.

“I don’t understand why nothing has happened,” a deflated Fitzpatrick said in Times Square just after 6 p.m. “I did what I had to do. I did what the Bible said.”

“I obviously haven’t understood it properly, because we’re still here,” added Fitzpatrick, 60, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters and skeptical onlookers.

Full Story Here: Despite preparations, believers of apocalypse shocked when doomsday time passes without incident.

For all the hype leading up to this, countless broadcasts and a sprawling nationwide campaign, the airwaves of Christian station Family Radio are oddly silent with May 21, 2011 finally here.

Harold Camping, president of Family Radio and a multimillionaire, has also been quiet, as the hours tick and signs of an apocalypse are nowhere to be found.

Reuters reports Family Radio has been airing “recorded church music, devotionals and life advice unrelated to the apocalypse” throughout today. The station’s website typically allows you to listen live, but the feature has been having problems today, likely due to server overload.

Camping and his group of believers had said repeatedly in past days that the rapture on May 21 was a certainty.

Full Story Here: Harold Camping’s Family Radio Goes Quiet With May 21 Actually Here.

Religious zealotry plays an equal if not more significant role in Tea Party politics than its obsession with budget deficits and government spending.

Last fall, when then-Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida aired a campaign ad calling his Republican opponent Daniel Webster “Taliban Dan,” a collective, dismissive groan rumbled from the political commentariat. “Has Alan Grayson gone too far?” pondered Politico. But the question, despite the ad’s shortcomings, should have been: Is Dan Webster, an evangelical Christian and staunch social conservative, too radical for the United States Congress?

Whatever the wisdom of using the term “Taliban Dan,” Grayson was onto something that should have, if properly examined, provided clues to the Republican-controlled Congress’ fixation with cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood. That such a question doesn’t get asked is a function of how Congress has already gone too far — and not in Grayson’s direction. The Webster campaign should have given ample evidence that the Tea Party was full of religious zealots bent on undermining the rights of women. By failing to fully interrogate so-called social conservatism and understand its religious motivations, the press and pundits continue to provide cover for candidates with an extreme agenda, which they’re far from finished carrying out.

Full Story Here: The Christian Right Extremists Behind the GOP’s War on Women | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

The Religious Right in America is lavishly funded and politically well connected. These groups raise more than three-quarters of a billion dollars annually, mostly tax-exempt.

The Religious Right in America is lavishly funded and politically well connected. While the men who lead the fundamentalist Christian political movement hold different opinions about theology, they share a deep and abiding hostility to the separation of church and state. They seek to inject religion into public schools, obtain taxpayer funding for religious schools and other ministries, roll back reproductive choice and deny civil rights to gay people. And they enjoy extraordinary influence in Washington, D.C., and in many state legislatures.

What follows is a survey of some of the nation’s leading Religious Right organizations. Collectively, these groups raise more than three-quarters of a billion dollars annually, the bulk of it tax-exempt. Budget figures are from public tax documents and are the most recent available, in most cases from 2009 and 2010.

Full Story Here: The 12 Worst (and Most Powerful) Christian Right Groups | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

The Rev. Wallace Charles Smith said the church has received more than 100 threats since Fox News channel’s Sean Hannity aired a tape Monday of a speech Smith gave in January 2010 at Eastern University in Saint Davids, Pa.

“We received a fax that had the image of a monkey with a target across is face,” Smith said. “My secretary has received telephone calls that have been so vulgar until she has had to hang up.”

Full Story Here: Shiloh Baptist Church receives threats after comments from Sean Hannity – The Washington Post.

A former bishop’s televised admission that he sexually abused two of his nephews caused an uproar in Belgium on Friday, with the prime minister, senior clergy and a prosecutor expressing shock at the way the ex-prelate made light of his offenses.

In an interview that aired Thursday Roger Vangheluwe, the former bishop of Bruges, spoke of his sexual abuse as “a little game,” that involved fondling, but no “rough sex.”

“I was never naked” and the abuse was never about “real sexuality,” said Vangheluwe, 74.

Full Story Here: Roger Vangheluwe, Child-Abusing Former Belgian Bishop, Reveals All In Shocking New Book.

