Religion Dispatches
…ork for you. The article literally discusses someone getting Third-World peasants to loan her a cell in a pinch. You don’t get much more entitled than that. Still, there is something to be said for the virtues of unhooking from technology. I sometimes wonder if the convenience of having a cell is worthwhile, given that one of its most common uses is to find out where my wife got to in Kohl’s. But it seems to me that focusing on the micro-trend of…
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…nalism is good, but individualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist sid…
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I spend a lot of time outside the levees of coastal Louisiana—my wife and kids would say I spend too much time out there. It is a slow-motion, shape-shifting deltaic masterpiece where water and land have clashed for millennia to form wetlands, marshes, ridges, barrier islands, and bayous able to adapt to the creative and destructive hand of God. Also for centuries, people of Native American, European, and African descent have lived on land and wi…
Read More…s to affect educational curriculum through his organization Shiksha Bachao Aandolan Samiti (Movement to Save Education). For Mr. Batra, Doniger’s malicious act was her portrayal of a history of Hindus replete with eroticism, women, and unorthodox viewpoints. The suit gained momentum and in February 2014, Penguin books agreed to withdraw the book from India and destroy all remaining copies (although, all copies were bought before any were destroyed…
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Introduction: That Muslim Was an Atheist I was on a flight to Los Angeles many years ago, and after a few hours of nobly but futilely fighting the boredom, I ventured a conversation with the middle-aged man fate and ticketing had seated next to me. We started chatting because we were listless, but soon found a common interest. It turned out that my fellow passenger was a diehard L.A. Lakers fan. Unlike me, he was a successful dentist who lived…
Read More…f disaster and cultural crisis. My last post discussed Ibrahim Mat Zin, a Malaysian bomoh, who claimed that government authorities asked him to help locate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 using a shamanic ritual. Israeli psychic Uri Geller has now announced via Twitter that he too has been asked to help search for the missing plane. Geller rose to media fame in the 1970s for his alleged ability to bend spoons with his mind. He’s hinted he could hel…
Read MoreWho gets to define what a “real” Islamic practice is? Malaysians have been debating this question ever since a bomoh (a Malaysian shaman) arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and attempted to locate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 using a magical ritual that combined Islamic elements with shamanic practices. On Thursday Ibrahim Mat Zin, also known as Rajah Bomoh Sedunia Nujum, delivered a press conference (in which he demonstrated a s…
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…uslims” and that Islam will “drive the Jews out of Palestine.” However, as Adam Lankford points out in The Myth of Martyrdom, Abdulmutallab’s story is more complicated. Between 2005 and 2007, Abdulmutallab uploaded hundreds of messages to an Islamic web forum. His posts reveal that often he felt isolated and lonely: “i am in a situation where i do not have a friend… i have no one to speak too [sic].” He also professed shame about his sexual urges….
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…er own country, and has lent her considerable status to the grassroots India Against Corruption campaign as the movement evolves. What some are calling India’s Arab Spring has been more like a summer of discontent, complete with demonstrations and arrests, all in support of this epic fight against government corruption—what Anna Hazare, whose hunger strike made headlines, has named “India’s second freedom struggle.” I was glad to have the chance t…
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…to fit into a broader culture that was suspicious and threatened by his unparalleled talents and charisma. Race and the Making of the Mormon People Max Perry Mueller UNC Press August 2017 These personal experiences with religious and racial “others”—the Mormons and Jason—primed me to fall in love with the story of Jane Manning James (a painting of James graces the book’s cover). In the early 1840s, as a young, single mother in Connecticut, James c…
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