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Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

…ark-eyed women. We all know that Mohammad Atta, who flew American Airlines flight 11 into the Twin Towers on 9/11, was inspired by this promise. But among progressives, the sex promised to the righteous in the Qur’an isn’t sex as we know it, but something mysterious and sublime for which sex is a poetic stand-in. Second, what happens to our bodies in heaven? This is my favorite part of the heaven conversation. For if you believe in heaven as a rea…

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The Faith that Faith Produced

…rican Muslims were able to separate Islam from its practitioners, giving a new generation—or at least enough of us—a sense of ownership deep enough to support an agenda of reform and renewal. My own struggles with my faith and community weren’t very different; I cared and care about my faith, but in the process of trying to help, I badly wounded myself. Sometimes the way you get hurt points the way forward. Even after I wrote up my essay and sent…

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Finding the Missing Airliner with Coconuts

…ala 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 squint that bore an uncanny resemblance to Pat Robertson.) He initially stated that he had been invited to perform his ritual by one of Malaysia’s “top leade…

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What Makes a Human Bomb Tick?

…shootings in 2009: that of Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 servicemen and women and wounded 29 at Fort Hood, Texas, and George Sodini, who killed 3 women and wounded 12 at a Pennsylvania fitness club. Both men had no friends, work issues, difficulties meeting women, and felt victimized—Sodini by women and Hasan by his fellow soldiers for being a Muslim. And both men intended to die. Sodini shot himself before he could be stoppe…

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Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

…hority in question will cede way (in other words you block the aisles for a 10 hour flight, or you file lawsuits and cost the government time and money defending the law you tried to convince it not to pass, and then once you get an accommodation you sue to be exempted from that as well). The real difference here is that if you don’t want to deal with ultra-Orthodox men interfering in your travel, you can just take another airline. If only it were…

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Trans Protections in India and Malta; Death-by-Stoning Law in Brunei; Church-State Divides on Marriage

…Europe to make divorce legal, which it did by referendum in 2011. Brunei: New Law Allows Death by Stoning for Homosexuality, Other Offenses Next week a new law goes into effect in Brunei which will allow gay people and others to be stoned to death. The maximum penalty for homosexuality had been a 10-year prison sentence. “Rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, insulting any verses of the Quran and Hadith, blasphemy, de…

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The Role of Spirit in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement: A Conversation with Activist and Artist Patrisse Cullors

…she recalled. Such an environment left her with a deep sense of shame. “By 12, 13, I knew that this was not the place for me, but I felt very connected to spirit. So the question became, what is the place for me?” she said. She turned to her great-grandmother, who is from the Choctaw and Blackfoot tribes, and talked to her about her great-grandfather, a medicine man. Her interest in indigenous spirituality led to Ifà. For Cullors, spirituality sa…

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Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

…ples were good for business. He opened his restaurant in Hapeville, Ga., in 1946. By 2013, Chick-fil-A had 1,800 locations across the U.S. and annual sales of $5 million. The company gave away $68 million over the years and was celebrated by the religious right. “The Bible tells a lot about how to run a business if we just read it and apply it,”Cathy said. He died at 94. David Eugene Sorenson An elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Sa…

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The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel

…who struggled for thirty long years to attain his esoteric wisdom and his new spiritual status as Divine Love Incarnate. Christ was the title conferred upon him in order to set the seal to his great spiritual achievement. In chapter 55 of The Aquarian Gospel, we see Jesus awarded the title of “the Christ” as the crown awarded for his great labor and even greater success. It is important to recall—and this lies at the very heart of a great deal of…

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