You can be skeptical and friendly at the same time.
For some reason, in Santa Clara (California), there’s a 14-foot-tall Christian cross that’s been in a public park since the 1950s. The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit yesterday (along with resident Andrew DeFaria) claiming that it represents an illegal government endorsement of Christianity. And of course they’re right about that because what the hell else would it represent?
In March, the Oklahoma State Senate approved a ballot measure that would allow citizens to vote on whether or not to put a Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds.
It was a new way to get the monument back on government grounds after the previous one was declared illegal by the state’s Supreme Court. This particular ballot measure, Senate Joint Resolution 72, would repeal the part of the State Constitution preventing public money from being used for religious purposes.
Earlier tonight, the State House passed the same measure on a 65-7 vote.
[Read more…]
Prince Rogers Nelson — that’s just Prince to you and me and millions of other music fans — escaped these earthly bounds today, and, according to his beliefs as a longtime Jehovah’s Witness, drifted up to heaven to be with his Creator forever and ever.
I loved Prince, at least up until the brilliant double album Sign o’ the Times, whose title track is as dark and searing an account of natural and man-made disaster, and temptation, and human frailty, as any certified genius could possibly cram into five minutes. Even the overtly Christian “The Cross,” from that same album, was a strong musical statement, although I never could get on board with the devout lyrics.
By the early 90s, though, Prince seemed to have lost the drive or the ability to soar that high, coinciding with a pronounced U-turn back to his religious roots. He was raised a Seventh Day Adventist, and, after years of steamy musical exploits that included songs about masturbation, orgies, and brother-sister incest, eased back into Christianity’s fold by joining the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
That meant he sometimes went door to door to convert people. Really.
[Read more…]
Sabrina Tavernise, writing for the New York Times, shines a spotlight on the very Paltrowy practice of juice cleansing.
One of her interviewees is Dr. James H. Grendell, the chief of the division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, New York. When he has a patient who’s been detoxing, he asks a very simple question.
A parliamentarian for Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) wants Muslims living in Germany to pay a religious tax — just like other citizens.
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