Religion News Service, Author at Crux

As artificial intelligence grows, so do perceived threats to human uniqueness

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, expressed differing views on the role and dangers of Artificial Intelligence. But experts say that the issue could be the “excessive” humanization of robots, which might raise existential issues and questions in humans.

‘Father Stan’s Our Man’: Okla. farm town honors hometown hero on path to sainthood

A crowd of nearly 400 gathered in a small church in Oklahoma to pay tribute to a hometown hero who could become a saint. The Reverend Stanley Francis Rother was killed in Guatemala by three masked assassins in 1981 because he had sided with local Indians against the government.

How Trump is reshaping American civil religion

Robert N. Bellah defined civil religion as “a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals,” drawn from American history and “institutionalized in a collectivity” that function “not as a form of national self-worship but as the subordination of the nation to ethical principles that transcend it in terms of which it should be judged.” What does that mean during the presidency of Donald Trump?

Catholic farmer ousted from Michigan market over same-sex marriage views
- Church in the US, Religion News Service
- June 2, 2017
After posting a Facebook post saying that according to his Catholic belief “marriage is a sacramental union between one man and one woman,” a farmer in Michigan was barred from a municipal farmers’ market. The farmer is suing the city of East Lansing, Michigan, seeking his reinstatement.
READ MORE
82 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls swapped for prisoners
- Global Church, Religion News Service
- May 9, 2017
The kidnapping of the Chibok girls in Nigeria is one of the high-profile incidents of Boko Haram’s insurgency, now in its eighth year and with little sign of ending. About 220 were abducted from their school in a nighttime attack. Now, 82 of the girls have been returned in a deal brokered by Switzerland and the Red Cross.
READ MORE
Two key takeaways from the pope’s TED talk
- Commentary, Religion News Service
- May 2, 2017
Theologian Massimo Faggioli said the message Pope Francis delivered in a recent TED Talk was focused on the Catholic social teaching of the “common good.” In recent times, many Catholic politicians, economists and businessmen have embraced a view of the economy that is dogmatic about the sovereignty of the free market. But this is not the Catholic view of the economy as it was articulated by all popes, at least from Leo XIII’s encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (1891) until today.
READ MORE