Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 15, 2019
The KKK and the Power of Symbols
I wasn’t surprised to read that members got the idea from D. W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation. Fire...
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Religious Freedom
August 15, 2019
Highlighting the Difference: A Study of Warm Chocolate Chip Cookies
Some smells made customers stay longer. Others had them fleeing the premises. The research also found odors needed to be appropriate—the...
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Religious Literacy
August 12, 2019
The Old Jew: A Story About Wisdom
I had not told the old man that I was expecting my first child, but somehow he knew. And I never forgot.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 3, 2019
The Swastika in the Bathroom
You walk into the bathroom and a large, black graffitied swastika greets you. It’s big, it’s ugly and it exudes an almost...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 3, 2019
How Psychology Lost Its Soul
Psychology’s “soul” was a casualty in the war between the spiritually alive and the spiritually dead.
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Religious Freedom
August 3, 2019
Interfaith Courage Awarded at Second Ministerial for Religious Freedom
More than 30 years ago, Ivanir dos Santos began combating racial discrimination and promoting rights of members of minority...
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Religious Freedom
August 3, 2019
Supreme Court Allows Cross to Remain: Did It Establish Religion?
The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that a 40-foot-high cross honoring residents of the Maryland town of Bladensburg...
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Religious Literacy
August 1, 2019
Catholicism in the Age of Scandal
Damning headlines and unforgivable scandal have, in recent times, become synonymous in the media with the Catholic Church,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 29, 2019
Is This Who We Really Are?
I, for one, don’t believe it. Don’t get me wrong. I believe the statistics, the surveys and the opinions. I believe the...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 29, 2019
What Happens When You Live?
The late astronomer and teacher, Carl Sagan, requested that the Voyager 1 spacecraft, in its journey through the cosmos, pause...
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Religious Literacy
July 24, 2019
Why Religion Is Healthy
Religious people live longer. There’s plenty of scientific evidence to support that statement, and if you click on the link...
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Religious Freedom
July 24, 2019
Second Ministerial for Religious Freedom Shines a Light on Intolerance and Genocide
It was a big event: on its final day, a participant reported, “Close to 900 members of civil society and religious groups...
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Religious Literacy
July 11, 2019
Three Religions and a Wedding
Guests of many religions were in attendance. We had Jewish relatives from my side, Catholics from my husband's side, Christians...
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Media & Ethics
July 9, 2019
Why I Trust L. Ron Hubbard
Occasionally in the course of a day, I hear disparaging things about people I know and love. I’m sure this has happened...
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Religious Literacy
July 8, 2019
What Happens When You Die?
And the more I studied religions, the more I saw the common thread. They all believed that you are more than your body and...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 4, 2019
The Aftermath of the “Aftermath”
Most people are decent: They are constructive, creative, welcoming and social…
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 1, 2019
Love In the Age of Granfalloons
My Facebook brothers and sisters have become tribes, or more precisely, granfalloons. A granfalloon, as defined by the coiner...
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Religious Literacy
July 1, 2019
The Fingerprint of the Spirit
The theory of evolution postulates that the many different forms of life all descended from a common ancestor, with the many...
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Religious Literacy
June 30, 2019
Aretha’s Soul
And at the end of the concert, she smiled. Women had shivered, men had wept. Reverend James Cleveland, who had brought her...
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Religious Literacy
June 26, 2019
Why are Physicists Convinced of the Human Soul?
Are science and spirituality mutually exclusive? Alan Lightman, a physicist who has researched black holes, stellar dynamics...
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Scientology Religion
June 26, 2019
I Left Scientology as a Teen: Here’s Why I Came Back
In the end, I gave the “live life one day at a time and just do what makes you happy” thing a try. By the age of 23, I...
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Religious Freedom
June 25, 2019
Is Freedom of Religion Limitless?
In the weeks prior to the tragic raid, one such demagogue, the notorious convicted felon Rick Ross of the now defunct Cult...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 25, 2019
Everyday Actions to Combat Bigotry
Help End Religious Intolerance Wherever You Are Some of the moms I know are total superheroes, and I recently felt compelled...
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Religious Literacy
June 22, 2019
Here’s to the Artists
Artists bring their own special energy to that endeavor and deserve support and encouragement and validation. Here’s to...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 20, 2019
Terrorism: Let’s Change the Conversation
It is undeniably true that there are terrorists in the world and they are well named: they try to bring about terror, chaos,...