For five years an ad hoc group of re­tired and ac­tive duty Chap­lains have been work­ing under the radar to as­s­ist LGB ser­vice mem­b­ers and pre­pare the way for re­pe­al of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) law. By fil­ing a brief in sup­port of the feder­al trial court’s de­cis­ion in the case of Log Cabin Re­pub­licans v. US that DADT is un­constitution­al on Mon­day, April 4, 2011, the Forum on the Milita­ry Chap­lain­cy has be­come pub­lic. It is now fully en­gag­ing the for­ces of re­ligi­ous bi­got­ry.

The Forum is joined in the brief by the Gener­al Synod of the Uni­ted Church of Chr­ist; the Pre­sid­ing Bi­shop of the Epi­scop­al Church; the Met­ropolitan Com­mun­ity Churches; Uni­tarian Uni­ver­sal­ist As­socia­tion; Califor­nia Co­un­cil of Churches; Califor­nia Faith for Equal­ity; and nine re­tired sen­ior milita­ry Chap­lains.

It is about time there is a strong voice for peo­ple of faith who can no long­er stand by and see re­lig­ion used as a weapon against pat­riotic Americans who want to serve their co­unt­ry.

Full Story Here: Military Chaplains Forum Revealed, Takes on Religious Bigotry | Truthout.

Students deserve an education that is free from bullying and harassment, and in many districts parents, teachers, principals, community members and students are working together to create a safe and welcoming environment for all children. Bullying can impede learning and ruin lives. As Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said, “bullying is doubly dangerous because if left unattended it can rapidly escalate into even more serious violence and abuse.” Close to nine in ten Americans believe that bullying is a “serious problem,” and many communities are directly challenging harassment and violence in schools.

However, many Religious Right activists want to derail efforts to combat bullying. An increasing number of conservative leaders and organizations have fiercely opposed anti-bullying programs developed by schools and education groups for the sole reason that such programs identify and attempt to combat the widespread bullying of LGBT youth.

Rather than recognize and address the problem of bullying against students who are gay or perceived to be gay, Religious Right groups want schools to embrace a policy of inaction. Many resort to repeating discredited lies about sexual orientation and vilifying the LGBT community and its allies to back up their opposition to anti-bullying programs that mention anti-gay bullying. Concerned students, families, teachers, education professionals, and public officials should not be fooled by the far-right’s attempt to smear anti-bullying programs, and should instead ensure that schools address bullying with a direct, honest and comprehensive approach.

Full Story Here: Big Bullies: How the Religious Right is Trying to Make Schools Safe for Bullies and Dangerous for Gay Kids | People For the American Way.

The Scientology-backed rehab promises addicts they can sweat out their demons in sweltering saunas. But critics charge that the organization is the devil itself.

L. Ron Hubbard, the prolific science fiction author and founder of the Church of Scientology, may have been judged “a mental case” (according to the F.B.I.) and “a pathological liar” (according to a Los Angeles Supreme Court judge), but to tens of thousands of his eager followers worldwide, the man discovered an approach to recovery that outclasses everything on offer from mainstream addiction science. Narconon is the spawn of Hubbard’s pseudoscientific notions, a detox-and-rehab enterprise that has, over more than four decades, grown into a multimillion-dollar empire that currently comprises an estimated several dozen clinics encircling the globe. Its claims of unrivaled success rates with its “100 percent natural,” “drug free” approach have kept it profitable and respectable, even as the church’s reputation has tanked. Celebrity endorsements—from the likes of “former graduate” Kirstie Alley—and a savvy internet marketing campaign haven’t hurt.

Yet according to the organization’s many critics, including friends and family of dead, damaged, or disappeared Narconon clients, the chain of rehabs is little more than a front group for the Church of Scientology. They allege that unsuspecting clients pay as much as $30,000 for “treatment” consisting of a bizarre detox process that poses serious health hazards, followed by indoctrination in Scientology masked as drug rehabilitation. By preying on people who are desperate and vulnerable—and therefore prime candidates for conversion—Narconon serves as one of the church’s main sources of revenue and recruitment. With the Scientology brand increasingly toxic—in a recent New Yorker, Lawrence Wright reported that the F.B.I. is investigating its leadership for allegedly violating human trafficking laws—the church’s survival depends more than ever on Narconon’s hold on the addiction and recovery market. (Efforts by The Fix to contact a Narconon spokesperson for comment by phone and email were not successful.)

