3
POPSCANDY CANE COPS Even “red and green Christmas colors” are banned. And students were explicitly instructed “not to write ‘Merry Christmas’ on greeting cards sent to United States soldiers because that phrase might be offensive.” MORE AT SOURCE
5
POPSJews Not Zionists I don't clip this as a call for the abolition of Israel, which I personally think is just as febrile and pathological as the right wing hatred of the native peoples of Palestine. I clip it merely as an indicative example of one Jewish voice: there are many, all different, and we are fortunate to have clippers who have recently represented dissent within Israel by Jews. Indirectly, too, the many viewpoints of Jews are reflected by a fully human spectrum of opinions among Palestinians, and suggest looking at the equally rarely heard proposals for a one state solution to the divisions maintained by western imerialism and their proxy minority Israeli chums.
1
POPSWho is Obama? A radical? A centrist? A reconciler? This is an interesting take and I would recommend the whole article.
7
POPSPullman on Religion INTRO; Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy constitutes one of the finest reading experiences for children I’ve ever seen. I read them as an adult, on the advice of a literary colleague, and fell under their spell immediately. They are fantasy books, for sure, but with a strong rational and anti-authority philosophy. And although I don’t think of them as purely anti-religious, if your religion is one with an authoritarian streak then … Interesting character.
3
POPSMrs. Conservative So what we will see in the next days and weeks--what we have already seen in the hours after her nomination--is an effort by all the powers of the old liberalism, both in the Democratic party and the mainstream media, to exorcise this spectre. They will ridicule her and patronize her. They will distort her words and caricature her biography. They will appeal, sometimes explicitly, to anti-small town and anti-religious prejudice. All of this will be in the cause of trying to prevent the American people from arriving at their own judgment of Sarah Palin.
2
POPSObama's Very Close With Racist Preacher Rev.Wright In light of the criticism of Bush’s injecting “too much religion” in his presidency or that his administration is just like a ”Christian Taliban”, it is also a legitimate question to ask, where are those same accusers when this 2007 speech by Barack Obama is so filled with religious fervor? Where are the anti-religious left and the so-called separation of Church and Staters at now? In fact, this entire speech is filled with nothing but class warfare, expansions of social programs, raising the minimum wage, typical great society type junk all couched squarely as a civic responsibility enmeshed with Obama's view of Biblical precepts. But, that boiler plate aside, there was two very interesting segments in Obama's remarks concerning his racist "spiritual mentor," Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. that are not getting the press it deserves. (See the video at Channel 2 News Chicago) http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=33004@wbbm.dayport.com
3
POPSThe Headscarf in Turkey Turkey’s headscarf ban is even worse than the above, because unlike wearing a cross or a religious bracelet, some Muslim women feel that wearing a headscarf is a religious requirement. A more apt analogy might be government officials forcibly preventing Christian students at American universities from going to church on Sunday. In response to reasonable religious freedom requests from women who wear headscarves, Turkey’s anti-religious secularists seem to be borrowing sound bites from American Islamophobes. One secular member of Parliament said that allowing women to wear headscarves at universities “will ultimately bring us Hezbollah terror, Al Qaeda terror and fundamentalism.” That’s like saying that Catholic students going to Mass on Ash Wednesday will lead to the IRA planting bombs on campus.
1
POPS'Green Hanukkia' Down To The Depths Of Absurdity In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment. Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes. "The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul." "They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said.
2
POPSPalestine: how a battle for land became religious Article is brief and needs reading in its entirety to consider its overview of how a minority of religionists have turned a secular struggle into a religious one, a trend which is not completed but, the author feels, becoming increasingly dangerous.
9
POPSCatholic League Panties Wad Up Again One would be tempted to suggest that if the Catholic Church had put as much energy into clergy misconduct, we'd all be better off. But, of course, this movie is a sincere threat to the very moral fiber of the world and could possibly mark the end of civilization as we know it. :-)
11
POPSNew Film Anti-Religious? I can't remember any atheist attacks on the multitude of religious based films that we've been assaulted by over the years (except possibly for the Christian porn movie, The Passion of the Christ). Now the Christian censors are frantic that the movie's tame portrayal of the books it is based on will be too watered down. Their reasoning is that with the meeker film version people will be persuaded to buy the book and that is where the real god bashing occurs. So in their warped view of reality, the film is simply a feature length commercial for the book series. It's no surprise when one realizes that the major criticism for the film and books comes from the Catholic League. A group not known for its tolerance.