A Harvard Don is Enraged that Pope Francis is “Opposed to the World Economic Order” By Bill Black

A New York Times article entitled “Championing Environment, Francis Takes Aim at Global Capitalism” quotes a conventional Harvard economist, Robert N. Stavins. Stavins is enraged by Pope Francis’ position on the environment because the Pope is “opposed to the world economic order.” The rage, unintentionally, reveals why conventional economics is the most dangerous ideology pretending to be a “science.” Stavins’ attacks on the …

JACOB J. ERICKSON – FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE EARTH: FRANCIS’ FAITHFUL ECOLOGY

In a brief article in an unassuming 1967 edition of Science, a medieval historian from the University of California argued a now infamous thesis in my own field of religion and ecology. “Christianity, “ Lynn White wrote, “is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen.” The notion of “dominion,” he argued, allowed human beings to exploit the ecological world in unprecedented ways. White’s …

Channelling the Joy By George Monbiot

In defending the natural world, we should be honest about our motivations – it’s love that drives us, not money. Who wants to see the living world destroyed? Who wants an end to birdsong, bees and coral reefs, the falcon’s stoop, the salmon’s leap? Who wants to see the soil stripped from the land, the sea rimed with rubbish? No …

New research suggests afterlife belief preserves hope when thinking about death

The prospect of death does not necessarily leave people feeling hopelessly mortal but depends rather on afterlife belief, suggests new research from psychologists at the University of Kent. Dr Arnaud Wisman and Dr Nathan Heflick, of the University’s School of Psychology, set out to establish in four separate studies whether people lose hope when thinking about death – known as …

America to be brought down by junk food? 69% of youth too fat to fight for the military – Daniel Barker

Great nations have often been subject to being brought down by an “enemy within.” In the case of America, that enemy might well prove to be be obesity. If this generation is too fat to fight, who will be there to defend our country in its time of need? That’s the question posed by a group of retired military personnel …

Obama trade bill in trouble – JAKE SHERMAN, JOHN BRESNAHAN and DOUG PALMER

The House is currently dozens of votes short of being able to pass legislation that would allow President Barack Obama to send trade deals to Congress for fast approval, according to senior lawmakers and aides in both parties, imperiling a top White House priority for the president’s final years in office. At this point, upward of 75 House Republicans could …

Undermining Independent Media: How to Beat Internet Trolls

In order to beat Internet trolls, you have to know their strategies. Below are 17 common games played by trolls to disrupt our power to learn, inform, and organize on the web … 1.  Threaten those who speak out, to try to intimidate them and their readers into silence. 2. Misquote the Bible to pretend that God commands us to be obedient …

Climate denial is immoral, says head of US Episcopal Church: ‘It is a very blind position’

The highest ranking woman in the Anglican communion has said climate denial is a “blind” and immoral position which rejects God’s gift of knowledge. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and one of the most powerful women in Christianity, said that climate change was a moral imperative akin to that of the civil rights movement. She said …

How the US Supreme Court Has Treasonously Destroyed America’s Democratic Republic

This presentation will focus on how our Big Government in general and the US Supreme Court in particular have undermined and destroyed America’s onetime democratic republic. The judicial branch of the American government consisting of the federal district courts, the circuit courts of appeal and the Supreme Court in tandem with the prosecutorial legal arm of the executive branch the Justice Department represent …