L. Ron Hubbard was a strange candidate to emerge as the self-proclaimed scientific leader of one of the world’s largest anti-addiction enterprises. His fondness for illicit substances was well known. Yet aside from his own ingestion of a wide variety of illegal drugs including mescaline, barbiturates, and coke—described in letters written by Hubbard and his son—the exact nature of Hubbard’s “research” into addiction remains obscure. Hubbard claimed to have discovered in 1977 that the residue of L.S.D. and other “toxic” substances lingers in the body’s tissues for months and even years after use; like tiny ticking time bombs, these remnants can explode at any moment, triggering a dangerous craving or disorienting flashback that, in turn, can lead to more drug use.

Full Story Here: Why Scientology’s Rehabs Are a Dangerous Scam | The Fix.

Original report continues below…

KABUL — Ten foreign UN workers were killed on Friday in an attack on the UN headquarters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif by demonstrators protesting at the burning of the Koran by a US pastor, police told AFP.

“Ten (UN) people have been killed by the protesters (…) All the killed are foreigners,” police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai said.

Full Story Here: ‘Ten UN workers killed’ at Afghan Koran protest | The Raw Story.

Death anxiety also influenced those in the study to report an increased liking for Michael Behe, a prominent proponent of intelligent design, and an increased disliking for Richard Dawkins, a well-known evolutionary biologist.

The findings suggest that people are motivated to believe in intelligent design and doubt evolutionary theory because of unconscious psychological motives.

Full Story Here: Death anxiety linked to acceptance of intelligent design: study | The Raw Story.

St. Francis Prep School in Queens has become a hotbed of controversy after the school recently suspended a teacher for starting her own personal website — titled “Burn and Rot in Hell!” But as myfoxny.com reports, Elizabeth Cucinotta, who taught at the prep school for four years before being let go for starting the site, is not going out without a fight.

“That this school would do something like that to me? I’m appalled,” she said.

The school was especially upset by the “bad teachers” and “bad students” categories on the site.

“They just suggested I take them down today, which I’m not going to do.” said Cucinotta.

Cucinotta started the site, with its subhead “I vent, therefore I am,” as a way for people to rant on a variety of topics — from exes to politics to “bad teachers” and “bad students.” Sort-of an “angry Facebook,” as she dubbed it.

Full Story Here: Queens Catholic School Terminates Teacher For Creating ‘Burn And Rot In Hell’ Website.

Christianity affirms the vocation of Israel after the flesh, and Islam affirms the validity of the antecedent monotheist revelations, regarding Muhammad as the seal of prophecy and the Quran as a work of God.

Falling into the genus of religion and forming a single sub-species of theistic religions, the three monotheisms among all theistic religions bear a unique relationship to one another. That is because they concur not only in general, but in particular ways. Specifically, they tell stories of the same type, and some of the stories that they tell turn out to go over much the same ground.

Full Story Here: Jacob Neusner: Three Religions, One God.

The US Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Society of Jesus agreed to the payout — which lawyers said is the biggest by a religious organization in the United States — as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Most of those abused by members of the Oregon Province — the Jesuit order covering the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana — were at mission schools on Indian reservations, from the 1940s through to the 1990s.

Full Story Here: US Jesuits agree $166 million abuse payout | The Raw Story.

Members of a small Wisconsin church took the “spare the rod, spoil the child” philosophy way too far, authorities say. Now they face child-abuse allegations for using actual wooden rods, dowels and spoons on the bare buttocks of children as young as 2 months old.

The head pastor of Aleitheia Bible Church, his brother and three sets of parents who are members of the congregation in Black Earth were charged after former church members told authorities that children were being mistreated.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin church members are accused of child abuse | StarTribune.com.

The dichotomy presented in the museum between man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge made me angry with its complete wrong view of human knowledge. John Calvin wrote that God gives common grace to those who don’t believe. He gives them the grace to understand and investigate the world. Yes, man’s knowledge without God is wrong, but then, you might rightly ask, is it real knowledge in the first place?

