Weekend Coffee: November 8
• A Texas homeschooling family has been taken to court after allegedly refusing to teach their children anything at all since “they were going to be raptured”. Of note, the family’s 17-year-old...
View ArticleTheocratic Fraud in Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
Religious sects and cults that conceive of themselves as serving a higher, sacred purpose will, almost inevitably, end up believing that they’re above the law. We’ve seen this recently with the FLDS...
View ArticleThe Intellectual Prison of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
Trying to stop people from educating themselves is one of the worst crimes there is.
View ArticleCan the Courts Make You Pretend To Be Religious?
As much as we might depend on the courts to enforce our rights, those courts are staffed by human beings, and they can get it badly wrong just like anyone else.
View ArticleThe Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
A modern-day defense of a long-ago outrage illustrates the Catholic church's drift toward illiberalism.
View ArticleMovie Review: One of Us
Freedom is costly, but it's getting harder and harder for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to shut the world out.
View ArticleThe Problem of the Shomrim
In ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, vigilante mobs have replaced the law, and police and politicians stand by and let it happen.
View ArticleReligion Versus Children’s Education
The religious cults that intentionally starve their children's minds are fiercely resisting secular oversight.
View ArticleHow Religion Spreads COVID-19
The sects that refuse to acknowledge any rules but their own, or that worship Donald Trump and swallow his propaganda about the virus not being a threat, are prolonging and worsening the pandemic.
View ArticleHow Religion Spreads COVID-19, Part III
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclaves that shun education and the modern world are refusing to follow basic public-health laws, putting themselves and everyone around them at risk.
View ArticleMonstrous Miracles
Hanukkah is a story of brutal theocrats forcing their narrow-minded religion onto fellow Jews who had absorbed Greek culture.
View ArticleWhen Religious Rituals Turn Deadly
If the people who attended these festivals were obeying the will of God, as they believed, why didn't he protect them?
View ArticleIt’s Not Anti-Semitic to Criticize Israel
Anti-Semitism is real and serious, but the charge shouldn't be wielded to shut down any condemnation of the state of Israel.
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