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COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Turns out they were attending a meeting of Baptist pastors at the hotel. Once we straightened out our respective denominational preferences, we quickly realized we had something in common. Both of us had observed that religion in general—whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Scientology or other—was under attack by secular forces.
TOLERANCE
I’ve driven urban professionals, reformed criminals, burlesque dancers, angel investors, families with groceries, people with baggage. Some are in a hurry to get the hell out of wherever I picked them up from.
TOLERANCE
Laugh if you want, but he seriously felt like a friend. He came in the door singing. He changed his sweater and his shoes. He fed the fish. He dog-sat for a neighbor, got mail delivered, and showed me all around his neighborhood. He invited me to join him, via his trolley, in a land of make-believe.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
It was one of those moments in which every single second seems to last a painful eternity.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
You are talking to a percentage of the population that would hate YOU if you caught their attention enough.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Well, is religion that dangerous or irrelevant? Should we consider being evangelical about the gospel of Nothingness? Shall we take John Lennon at his word and “imagine” no religion, no heaven above, “living only for today?”
MEDIA & ETHICS
It got me thinking: who actually works at tabloids like that? What are their story pitch meetings like? Do they know that what they’re doing is hurtful and destructive? They must, right? Do they just laugh it all off or make justifications to convince themselves they’re still good people, and that it’s “just for entertainment”?
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
This is how it played out: At around midday on November 22, a passenger sitting in the train pulled out his phone to film an incident occurring in front of him. The footage (which immediately went viral) reveals a man reading passages from the Bible out loud to a young boy wearing a yarmulke, sitting beside him.
TOLERANCE
I was, however, “open-minded.” Cue the air quotes, please. There is a difference between open-minded and “open-minded.” When one is simply and honestly open-minded, it indicates a willingness to try new things, to hear other viewpoints, in short, to learn something new and be OK with that.
MEDIA & ETHICS
I actually saw this question in an online forum the other day: “If I wanted to start my own cult, how would I do it?” Now to begin with, the word “cult” is simply a pejorative word for some group the person using it doesn't like.