Oddly enough, the museum contained very little about the theory of evolution. It actually contains very little science, other than the fossil display, which is very cool. In fact, the Creation Museum saved its most obvious attacks not on atheist evolutionists, but fellow Christians who believe in some form of evolution.

There are quite a few of them: Francis Collins, Kenneth Miller, Denis Lamourex. Early conservative Christian theologians during the time of Darwin like Asa Gray and B.B. Warfield. All of these guys and girls would say the Bible is God’s word. They were, and still are, lights for Christ in their respective fields. All believe or believed in evolution in some form or another.

Full Story Here: Rev. Jonathan Weyer: A Christian Stands Alone at the Creation Museum.

Most people wouldn’t put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle — Peter, Paul or James — knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.

Most modern scholars of the Bible shy away from these terms, and for understandable reasons, some having to do with their clientele. Teaching in Christian seminaries, or to largely Christian undergraduate populations, who wants to denigrate the cherished texts of Scripture by calling them forgeries built on lies? And so scholars use a different term for this phenomenon and call such books “pseudepigrapha.”

Full Story Here: Bart D. Ehrman: Who Wrote The Bible and Why It Matters.

When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job.

The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls.

Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow’s Chapel in Henderson.

“I think justice comes and judgment will happen, but I don’t think that means an eternity of torment,” Holtz said. “But I can understand why people in my church aren’t ready to leave that behind. It’s something I’m still grappling with myself.”

Full Story Here: Pastor Loses Job Amidst Rob Bell Debate.

Those charming souls at Westboro Baptist Church have chosen Elizabeth Taylor’s funeral to be the site of their next publicity stunt, a daughter of WBC Pastor Fred Phelps has announced.

In post after post on Twitter, Margie Phelps chortled condemnations to members of the media who were sending out tweets regarding Taylor’s death and she promised that the congregation — mostly folks with the last name Phelps — will picket the funeral.

“Her whoredoms enabled filthy f**s! She now answers for her gr8 sin in hell!” she tweeted to Perez Hilton. To ABC’s Jake Tapper, she wrote, “No peace for whore who taught proud sin! Too late for her to repent!”

Full Story Here: Westboro Picks Elizabeth Taylor Funeral for Next Publicity Stunt | PopEater.com.

A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers

The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.

The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.

The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Full Story Here: BBC News – Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says.

God’s wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a theologian.

God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.

In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.

Information presented in Stavrakopoulou’s books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe, where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah connection.

Full Story Here: God’s Wife Edited Out of the Bible — Almost : Discovery News.

Herman Cain has no problem with “peaceful Muslims,” just with those that are trying to convert Americans to Islam.

Cain explained his views on the American Muslim community in an interview with Christianity Today.

“The role of Muslims in America is not to convert the rest of us to the Muslim religion,” he said. “That I resent.”

His position was sound, he explained, because “based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.”

Full Story Here: Herman Cain to Muslims: Stop Trying to Convert Us to Islam | TPMDC.

All over this country, state legislatures are grappling with shortfalls and massive deficits. But the poor and working class are taking the brunt of the austerity schemes via cuts in education and social services. In 2010, President Obama caved into Republican demands (without any real fight) to keep the Bush tax rates for the wealthy even as the federal budget deficit and national debt continued to soar. Money from the feds for social services for the needy is being cut and/or being considered for cuts.

Tax cuts for the wealthy have long been championed by conservatives, especially in the last 30 years since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, when marginal tax rates on the rich began to be dramatically cut, from 70 to 50 percent (to begin with). Ironically, conservatives en masse love to tout their love for Christian teachings. Yet in the Holy Bible is the account from Mark 12, where the Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap Jesus into telling folks not to pay certain taxes to the government. Yet Jesus ingeniously retorted back, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

Full Story Here: Is the Conservative Value of Tax Cuts for the Wealthy a Christian Virtue? – Yahoo! News.

“Check it out! We’re stoked to present Tedashii’s music video for “Make War” off his last album, Identity Crisis. Hope you dig it…be sure to pass it on to your friends!”

—Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s Ransom ministry, November 3, 2010.

