“With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response?”- The Long Now Foundation
Trivia Question: Which Current State Governor Participated in an Exorcism?
Here are some clues:
A convert to Christianity during the early 1990s, this governor is no academic slouch, having been accepted at both Yale Law School and Harvard Medical School.
At the age of 24, he was appointed his state’s Secretary of Health and Hospitals.
He ran for governor, and then for Congress, and then for Governor again.
He is now 37 years old.
In Italy – Joke about the Pope, Go to Jail
What do Kim Jong Il, Pope Benedict XVI, and the Italian President have in common? Tell a joke about them to the wrong audience and you could end up in jail.
On September 23, 2008 an Innocent Man is Scheduled to Die
By Terry L. Benedict – How Easily Can an Innocent Man Lose His Life?
Ask Troy Davis, who came within a harrowing 23 hours of execution by lethal injection last year and received a new execution date of September 23, 2008:
Martin Sheen on Church / State Separation
Television president, Martin Sheen, narrates this video, produced by People For the American Way, about the history of separation of church & state and efforts by the Religious Right to undermine it. It was produced some years back.
The Army Wants You…Again! (Yes, Really.)
By Colby Buzzell – Imagine that you graduated from college, and a couple years afterward your alma mater contacts you and says, Sorry, you didn’t graduate from college. In fact, you have five weeks to drop everything that you’re doing–quit your job, get out of your lease, put all your stuff in storage, cancel your Netflix, etc.–and report back to campus so that you can redo all the schooling that you’ve already done. And not only that, here’s a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver with only one round in the chamber–spin the chamber, point it at your head, and pull the trigger. If you live, you live. If you don’t, you don’t.
Seven Years Later and Counting – A 9/11 Scrapbook
Seven years have passed since the planes hit the World Trade Center. Here is an unvarnished scrapbook of events that took place on that day and how these events led to a war in the Middle East and what happened there.
Wasilla Assembly of God – Statement on Sarah Palin
“Governor Sarah Palin did attend Wasilla Assembly of God since the time she was a teen ager. She and her family were a part of the church up until 2002. Since that time she has maintained a friendship with Wasilla Assembly of God and has attended various conferences and special meetings here.”
Chrisopher Hitchens: Don’t Patronize Palin (Salon.com)
Hitchens: “I cannot wait to see Obama and Biden explain how this isn’t the case or how it’s much worse than, and quite different from, Obama’s own raving and ranting pastor in Chicago or Biden’s lifelong allegiance to the most anti-“choice” church on the planet.”
VIDEOS: Obama’s, McCain’s and Palin’s Pastor Problems
This year, the candidates’ religious leaders and their own beliefs are getting a lot of attention. Here is a round-up of some of the videos that have made news in recent months.