Some of you might enjoy a virtual tour of the city of Saarbrücken, my last home before I came to the United States: Max Ophuels Preis_Trailer_2009 from LICHTFAKTOR on Vimeo. Located at the French border, my father’s house was literally five minutes walking distance, and the high and low German language border, Saarbrücken has had ...
DAMU members have long been suspecting that residents in the state of Utah were among the top consumers of pornography. There remained considerable uncertainty, however, because the only available data were Google trends. Now, Benjamin Edelman from Harvard University has confirmed conjecture with credit card data of pornography consumers. After controlling for differences in broadband ...
I wasn’t aware of this until I received an email from my ultra-conservative Mormon uncle encouraging me to vote against it, but Hawaii’s state legislature is currently in the process of approving civil unions. However, the measure deadlocked in committee in the senate. The senate majority leader (Democrat) says they can pull it from the ...
Pleasant Grove City has won a battle in the legal war with Summum, Utah’s local pyramid/wine/sex cult. From what I’ve read, it appears that the matter is far from over, though, as this particular battle was narrowed in its scope to its free speech component. In essence, the Supremes have ruled that monuments simply aren’t ...
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So I’m scanning through my new email yesterday when the email below pops up. This is actually the second or third email I’ve received from this guy and I have to admit I’m completely baffled. First, the emails are going to my university email address and they are being sent to a bunch of other ...
On Monday I was really dreading going to my French class. I waited until the very last second before the bell to go to the classroom. It was natural to arrive a little later for that class anyway because it was the class right after the period when I had seminary, which was in a ...
Gabriel Rossi is a marketing specialist who exercises in branding. I have not read much of his work but his emphasis appears to be that you first have to develop relationships with your staff and team members before you can successfully project a brand to your clients and customers. With its origin myth in tatters ...
General J. C. Christian’s hilarious book review just got the coveted link from Pharyngula this week — and totally earned it!! Check it out, and don’t forget to vote! In other publishing award news, my husband’s latest book has been shortlisted for a prestigious award, the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. ...
After the passage of Proposition 8 in California there was a lot of talk about why the Mormon Church was so involved in that political fight. Mormons insisted that it was not because they hate homosexuals but rather because they believe marriage is a religious rite that should be exclusively between a man and a ...
These days, I don’t talk religion that much with people offline that much, and even when I do, I keep my religion/lack thereof cloudy until someone asks outright (it’s amazing how many people will talk and talk presuming you’re Christian and never ask you if you feel otherwise…but maybe that’s just because I go to ...
On Saturday the weather was strangely warm for late October. It was like Summer again all of the sudden. I had nothing to do, so I called up Sam and Joe’s house. Joe was home all by himself because Sam was at football practice and his parents had decided to go with him in order ...
Andrew Sullivan makes an interesting point: Most Americans have a healthy respect for religious teaching but in their lives give greater preference to common sense and practical experience. That includes almost all religious groups as well – Catholics, in particular, show conservative tendencies. The exceptions? Evangelicals and Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses – who are trained ...
After years of talking with current and former mormons, I am well aware that the reasons for people leaving and becoming disaffected are as different as snowflakes. Everyone has a different story and takes a unique path. I didn’t get a chance to listen to John Dehlin’s mormon stories podcasts while they were still available. ...
The good folks of Outer Blogness seem to be having some mixed feelings about facebook lately. But nobody seems to be opting out completely. Like cell-phones, facebook eventually gets adopted by everybody… In the interfaith relations department, Runtu has resolved to play nice with the faithful, and not paint them all with the same negative ...