taliban

There are other senses in which the Muslim world, by and large, has not ‘excelled,’ and for that perhaps we should be grateful, not caustic. For you cannot claim the planet and eat it too. Nothing the Muslim world has accomplished can possibly compare to the harm done by Western technologies and modes of consumption.

Say hello to Marvel’s latest superhero.

Worsening situation of Burma’s Muslims is instructive.

My grandfather, born to immigrants in 1878, was undoubtedly familiar with the all-but-forgotten figure of Robert Green Ingersoll, the “Great Agnostic,” who popularized Darwin for the millions, who championed the disgraced Thomas Paine, and who kept alive the important tradition of American free thought during the last quarter of the 19th century.

The debate over the “Defense of Religion Act” in North Carolina played out with the predictability of a sitcom. I offer this modest proposal, then, to remind both sides that if this is a war, then they have fought to a stalemate, and it is time for some new tactics, by which I mean: the history of religion in America demonstrates that the winner of the culture war will be the side that does the opposite of everything they are doing now.

The theory that access to the internet will be the undoing of organized religion has resurfaced. But do the data show anything like this?

This list, in links and headlines, just skims the surface. But it gives a sense of what to watch for in 2013.

Known for his mass weddings and ardent followers, Moon also courted politicians and broke the law.

According to a recent essay by Sen. John Danforth, she just doesn’t, so it’s not.

“Seven kids! Seven kids!” one woman exlaimed at a Rick Santorum rally in Louisiana on March 21, when organizers asked people to say what they liked most about the ultra-conservative Catholic, homeschooling presidential candidate.