Robert Maguire's Library tagged religion →  View Popular

Today, in response to that delay, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture sent a letter urging Holder to make good on his promise and release the report immediately.

“The delay in the issuance of the report jeopardizes the admirable leadership the Administration has shown in calling for transparency in government and in ending U.S.-sponsored torture once and for all,” says the letter. “Release of the OPR report is not like release of the photographs of torture; release of the OPR report will not imperil the safety of our troops or encourage new recruits for the terrorists. Its effect will be exactly the opposite. Release of the OPR report will demonstrate the integrity of our government processes.”

As so often, Tocqueville got there first:

"Not only do the American practice their religion out of self-interest,
but they often even place in this world the interest which they have in
practicing it. Priests in the Middle Ages spoke of nothing but the
other life; they hardly took any trouble to prove that a sincere
Christian might be happy here below. But preachers in America are continually coming down to earth.
Indeed they find it difficult to take their eyes off it. The better to
touch their hearers, they are forever pointing out how religious
beliefs favor freedom and public order, and it is often difficult to be
sure when listening to them whether the main object of religion is to
procure eternal felicity in the next world or prosperity in this." 
Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. II, Part 2, ch. 9

Their results show a strong correlation between economic growth and
certain shifts in beliefs, though only in developing countries.

Most
strikingly, if belief in hell jumps up sharply while actual church
attendance stays flat, it correlates with economic growth. Belief in
heaven also has a similar effect, though less pronounced. Mere belief
in God has no effect one way or the other. Meanwhile, if church
attendance actually rises, it slows growth in developing economies.

Church leaders want health insurers to reimburse "spiritual health" practitioners who pray for the sick, reports the Washington Post. 

A proposal to that effect was stripped out of the House health bill, but the Church is lobbying to have it re-inserted into the Senate version.  

"Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this."

This story about Palin’s meeting with Billy and Franklin Graham tends to bolster the End-Times possibility:

The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate told Billy Graham about how she came to faith in God as a girl in Bible camp.

She quizzed him on the presidents he’s known and wanted his take on what the Bible says about Israel, Iran and Iraq, Franklin Graham reported.