Religion Dispatches
…read to Europe. This is why, in the Arab world, Arabic numbers are called ‘Indian numbers,’ and why, in the West, ‘Indian numbers’ are called ‘Arabic numbers.’ In India they’re just known as numbers. No matter what they’re called, I think we can all agree they make life a lot easier. 2. Coffee Muslims invented coffee, and coffee is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies. At best it goes cold. In fact, one of the reasons coffee took off is becau…
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…my narrative engaging. What alternative title would you give the book? The Indian edition of the book has a different title. It is Cosmic Love and Human Apathy. I like it as much as I like this title. How do you feel about the cover? The cover reflects the theme of the book perfectly. It is about Swami Vivekananda creating a religion that is least religious and disenchanted. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? There are so many bo…
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…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…
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…items within their borders (as is already the case federally with lottery tickets). A Republican-controlled Congress could then impose a nationwide ban on the mailing of abortion pills or certain contraceptives. (Republican-controlled state legislatures have already demonstrated a willingness to enact questionable legislation for nothing more than its intimidation factor.) Which brings us back to Anthony Comstock. In 1878, the Supreme Court uphel…
Read More…requests rejected in the name of the country’s anti-gay “propaganda” law. India: Talk Show Sets Record Straight — Yoga No Cure for Homosexuality In India, where LGBT people are living with last year’s Supreme Court decision recriminalizing homosexuality, a Sunday night talk show focused on LGBT issues drew nearly 130 million viewers. The show is hosted by actor Aamir Khan, who is a GLAAD “Global Voices” advocate. According to Gay Star News, “The…
Read More…lls on the Hindu nationalist BJP to look to pre-colonial history: For most Indians, history begins with 19th century British imperialism. Depictions of homosexuality in Khajuraho and in the Kamasutra are hardly known to most Indians, including our politicians. If the BJP really dreams of a Hindu Rashtra, then the first thing it should do is legalise same-sex love, because Hindu India never criminalised it in the past. It was the English Victorians…
Read More…ccurred to me it would be a very easy to make hajj from there. I bought an airline ticket and was in contact with the family of one of my graduate school friends. They would pick me up from the airport and host me during my stay and the days of ritual. Nice plan. So I went to the embassy to get the visa and was denied because (as an American) I needed proof that I was Muslim. How do I prove I have been a practicing Muslim for a decade? I went to t…
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…ual recompense. In the video message that was played before my last United Airlines flight, you expressed your desire to greet each and every passenger; you invited us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. If I could greet you now, I would want to know: were you unaware of the monstrosity that was about to follow? There, rising above the hiss of the pressurized air, as the video monitors snapped to the image of an engorged sun bursting from be…
Read More…each programs for the transgender community by the institutional church in India. “The whole church has a big role to play,” said Father Paul Madassery, who is in charge of pro-life support for the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council. He noted Pope Francis had talked about the need to give “pastoral care to the LGBT community.” “There is an active sex racket from North India eyeing transgender people in Kerala. They are trying to exploit the discrimi…
Read More…en Human Rights Defenders like Lankesh make the rapid erosion of rights in India possible,” says Albertina Almeida, human rights lawyer from India. Jersey: Marriage equality in Jersey postponed Marriage equality legislation in Jersey will not be introduced until next spring at the earliest, an announcement which disappointed activists coming on the eve of the Channel Islands’ pride celebration, which had a wedding theme to celebrate what had been…
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