Blog
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Whatever your religious beliefs may be, it is likely that others who share them are being attacked in some corner of the world. What if it were you?
TOLERANCE
I’m about to board a flight back to the U.S. after spending two weeks delivering human rights lectures and musical performances to youth in Taiwan. Door to door the travel time is about 25 hours. In other words, I’m about as far away as I could be from home while still being on planet earth.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
The prophets wanted their followers to believe in God and follow His Word. It’s true that some adherents to these religions do better than others in following their scriptures; they range from virtuous to considerably-less-than-perfect, but the vast majority fall short of putting a scarlet mark on their creed.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Religion is like marriage: there’s so much to criticize about it, yet people still want to tie the knot. Marriage is designed to fulfill a need: the need for companionship, solace and pleasure in the pursuit of posterity. Clearly, we need it.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
I recently read an article in which the author asserted that the purpose of freedom of religion and “separation of church and state” is to protect religion from government (not the other way around).
TOLERANCE
In one of his many letters stressing the importance of education, Thomas Jefferson wrote that, “as long as we may think as we will, & speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Cultures change slowly. I was born in 1945. When I was growing up in Washington, D.C., discrimination against African Americans, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Gays, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and Muslims was not the least bit unusual and was largely accepted. Southern politicians got elected based on who was the loudest and most viciously racist.
TOLERANCE
We’re living at a time when it seems that to believe in something means you have to do whatever you can to force everyone else to believe the same thing. A few people do it with actual physical violence. Many, many more do it with overheated rhetoric and accusation.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Multimillionaire and Silicon Valley whiz kid Anthony Levandowski is obviously no dummy. So I can only conclude that he missed a few history classes. The man has started a religion! If he hadn’t missed those history classes he’d realize that starting a religion is the quickest way to get yourself strung up, hung up, shot at or at least laughed out of town.
TOLERANCE
In 1997, a computer defeated Garry Kasparov, the greatest chess champion that ever lived. Deep Blue was a $10-million-dollar I.B.M. supercomputer specifically designed to beat Kasparov at chess. Tens of millions watched the match from around the world, rooting for the man to defeat the machine. It was a disappointing day for humanity.
