Progressive Media Advocates
Science and Religion
Dave Zirin: Tim Tebow is a neon distraction in a league that prefers the equivalent of men in gray flannel suits. If Tom Brady is the Don Draper of quarterbacks, then Tim Tebow is Megan Draper, flashing some skin and singing French pop songs, equal parts transfixing and excruciating.
Steve Hochstadt: Americans typically know little about the nature of the Israeli state that we support so generously. Would Americans so willingly support a state that discriminates against women? Or that makes rules about how one must pray?
Caltech issued letters of highest level disciplinary reprimand to five JPL employees because they used JPL’s internal email system to discuss the implications of a recent Supreme Court ruling on the working conditions at JPL.
Sikivu Hutchinson: Set in Los Angeles under luminous blue skies, the film provides a window onto the cesspit of thug religiosity.
Robert Fuller: What is Rankism? It is a collective name for the various ways power can be abused. Whereas rank is meant to serve, rankism is a self-serving perversion of service. There are many varieties of rankism — sexism, racism, and ableism are a few.
Peter Laarman: Bob Edgar had to contend with timidity among the good and the great especially during his years with the NCC, where denominational bigwigs (Bob’s bosses on the governing body) were privately horrified that their point person should actually seek to change oppressive systems rather than simply make mewling noises about them.
Peter Laarman: Ingersoll’s clarity and passion influenced almost everyone, from Mark Twain and Walt Whitman to Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison, and from Frederick Douglass and Margaret Sanger to Gene Debs and “Fighting Bob” La Follette.
John Marciano: As I walked past a Santa Monica church on Easter Sunday, I wondered if the clergy inside had addressed the war’s anniversary. Had they at any time in the past ten years condemned it in clear and prophetic language? Where have they been during the long nightmare of war in Iraq – and Afghanistan?
Tina Dupuy: Religion has the charm of conforming to one’s opinion. Christendom has been splintered since the moment it was dubbed Christendom. The reason? Religion is subjective.
Tina Dupuy: There is a “war on Christmas” because there are spoils to be had over Christmas. If Easter raked in nearly half a trillion in sales, the outragemeisters would suddenly claim it was under attack by pagans trying to obscure the Christian message by making it about pastel colored eggs.
Deborah Gitell: It is clear the only way to put an end to this non sensical violence is by coalition building. Personally, I was uplifted to stretch beyond my own comfort zone, and attend another’s faith services.
Walter Moss: Since the new pope seems to have a good sense of humor, he might appreciate the following irony: Although the Catholic Church he now heads bars women from the priesthood and his church is often accused of gender bias, the twentieth-century person who most forcefully embraced the ideals of St. Francis was a woman — Dorothy Day.
JP Sotille: If he really wants to come to Jesus, Reverend Robertson should concern himself with rebuking all those firsthand sweaters from sweatshops, all those pants made by cheap child workers and all those other labor-intensive products that feed the beast of American consumerism.
Robert Fuller: That we’ve found ways to curb the indignities suffered by minorities, women, gays, the elderly, and people with disabilities suggests that making dignity the norm universally may not be out of reach.
Romal Tune: We may not like what they offer and the negative impact they have on the lives of our children, but if you were to ask a lot of kids who joined gangs why they did it, you’d hear them say, it’s because they love me, they gave me a place to belong, they protected me, and they cared about me when no one else did.
John MacMurray: The Roman Catholic Church has changed greatly over its long life, and one of the points that has changed is the issue of celibacy for the Clergy. Until about the 13th century, celibacy was seen as optional.
Robert Fuller: Those who argue that religion should be counted out are overlooking the role that religious leaders played in overcoming segregation in America, repealing apartheid in South Africa, and ending the communist dictatorship in Poland and Central Europe.
Rev. Dr. Jim Nelson: I am sick and tired and I hope you are too. This is what I want to ask of everyone here today: if you have a gun, or guns, in your home, get rid of them. Take them to the police and have them decommissioned. Get rid of them.
Berry Craig: My idea of hell would be to spend eternity with Dobson, Morris and the rest of what another of my union buddies calls “The Christian Taliban.”
Berry Craig: What Huckabee and Fischer lament is the absence of their version of public school prayer: Protestant, fundamentalist and mandated by school officials.
Rosemary Joyce: What we can’t do, apparently, is ignore the hype that claims that the Maya who lived in city states in Mexico and Central America a little more than a thousand years ago predicted that the end of the world will come this month: December 21, to be precise.
John Peeler: For those who cannot accept atheism but who want to escape the madness of monotheism, there is something to be said for a modern polytheism.
Tom Hall: the Fundagelical fear of Sharia rests on a misunderstanding of our nation’s fascinating history of changing legal systems.
Tina Dupuy: There is a long and storied global history of demonizing groups of people with whom you disagree by tarring them with the charge of cannibalism
Walter Brasch: 28 percent of Americans, according to a First Amendment Center poll in February, don’t believe there is a Constitutional separation of church and state.
Peter Laarman: Obama cannot and should not condemn those in the electorate who buy into Romney’s “there will be showers of blessing” message, but he probably does need to get his preacher voice on to remind folks that all covenant promises are conditional.
John MacMurrary: It would probably send their pacemakers into full afterburner if local Islamophobes lCongressmen Ed Royce and Gary Miller found out that Muslims were in America before the British; as explorers, slaves, and business owners.
Tina Dupuy: Non-believers, agnostic, non-theists, secularists, spiritual but not religious, and moral without mythology folks could be the actual silent majority. It’s possible we’re completely surrounded. Shh..
Kathleen Peine: Our hubris is that only humans matter, and it probably blinds us to a world that wouldn’t require us to self medicate with SSRIs (or whatever is handy).
Jim Rhodes: To my knowledge, Vietnam is the only country where citizens have a Constitutional right to believe or not believe sets of religious dogma; elevating one faith based value system over another is simply not allowed.
Carole Bartolotto: The good news is that you can easily replace cow’s milk with almond, soy, rice, hemp or coconut milk instead. I love Trader Joe’s Vanilla Almond Milk.
Robert Reich: The fact is, global corporations have no allegiance to any country; their only objective is to make as much money as possible — and play off one country against another to keep their taxes down and subsidies up.
James Rhodes: Perhaps it is her wildly colorful style or the exaggerated use of glowing women and hidden cats or maybe it has something to do with the tranquility of her work that connects with the “common man” — certainly an artist of the people.
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