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Religious Literacy
June 13, 2019
Religion in the Workplace: How Diversity Creates Better Cultures
After I’d been working there for a few days, the CEO called me into his office and said “You know, I really admired the...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 12, 2019
Religion vs. Religious Freedom
Would you honor these unbelievers for being religious in an otherwise materialistic world and respect their sincerely held...
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Religious Literacy
May 30, 2019
Religion in Schools: Teaching Isn’t Preaching
Tolerance of one’s fellow man, including his race, his nationality and his creed, is an essential part of everyday life.
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Religious Freedom
May 29, 2019
Canadian Church Permits Atheist to Remain Minister
Religion is extremely valuable to society, but only when people are free to examine the subject for themselves and draw the...
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Religious Literacy
May 28, 2019
A Case for Faith
Faith is real. Faith is attainable. Faith can be learned and applied to create a richer life for one and all.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 7, 2019
The Answer to Hate Is Love
“Love one another.” It’s an adage so common it can seem trite. So simple that it’s hard to believe it can matter....
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 2, 2019
Anti-Semitism 101, Part 2:
Modern Anti-Semitism
Old lies die hard. A recent survey by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that 13 percent believe that “Jews are more likely...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 14, 2019
Twenty Minutes From Hate
We don’t take these things lightly anymore. We can’t. Not in a parade, not in Mardi Gras, and certainly not 20 minutes...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 14, 2019
House Passes Anti-Bigotry Resolution
No matter what the politics were behind it, no matter what backroom deals and compromises spawned it, no matter what debates,...
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Scientology Religion
March 8, 2019
Why I Choose Scientology
Scientology does not discriminate in who it helps. It literally can help anyone: the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the...
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Media & Ethics
March 6, 2019
What We Can Learn From the Jussie Smollett Story
Objectivity in media is, based on my experience, a myth. Some groups and organizations are more altruistic and civic-minded...
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Media & Ethics
March 5, 2019
How Billionaires Are Helping Us Fight Defamation
Yes, something is changing: the rest of us, who have had to live with invasions of privacy and out-of-control attacks, are...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 1, 2019
One Method of Handling a Bigot
It’s OK to be honestly irked. It’s OK to have a zero-tolerance policy for bigots and bozos. And you don’t need eloquence...
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Religious Freedom
February 26, 2019
The Quran: Paving the Way in the Land of the Free
The origins of Islam in the U.S. today trace back to one simple concept, one word, three syllables: sla-ve-ry. When Ilhan...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 26, 2019
Et Tu, Disney?
What happened to Disney? And when I say Disney, I am not referring to the man, Mr. Walt Disney for whom I have the utmost...
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Religious Freedom
February 22, 2019
U.S. Supreme Court Ignores Religious Freedom in Death Penalty Case
The case seems simple at first. Dominique Hakim Marcelle Ray was convicted in 1995 of the rape and murder of a 15-year old...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 19, 2019
Islamophobia 101
Pope Urban II set the tone for a millennium-long identification of Muslims as direct enemies of Western values, culture and...
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Religious Literacy
February 15, 2019
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
While I certainly didn’t have anything against the Catholics, I really didn’t know much about the religion.
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Media & Ethics
February 15, 2019
Speaking Out Against “Mainstream” Bigotry
What if all people of goodwill, whether Muslim, Christian, Mormon, Scientologist or whatever, upon hearing any antifaith propaganda...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 14, 2019
Religious Persecution in South Africa—A History Lesson
I know whereof I speak because I was an investigative reporter in the 1980s. I wandered into one of these camps in Randfontein,...
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Media & Ethics
February 9, 2019
Fake It Till You Make It: How Mass Media Manipulates
Fake News has become a staggering problem. Public trust in media institutions has declined sharply in the wake of numerous...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 9, 2019
Tolerance for Intolerance: Burning Down Your Own House
Like setting your neighbor’s apartment on fire, it worked; but as historian Dan Carlin points out in his Blueprint for Armageddon...
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Religious Literacy
February 7, 2019
Where Do Americans Find Meaning in Life?
In 2017, the Pew Research Center surveyed Americans to find out what it is that makes their lives meaningful. Not surprisingly,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 7, 2019
The Path to Violence Is Paved With Lies
It is not “normal” for people to hate each other because they look different, come from a different place or have different...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 6, 2019
The Bite-The-Hand-That-Feeds-You Syndrome
“If a man’s religion does not make him averse to sin, sin will make him averse to religion.”