In September 2010, the Department of Defense, via Fort Bragg in Georgia, funded a Christian ministry that two months later was promoting an artist who celebrates suicide bombing as an example of Christian commitment to the cause. Here are the details.

Last September 2010, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) staged an evangelical rock concert, “Rock The Fort”, at Fort Bragg in Georgia. The base both co-sponsored, endorsed, and even funded the event, which by one estimate cost US taxpayers over $100,000. “Rock The Fort” was billed as being part of an official “spiritual fitness” program.

Full Story Here: | Department of Defense Funded Christian Ministry That Promotes The Glorification of Suicide Bombing.

“I’m baffled that they would choose this,” said Perry County District Attorney Charles F. Chenot III. “This is a family that’s obviously apparently Christian in their beliefs and certainly shouldn’t conflict with the beliefs of the Westboro Baptist Church.”

Westboro says the children’s deaths are linked to the recent Supreme Court decision, in which a father sued the church after it protested his slain Marine son’s funeral in 2008.

Full Story Here: Westboro Church Plans Protest Of Funeral For Pa. Children.

The Philadelphia archdiocese suspended 21 Roman Catholic priests Tuesday who were named as child molestation suspects in a scathing grand jury report last month, a move that comes more than eight years after U.S. bishops pledged swift action to keep potential abusers away from young people.

The priests have been removed from ministry while their cases are reviewed, Cardinal Justin Rigali said. The names of the priests were not being released, a spokesman for the archdiocese said.

“These have been difficult weeks since the release of the grand jury report,” Rigali said in a statement. “Difficult most of all for victims of sexual abuse but also for all Catholics and for everyone in our community.”

Full Story Here: Philadelphia Priests Suspended: Archdiocese Removes 21 Catholic Priests Suspected Of Sex Abuse.

These maps are copyright material of ASARB. They may be used in presentations or papers for educational purposes, but they may not be sold or used in publications or products that are for sale. In such cases, permission to use these maps may be obtained from the publisher–the Glenmary Research Center.

Full Story Here: RCMS – Maps.

Daniel Montalvo, who turns 20 today, also contends his parents, who remain in the Sea Org, neglected him and breached their duty to protect him from harm by ceding his care to the church.

Church spokesman Tommy Davis said Friday night the church had not been served with the suits and could not comment on them. He noted Montalvo took Church of Scientology property — computer hard drives — when he left valued at tens of thousands of dollars. Then, with the help of church defectors Montalvo moved them across state lines.

Full Story Here: Lawsuit claims Church of Scientology violated child labor and wage laws – St. Petersburg Times.

In this video, a group of anti-Muslim protesters take their concerns about Sharia law to the White House, only to find a Muslim man in prayer. They begin shouting, insulting him and cursing Islam, and one man even threatens his life. Later, as the Muslim man bowed again in prayer, the protesters begin praying back at him, uttering Christian chants in response.

At the end, a woman who claimed to have spent years in the Middle East informed the protesters that while they mocked him, the man had prayed in Arabic that each of their families be blessed.

Full Story Here: Watch: Christian mob surrounds Muslim man outside the White House | Raw Replay.

“These are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous human dimensions,” Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said in a public letter last week.

“The debates over worker representation and collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice, participation and how workers can have a voice in the workplace and economy,” his letter said.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » The Catholic Church Supports Unions As ‘Moral Choices,’ Says Bargaining Rights Reflect ‘Principles Of Justice’.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Religious Coalition Tells The GOP That ‘The Budget Shouldn’t Be Balanced On the Backs Of The Poor’.

To begin with, should federal funding still be flowing to a sex ed approach proven to be largely or wholly ineffective, according to a 2007 federally commissioned large scale study by Mathematica Research?

Full Story Here: Federally Funded ‘Missionaries’ Now Teach in Florida Public Schools (Religious Right Watch).

While some religious leaders have come together to voice support for public employees in Wisconsin, others view the attack on the public sector and unions as a holy war. Fundamentalist textbooks and other media have been used for indoctrination into a worldview in which unregulated free markets are divinely mandated. In this sacralized model of capitalism, those who interfere with the invisible hand of the market are choosing “the state as provider rather than God.” The Koch brothers may have helped finance the current war on workers, but the narratives repeated by the Tea Partiers and their candidates echo those taught from Christian nationalist textbooks for more than two decades. (Quotes from textbooks continued from Part Two.)

