While Obama used his Nobel Peace Prize speech to legitimize Afghanistan using just war principles, soldiers are currently unable to invoke these principles in refusing to serve. When we punish soldiers who heed their moral compasses, we deny them religious freedom, and our democracy is threatened. It’s time to allow those who oppose the war on ethical grounds the option of ‘Selective Conscientious Objection.’ [...more]
When the U.S. and its principal ally Great Britain invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, in 2001 and 2003 respectively, both President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair believed they were fulfilling “God’s Will.” [...more]
Unwed pregnant teens and twenty-somethings who attend or have graduated from private religious schools are more likely to obtain abortions than their peers from public schools, according to sociological research published in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. [...more]
In many ways, much has changed since the famous Scopes Monkey trial of 1925. In recent years, US courts have consistently ruled that teaching explicitly religious alternatives to evolution in public schools is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. But in a new essay published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, political scientist Michael Berkman and his colleagues show that despite these many legal victories, a surprising number of public high school biology teachers still include creationism or intelligent design in their curriculum. [...more]
Zeitgeist, the Movie is a 2007 documentary film, produced by Peter Joseph about Christianity, the attacks of 9/11, and the Federal Reserve Bank as well as a number of conspiracy theories related to those three main topics. [...more]