News and Politics

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

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Via MetaFilter: Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’ RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today. According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The Republican version of America

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Via TPMCafe – The Coffee House:

Slowly but certainly, the Republicans are making sure their version of America is the only one possible.

Their version of America has no gays. Nor porn. It limits free speech to “zones.” Their version has energy companies writing our laws, taking away our rights to fresh air and water. They can search our library records or medical records whenever they want. They teach abstinence as sex education, and tell us that condoms don’t work. They have a copy of the Ten Commandments in every court of law.

The Boys from Bob Jones

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Mike Doughty posted an interesting item about his encounter with Bob Jones University students:

But these guys weren’t Christians. They were there because their parents made them go there. They told me that if the school’s administrators found out they were at my show they’d be kicked out of school. They told me that kids whose parents taught at the school were obliged to go to the school, or else their parents would lose their jobs.

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They told me about “supervised dating,” and girls not being allowed to leave campus unattended by a chaperone, and all kinds of fucked-up shit.

FEMA cozies up with Pat Robertson

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Via Boing Boing: FEMA is including Pat Robertson’s charity group Operation Blessing on its list of charities accepting donations for victims of Katrina.

Robertson, the TV evangelist who recently called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela, also runs a controversial diamond mining company in Zaire.

In 1997 “two pilots came forward with the story … that Operation Blessing’s tax-exempt cargo planes were used almost exclusively for Roberton’s diamond-mining operation, not for humanitarian purposes.” (Read MS magazine article from 2003)

Worse than 9/11

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There’s a controversy brewing over the statement by Daily Kos that Katrina was worse than 9/11. It is much worse than 9/11. Here’s why: On 9/11 the destruction was limited to a very small area and didn’t leave a large number of people homeless or make an entire city uninhabitable.

Katrina, on the other hand, devastated several states, shut down entire cities and left thousands of people homeless and without food or medical care. Even if fewer people die from Katrina, which is unlikely, an entire city is now being evacuated and will be uninhabitable for several months. New Orleans may never recover from the destruction. In fact house speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell when he suggested that rebuilding N.O. doesn’t make sense.