Religious Right

7 Habits of a Highly Effective Philosopher
Life lessons from the Christian apologist William Lane Craig.

Truth-Telling in Vulgaria
Questions for Kathryn Joyce, who bursts the international Christian adoption bubble in her new book, The Child Catchers.

Do Pro-Lifers Have a Prayer?
While the Templeton Foundation and other quasi-scientific-spiritual think tanks fund massive studies exploring the efficacy of prayer, we here at Killing the Buddha would like to offer a simpler and far cheaper method to ascertain if praying to God actually works. As we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, let us…

The Day U.S. Evangelicalism Died
As reported in Religion Dispatches, on December 16th, 2012, U.S. evangelicalism uttered its last breath. On this day, Fox News pundit Mike Huckabee (a.k.a. Mr. “More Conversation, Less Confrontation”) joined forces with Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer to proclaim that the school massacre in Newtown,…

Haters in the Public Square
Thursday evening I’m driving up Connecticut Avenue on my way to my reading at Politics & Prose and the cab driver has NPR on the radio. All Things Considered is talking about CPAC, which is kicking off just blocks away, and the GOP’s new national front runner, Rick Santorum. They play a snippet from one…

Why I Wrote The New Hate
Back in 2009, I published a book called Cults, Conspiracies and Secret Societies—a serious-minded but basically gee-whiz impulse-buy type compendium of odd, offbeat, and scary beliefs and belief systems. “Mystics,” I wrote in its introduction, “believe that multiplicity and change are illusory; that everything is ultimately interconnected…that our universe is a cosmic One in which…

Re: You did it!
I did it. I’m sorry. From: Christian Coalition of America <newsletters@cc.org> Date: Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 9:34 PM Subject: You did it! To: Kiera Feldman Dear Friend, You did it! You made it happen! All across America, millions of pro-family conservatives flocked to the polls and took part in the most historic US election since…

Who’s Amish Now?
Is avoiding the health care mandate worth fastening your clothes with straight pins?

Jeff Sharlet and Rev. Sekou Duke It Out
Okay, actually it’s not so much a brass-knuckles match-to-the-death as it is a friendly conversation about the not-so-friendly religious right. And at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, no less. These videos, thanks to Ty Whitfield and Damal Edmond at the Society, capture some of the highlights of the October 29 Killing the Buddha/Forum for…

Galt Almighty
Bad news: Ayn Rand’s Alas Shrugged— sales of which are booming — is going to become a movie, starring Angelina Jolie, who will channel her father’s conservative politics and dip as deeply as she can into the shallows of her own politics of narcissism to portray the doorstopper’s protagonist Dagny Taggert, witness to the ubermensch…