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Religious Freedom
February 6, 2019
Religious Status Is for Those Who Help
Reading this recent article about a jailed neo-Nazi trying to hide behind “religious freedom” to protect his hate speech...
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Religious Literacy
February 5, 2019
Religion Is Man’s Salvation
Though it is up to each of us to choose which religious path to follow, religion, period, is worth it. Beyond individual improvement,...
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Religious Freedom
February 4, 2019
The Greatest Tradition
Somewhere, thousands of years before Christ, deep in China, a spark was lit. We don’t know if it was a man or a woman but...
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Media & Ethics
February 4, 2019
Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
Ever seen a news story of how crazy everything is “over there” and then you go “over there” or actually look into...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 30, 2019
Where Propaganda Leads: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019
I was born April 19, 1945, the same day that, British soldiers in Germany pushed 13,000 decaying bodies into trenches with...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 29, 2019
Fun vs. Hate: The Difference Between Songs & Psychos
1964. For most Americans, vegetables at the dinner table were an afterthought. What vegetables there were, were certainly...
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Scientology Religion
January 27, 2019
The Scientology “Mystery” Solved
I have often seen confusion arise in the minds of people who hear snippets of the theatrical, artificial media version of...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 22, 2019
An Open Farewell Letter to the Makers of Family Guy
Your recent mentions of Scientology make Comedy Central’s “Drunk History” look like the World Book Encyclopedia.
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Religious Freedom
January 20, 2019
City in Washington Prevents Minister from Helping Homeless
Probably everyone reading this post has personally observed the large and growing problem of homelessness in the United States....
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Religious Freedom
January 18, 2019
Religious Freedom–A Dream Worth Fighting For
Somehow religion and government, these two important arenas of human interaction, must come to terms with one another and...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 17, 2019
Defamation Kills:
The True Authors of Religious Violence
Can it be that governments and commercial interests have knowingly used the lunatics who reside at the fringe of our society...
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Religious Literacy
January 15, 2019
Communication Is the Key
One Catholic priest known to me only as Father Donovan, whom my parents had befriended, attended many of our family picnics,...
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Scientology Religion
January 15, 2019
What’s the Deal With Scientology and Psychiatry?
I thought back to close family members and friends who had spent time taking antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs...
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Scientology Religion
January 15, 2019
The Type That Rages Against Scientology
“This is classic,” I thought. This guy was the poster child for the usual type of person who rages against Scientology....
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Media & Ethics
January 9, 2019
Media Ethics: Read It and Weep
Left, Right, or Center, the editorial boards all have an agenda. They’re all preaching to their own choir, which also happens...
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Religious Freedom
January 8, 2019
Church Is a Haven: No Touchy!
Isn’t that one of the key reasons religion exists? Besides recognizing and enhancing the spiritual aspect of humankind,...
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Religious Freedom
January 8, 2019
Religious Freedom—The History You Don’t Know
Until the mid-1300s, witchcraft and magic had been quietly accepted as part of the mystic melting pot that was Europe. That...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 7, 2019
Anti-Semitism 101, Part 1: The Roots of the Movement
The Jews, then, were set apart in the ancient world, a factor that worked both for them—preserving a unique and imperishable...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 7, 2019
The Mystery of Goodness
One diplomat in particular, a Japanese man by the name of Chiune Sugihara, worked day and night, against the wishes of his...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 2, 2019
The Case for Brotherhood
Last October, eleven worshippers at the at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania were murdered during Shabbat...
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Religious Freedom
January 2, 2019
The Price of Freedom
Some people see freedom as dangerous. They see people who cannot be enslaved as dangerous. They are the type who think that...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 1, 2019
Hate, Inc.: The Marketing of Bigotry for Profit
Bricks through windows, swastikas scrawled on synagogues, charred African-American churches, knocked-over tombstones in Jewish...
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Religious Literacy
January 1, 2019
We Are Religion
Cultures rise and fall, governments come and go, but religion remains a constant influence. Under all the verbiage of such...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 31, 2018
Racism & Bigotry: Is World War II Over Yet?
Jews number less than 14 million in the whole world—that’s 1/535th of the world’s population…
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