Can we argue the ethics of the military from an economic standpoint? David McCandless’s data visualizations point out some difficulties in that line of thinking.
Posts under ‘Society’
Re: Glenn Beck
Maybe its the longer warmer days that have me in more amicable spirits, but I couldn’t find a spark of anger when I heard Glenn Beck’s latest protest, encouraging people to leave churches that promote social justice — which all mainline churches do. You know, Peter, I want to thank Glenn Beck more than scourge [...]
Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck, ultraconservative infotainer and TV host, has recently decided that “social justice” is a code word for fascism. When I first heard this news, I couldn’t believe it was not a headline from the satirical newspaper The Onion. What tortured and specious logic could he possibly employ to literally link Adolf Hitler to Archbishop [...]
Remembering Religious Diversity
The New York Times features an op-ed piece from Andrew Baker this morning that should serve as a stirring reminder of the importance of shared religious heritage and diversity. It regards the difficulty of restoring the yeshiva and synagogue of Maimonides in Cairo, Egypt. This is not, however, simply a story of how difficult it [...]
The religious aspect of health care
There certainly has been a lot of debate in the media over health care. While one could argue about a deontological claim to health insurance vs. a natural rights claim to health and welfare vs. a social contract theory vs. well… you get the picture. One thing that isn’t explored as much is the role [...]
Re: Cage Match Christology
Peter – Hard words for some hard (bodied) Christians. First, I have to take offense that you would use that picture of my father in his twenties to represent your tough guy Jesus. Not cool. I guess I’m just enamored with the simultaneous concretizing and exaggerating that’s happening here. We use the word “fighting” pretty [...]
Cage Match Christology
On February 1, the New York Times reported on an apparently growing segment of the nondenominational Christian world: mixed martial arts bouts. This is not to say that they’ve noticed very muscly men with Christian tattoos climbing into the ring. Rather, this is the story of how some congregations are using mixed martial arts (MMA) [...]
Re: Dollar, Dollar Bills Y’all
Ah, the Prosperity Gospel. Let me get one thing out of the way before diving into the contents of the article Preston posted: I’m 100% against the Prosperity Gospel. My personal belief is that faithful adherence to Christianity calls us to question, if not absolutely reject, Capitalism. Accordingly, I am no friend of the Prosperity [...]
Dollar, Dollar Bills, Y’all
Reasons for the financial collapse: subprime mortgages, over-speculation, bad financial instruments, and of course, Jesus. Wait. What? The feature article in The Atlantic this month is Hanna Rosin’s “Did Christianity Cause the Crisis”. It makes a case that the prosperity gospel was another factor in our economic meltdown. In particular, she suggests its message encouraged people to agree [...]
Fort Hood
I was away at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting when news came through to Montreal that a United States soldier had opened fire on his fellows at Fort Hood in Texas. The initial media coverage was predictably scattered. Reports were coming in too fast to parse: the shooter was dead, the shooter wasn’t [...]