[Author’s Note 2-21-11: Following the article I have added links to articles which define the meaning of terms Christian Nationalism, Christian Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and Charismatic Dominionism.]

The press has covered the Tea Party movement as if it were a completely different entity from the Religious Right, with a distinct and separate agenda. The textbooks quoted in this series of articles promote a totalist worldview in which the narratives of biblical economics, Christian nationalist revisions of American history, and Creationism are interwoven.

Full Story Here: | Two Decades of Christian Nationalist Education Paved Way for Today’s War on Labor.

While some religious leaders have come together to voice support for public employees in Wisconsin, others view the attack on the public sector and unions as a holy war. Fundamentalist textbooks and other media have been used for indoctrination into a worldview in which unregulated free markets are divinely mandated. In this sacralized model of capitalism, those who interfere with the invisible hand of the market are choosing “the state as provider rather than God.” The Koch brothers may have helped finance the current war on workers, but the narratives repeated by the Tea Partiers and their candidates echo those taught from Christian nationalist textbooks for more than two decades. (Quotes from textbooks continued from Part Two.)

[Author’s Note 2-21-11: Following the article I have added links to articles which define the meaning of terms Christian Nationalism, Christian Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and Charismatic Dominionism.]

The press has covered the Tea Party movement as if it were a completely different entity from the Religious Right, with a distinct and separate agenda. The textbooks quoted in this series of articles promote a totalist worldview in which the narratives of biblical economics, Christian nationalist revisions of American history, and Creationism are interwoven.

Full Story Here: | Two Decades of Christian Nationalist Education Paved Way for Today’s War on Labor.

On the first anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, I travelled to the Leogane region of Haiti, the center of the earthquake’s devastation. I went as the guest of an Israeli NGO called Tevel b’Tzedek (The Earth, in Justice) founded in 2005 by Rabbi Micah Odenheimer to promote social and environmental justice in the world. With the support of IsraAid a team of Israeli volunteers travelled to the region soon after the earthquake. Uri l’Tzedek, a U.S. based Orthodox social justice organization, asked me to be the first of a series of rabbis to visit the team and interact with many of the Haitians that they have been helping.

Haiti is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Its per capita income is about $350/ year. Haitians expect nothing from their government. It has been ruled by a succession of leaders who have either been ruthless dictators or incompetents. The $15 billion dollars of aid that poured into the country after the earthquake and the hundreds of NGOs on the ground can barely make a dent in the country’s problems because there are no government agencies that have effectively coordinated the aid effort.

Full Story Here: Rabbi Sid Schwarz: Finding Faith, Doing Service in Haiti.

The lawsuit, available here (PDF), was filed by 17 military women against Secretaries of Defense Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld in Virginia. It assails “the military’s repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated, violating the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights.”

Sergeant Rebekah Havrilla alleges in the complaint that in 2006, after her military supervisor repeatedly sexually harassed her, she was raped by a colleague she was working with at the time.

“He pulled her into his bed, held her down, and raped her. He also photographed the rape,” it reads. Havrilla reported the incident within a month.

Full Story Here: Military chaplain: Soldier’s rape ‘must have been God’s will’ | The Raw Story.

It’s not the first time Catholics have tried to modernize the Bible but it may be the oddest.

The New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), which was set to make its debut on Ash Wednesday, March 9, aimed to make the text easier to understand by making a number of little tweaks, both subtle and obvious, in hopes of making it easier to read. Among them, deleting the words “cereal,” “booty” and, oddly enough, “holocaust,” was said to have taken place to help people better understand scripture.

Catholic translations of the Bible go back to 1582 when the Douay-Rheims Bible was published. The first edition of the New American Bible was published in 1970.

“It will be like going from regular TV to high-definition,” Mary Elizabeth Sperry, associate director of New American Bible utilization for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Catholic News Service. “You’ll have the same programs but more clarity, more detail.”

Full Story Here: New Catholic Bible deletes ‘cereal,’ ‘booty’ and ‘holocaust’ | Raw Story.

