Can a good tree bear bitterly harmful fruit? Smaller government is a lot more expensive for taxpayers. The news from Texas. Dahlia Lithwick on "conscience creep" -- and the privileging of institutions over individuals. If "complementarians" aren't self-serving hypocrites, then why aren't they also pacifists? Even more "intellectual" jokes. "Children should be taught how lies like this work." Read more
If one continues along that same line, then one eventually has to try to rewrite the Bible. It may be a bit surprising that the folks at Conservapedia are so enthusiastically transparent about the project -- that they have so few qualms about editing, redacting and altering their alleged scripture so that it no longer condemns their ideology and their idol. But it's not surprising that they've come to this point. Read more
I spent 10 years as the online copy editor for a newspaper, so I appreciate the challenge here in finding art to illustrate abstract ideas. It's not easy. Part of that challenge, though, involves selecting art that isn't ambiguous and, therefore, inadvertently hilarious. Read more
Patheos is conducting an "interfaith round table" discussion of the question "Are Mormons Christian?" Here I will try to address this larger question -- "Are Mormons Christian?" -- by considering a set of other, related questions. These questions, I think, prove unhelpful when considered separately. Added together, however, I suspect they're even less helpful. Read more
"And my princes shall no longer oppress my people; but they shall let the house of Israel have the land according to their tribes." Read more
Violent, profane, racist ex-police chief still serves on school board. Christianists piss on trees to mark their territory. Sen. Ted Cruz is not the "root of all evil in the world." Prof. McGrath does not care for SparkNotes. Jay Lake: "Opposition to the ACA is quite literally saying to me, 'Go ahead and die already.'" The diagnosis is "you have no insurance." Read more
Most people can't do this. They just can't. Not at first anyway. This is part of why the word "inhumanity" means what it means. Read more
Buck was sent up the river by Moses and Elijah to look for Tsion Ben-Judah. Michael had been sent to the river by Moses and Elijah to kill anyone looking for Tsion Ben-Judah. You may notice a potential problem there in the biblical patriarchs' plan, but it all works out OK because Michael had also been instructed to await the arrival of an unnamed "deliverer" -- the one person he should help rather than kill. That turns out to be Buck, so it's all good and our hero doesn't get shot and dumped in the river. Read more
Why is it really cool to have a six-inch praying mantis hanging out on my porch when a six-inch spider there would be extremely not cool? "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." Arkansas Republican discovers 13,000 reasons to like Obamacare. Parson Weems is a perfect name for someone like Parson Weems. God is love, and love keeps no record of wrongs. North Dakota Nazis in deep doo-doo. "How the Insurance Industry Is Dealing With Climate Change." Read more
Vendantam could have called CNN and asked to borrow the hours and hours of videotape from all of, say, Kenneth Pollack's scores of appearances on the network during 2002 and early 2003. Pollack often appeared in a "debate" format on CNN. Those people he was debating? They were right and he was wrong. And they said exactly the sorts of things that Vendantam imagines they only imagined having said. Read more
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