LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This AlterNet article is very interesting. (This is a repeat of a post below, but a better copy- without the strange typographical errors.)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Catholic prayer is one that I believe reflects the Beatudes of Christ. I see it as a counterpoint to all the fear and hate being sown by the Dominionists.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

AlterNet posted these song lyrics from a recent Jay Leno show.

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Some science teachers say they're encountering fresh resistance to the topic of evolution - and it's coming from their students.

Nearly 30 years of teaching evolution in Kansas has taught Brad Williamson to expect resistance, but even this veteran of the trenches now has his work cut out for him when students raise their hands.

That's because critics of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection are equipping families with books, DVDs, and a list of "10 questions to ask your biology teacher."

Full Article

And from the National Center for Science Education, answers to the ten questions.

(x-posted)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This should be interesting: NPR started a multipart series that addresses the insistence of the Christian Right that we are a Christian nation. The series continues this afternoon on "All Things Considered" and concludes tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see what conclusion they come to.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, like his immediate predecessor, John Ashcroft, has pledged to make obscenity prosecutions a priority. The department is expected to announce soon the creation of a special unit within its criminal division to focus on adult obscenity cases.

"Enforcement is absolutely necessary if we are going to protect citizens from unwanted exposure to obscene materials," Gonzales recently told federal prosecutors. He directed U.S. attorneys to report back by late July on effective ways to crack down on obscenity and what tools the prosecutors might need.

Those kind of words please religious conservatives, who claim the Clinton administration virtually ignored the proliferation of pornography, particularly on the Internet, during the 1990s...

A proponent of strict enforcement of obscenity laws [says] that so far, the administration has aimed mostly at minor figures in the industry.

"At some point, they're going to have to ratchet it up if they want to do something meaningful," said Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media.

Full Story

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY meta4life)

Apparently our various appearances on the "Loose Canon" miniboard at Beliefnet.com has had an effect -- Ms. Hayes has run to some pretty safe and unchallenging sources (for her, anyway) in an attempt to get informed:

Loose Canon is trying to fathom why the fixation on the religious right is more intense than ever. I hope it's a primal scream: Democrats are beginning to realize they need the votes of "these people;" but they still find them unspeakably tacky. But the intensity and irrationality of the hatred directed at the religious right is distressing.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Jeff Sharlet, who spoke at the Religious Right conference this past weekend, and who wrote "Soldiers of Christ, Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch" in the May issue (on the stands now!) of Harper's Magazine, is interviewed by Kathleen Dunn on Wisconsin Public Radio. It's the 5/5 interview, and you'll need Real Player to listen to it.

Definitely worth your time. If you purchase the magazine, it has pictures of the fantastic paintings at the World Prayer Center that Sharlett describes, including the one with the two sexy angels pouring honey all over this guy, and the fierce warrior angel.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

I admit that I am very angsty and posty today, and I apologize. I'll try to keep this short and on-point.

All Americans agree that the economy is very, very important. Since 9/11, some Americans have embraced other, more idealistic priorities, but the economy is still what makes the world go around, whether it's flat or spherical. Some people may have lost sight of this, even to the extent of voting against their own economic self-interest, but I don't think this will last.

So... what would happen to the U.S. economy if Dominionists succeeded in establishing a theocracy? Yeah, we've all read about the "liberatarian" market they'd like to put in place, but what would really happen?

IMO, disaster.

But that's not my main point. Even if implemented piecemeal, religiously-motivated public policy could harm the economy in subtle ways. Some sectors would be more hurt than others, of course.

OK, that brings me, at last, to my point: Where are our economic allies in the resistance?

Let's take pharma companies. How do the ones that produce birth control pills feel about their products being described as abortifacients? How do they feel about individual pharmacists limiting patients' access to their products just because of religious belief?

Let's take health insurance companies. If birth control becomes harder to obtain and abortion is severely restricted or outlawed, insurance companies will have to finance more pregnancies. Pregnancies are risky and expensive. Moreover, I'm sure that unplanned pregnancies are more prone to expensive complications, for mother and child. And who is going to pay for patching up all of the women and girls butchered by unsafe, illegal abortions? If not the insurance companies, someone... unless we let them just die, of course. And death impacts the economy in other ways.

How will American biotech companies compete if schools deliberately churn out people who deny evolution by rote? I think they're already suffering because of the abyssmal state of science education in the U.S. Will they just import employees?

Can I get an amen? Anything? There's a lot at stake here on tangible levels. Can we do anything to bring business and industry in on our side?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thedemonprist)

I found this tonight while browsing and found it rather chilling. ( Read more... )