According to a profile of filmmaker and former Scientologist Paul Haggis in the New Yorker, the FBI is running an ongoing investigation into claims the church pays some of its workers as little as $50 per week, forces children into “billion-year” contracts and sometimes uses physical force to keep church members from escaping Scientology compounds.

The allegations center around Sea Org, a religious order inside the church whose 6,000 members are used by the church as labor, including maintenance of church properties.

Full Story Here: Church of Scientology investigated over ‘slave labor’: report | Raw Story.

Benedict XVI has tried to scotch rumours that he carries an organ donor card after his secretary revealed that his ascension to the position of Holy Father means he is no longer able to bequeath his body parts to lesser mortals.

On the pontiff’s instructions, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, Benedict’s personal secretary, fired off a letter to quell the rumours that started in the Pope’s native Germany.

“It’s true that a simple cardinal can have an organ donor card but, despite public declarations to the contrary, it ceased to apply when he was elected head of the Catholic Church,” Mgr Gaenswein said.

Full Story Here: Pope’s organs are too holy to donate to mortals, says Church – Europe, World – The Independent.

OPS:  Ya Think Jesus would agree?

“Obama was quoting from the New International Version,” Ben Dimiero of Media Matters for America wrote Friday, “while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to ‘debunk’ him.”

Fox Nation blasted Obama’s reading of Isaiah 40:31, stating that the passage is, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Full Story Here: Media Matters debunks Obama’s alleged Bible misquote | Raw Story.

I am not making this up. But the lobbyist’s case for making an existing saint, Francesco Possenti also a patron for hand gunners, appears to be a fabrication.

Francesco Possenti (1838-1862) was a young man who lived in Central Italy in the mid-eighteenth century. He was known for both his intelligence and affinity for “la dolce vita” – parties and fancy dress. However, during an illness he promised that if he recuperated (he did) he would join a religious order as gesture of gratitude (he did not). Following several family deaths and a second illness, Possenti joined the Passionist order of priests as a seminarian.

He then changed his name to “Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.” The young noviciate became known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary and his deep spirituality. Almost simultaneously, he contracted a fatal case of tuberculosis, dying before he could take his priestly vows. During this time, however, Possenti remained highly spiritual and serene in the face of death. He passed away in February 1862.

Full Story Here: | Gun Lobbyist Wants a Patron Saint for “Hand Gunners”.

The second annual PA Progressive Summit 2011 was held in Pittsburgh on January 22 and 23. I again gave a presentation on “Biblical Capitalism” or the belief that unregulated capitalism is biblically mandated. The Religious Right is well known for its regressive social activism, but less publicized is the role it has played in the war against progressive economic policy, labor unions, the regulatory structure and social safety net. The sacralizing of laissez-faire capitalism predates the Tea Party movement and has been a major theme of fundamentalist textbooks for more than three decades.  Over the next two weeks I will be posting several additional articles providing links to material included in my presentation as well as other resources on this topic.

Hundreds of progressive leaders from around Pennsylvania gathered to participate in the conference sponsored by Keystone Progress, Service Employees International Union, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Democracy for America, Pennsylvania State Education Association, and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776.

Full Story Here: | Biblical Capitalism – The Religious Right’s War on Progressive Economic Policy.

“If you still say the bible is not true, I will say that no book is more honest.”

My latest literary diet has consisted of an obscure historical novel entitled Honor’s Kingdom. Written by Owen Parry, it is a nineteenth century tale surrounding espionage in London between Confederate and Union agents and their attempts to secure European support during the Civil War.

In one chapter the lead character is bemoaning the decline in respect for the bible brought on by the Age of Reason and the scientific explosion of that generation. Wrestling with the tenants of Darwinism, he brings to light the doubt that many have for biblical authority. In frustration the character shares his personal credo on the matter: “If you still say the bible is not true, I will say that no book is more honest.”

Indeed, there is no more honest writing to, as Parry declares, “Show us who we truly are.” But I wonder in this age of enlightenment, super computer technology and instant communication, if this honest book is really authoritative to most people’s lives?

Full Story Here: Matt Idom: Worshiping God, Not the Bible.