Religion Dispatches
…we find an investment advisor named Sean Hyman pushing “The Biblical Money Code,” which claims that advice “woven” into Scripture has helped him go from earning $15,000 to giving away up to $50,000 a year. Unlike Hovind, Hyman is giving away his system for free. All you have to do is sit through an hour-long video, during which Hyman explains how “to unlock vast amounts of wealth safely and ethically.” Fancy explanations are provided, but it’s act…
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…ene, as the Egyptian authorities did in 2007 when they banned The Da Vinci Code. The Coptic community—which accounts for roughly 10 percent of the nation’s 80 million citizens—had raised alarm and demanded that both the book and movie be banned. Now, three years on, Zeidan’s bestselling novel is is prompting angry demands from that same community. In early May a group of Coptic lawyers demanded that the government imprison the author for five year…
Read More…powers of autonomy. A draft bylaw sent to AFP on Saturday outlaws anal sex between men and “the rubbing of body parts between women for stimulation”, and for the first time applies Islamic laws and punishments to non-Muslims. The bylaw also punishes adultery with 100 lashes of the cane. The bylaw reinforces previous sharia legislation that bans alcohol consumption, gambling, fraternising between unmarried men and women, and physical displays of af…
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…will include pardons for those convicted under laws criminalizing sex acts between consenting adults. Denmark: Gay US Ambassador is a celebrity USA Today reported on the celebrity status of openly gay US Ambassador Rufus Gifford, who has starred in a popular reality TV show. Northern Ireland: Openly gay deputy mayor leads Belfast pride parade Belfast’s annual pride parade was led by the city’s first openly gay deputy lord mayor, Sinn Fein’s Mary E…
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…ands that soldiers do not die in vain or for an unjust cause. The intimacy between the living and the war dead is a constant, dynamic relationship that is crucial to reinforcing the message that America lives by the highest and most noble moral standards. In both of these ugly scandals we are faced with a clear and unequivocal reality: the institutional religious cultures that so inspire and animate Americans can also be breeding grounds for corru…
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…is concerned with reconciling his humanity and divinity, and the relation between these two aspects and the role that plays in salvation. The Christ of faith is far less concerned with the minutiae of human life and culture including physical depictions. It could be argued that the Christ of faith is largely a matter of the spirit regardless of the physical body he inhabited. In response to this conflation between the “historical Jesus” and the “…
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…me of the most affluent, egalitarian, peaceful and happy countries—such as Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway and Sweden. By contrast, the most religious countries were poorer, largely agrarian societies that lacked many of the political freedoms and economic benefits of their more secular counterparts. When the sociologist Phil Zuckerman conducted a study of Denmark and Sweden, two of the most secular nations on Earth, he found that the la…
Read More…d and punished. This fact clearly shows the intention of the government to promote a witch hunt against homosexuals rather than its stated objective of protecting traditional ‘natural’ marriage between a man and a woman. The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act is fundamentally an attack on the civil and human rights of all Nigerians. This law goes against all provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights of which Nigeria is a signa…
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…the faith. Religion plays a much larger role in the Faroe Islands than in Denmark, and it is typical religious arguments to use if you are against gay marriage, says Gestur Hovgaard, associate professor of social sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands, to Ritzau. Faroe Islands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, or the Danish Realm. Dominican Republic: U.S. Rejects Religious Leaders’ Criticism of Openly Gay Ambassador As…
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…ar law and politics affect everyone. The divisions within the modern world between religious and secular are not natural ones. They have a complex history. Only by going back and taking seriously some of the turns that history has taken will we understand why religion has become such a contentious topic today. Asad focuses on the “self-owning” individual of the liberal state and the many contradictions inherent in this invention. Tacking back and…
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