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In the game-changing 1973 Roe v. Wade case, abortion was framed as an issue of women's rights.   The women's movement was in full swing, and it was easy to see why women would believe they should have the right to abort an unwanted fetus.   But the "rights" frame proved to be [...]

Our economic and political mess became more clear once I realized that most of the important political deals take place in the Mos Eisley Cantina.  You know the scene from the first “Star Wars” movie in 1976: a dark, smoky bar located somewhere in a twilight zone: a liminal and lawless hideout where the ethically [...]

I'm looking through you, where did you go?
I thought I knew you, what did I know?
You don't look different, but you have changed;
I'm looking through you, you're not the same.
(The Beatles: McCartney and Lennon)
All in all, liberals were happier when he was opaque.  Since January 2009, we have been confused by the disconnect between Candidate [...]

The funniest thing about Wily Coyote is how far he has gone beyond the edge of the cliff before he gives that big-eyed “Uh-oh!” expression, realizing he’s got a long fall coming.  It isn’t funny to the coyote but it is to us.  It’s our schadenfreude: the joy we derive from the misfortune of people [...]

In this winter of worldwide discontent, a powerful moral and political spirit has arisen in the Middle East. There are already uprisings of ordinary people all over the world: nobodies dumping Somebodies off their thrones, as the world watches.  It’s happening so fast our heads are spinning.  But it’s clear that we will turn that [...]

On February 8, our Vice President Joe Biden called Egypt’s new VP Omar Suleiman, saying Egypt should cancel the Emergency Law their government has used to suppress, imprison, torture and kill those who oppose the government’s tyranny.  Another provision of the Emergency Law gives the President the right to bypass the courts, [...]

Several comments last week asked me to clarify what I mean by “religion.” I’m using the word to mean Christianity, the normative religion of the U.S. Your constructive comments and critiques are most welcome.
Continuing last Monday’s Musing (Part One), here are six more areas in which our developing “hard” sciences replaced or marginalized religion [...]

With most “Science vs. Religion” harangues centered on the theory of evolution — did Adam really have a pet dinosaur? — it’s easy to miss the larger fact that even by a century ago, religion had already lost most of its territory to sciences.  American churches have not kept up with [...]

The radical transformations of Western Christianity from about 1800 to today can be seen as three acts in an unfinished play.
Act One was staged against the background of the ancient three-story universe that was assumed by those who wrote the Bible, and still believed by most of our country’s founders in the late 1700s. [...]

“There’s no longer evidence for a need of God, even less of Christ.  The so-called traditional churches look like they are dying.”
It matters who said this.  If it came from Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens – the Four Horsemen of the New Apocalypse – few would accept it as an objective assessment.  [...]