Search for "cheap airline tickets from ny to cairo egypt phone number 1-800-299-7264"

YOU Are Spiritual But Not Religious: The Secret Spiritual History of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books

By Daniel Silliman

…has emerged as a familiar, if still creative, course of explorations for many Americans.” Montgomery sought to be creative in exactly this sort of spiritual exercise. Montgomery’s CYOA plots also seems to place him more firmly in the spiritual-but-not-religious rather than secular humanist camp. The point, for Montgomery, was that whatever might exist or not exist, dealing with it would be a matter of human choices. Or, as the second Humanist Mani…

As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

By Katherine Kelaidis

…de against Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s. The fact is, a significant number of Serbs, and even a large number of others from traditionally Orthodox backgrounds, continue to harbor a great deal of anger about Western intervention in the Kosovo War, which they see as a failure by the West to comprehend the historical role-reversal that’s taken place, including the persecution of Orthodox Christians by Albanians and other majority-Muslim ethnic…

UPDATED: Oklahoma Personhood Bill Not Dead…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…wouldn’t threaten IVF or women with life-threatening pregnancies. But many Oklahomans, and more to the point many legislators, found such lack of clarity. Sen. Doug Cox, who criticized other members of the Public Health committee for their unwillingness to put their reassurances in writing, proposed a number of amendments. So did other legislators, such that by the time SB-1433 was scheduled to be voted on, it was groaning under the weight of a…

Census Reveals Gay People are Shockingly… Normal

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ike? Wild hyenas? The story that follows that headline would be just as funny if it didn’t signal the death knell for the religious right’s jihad against gays and lesbians. The article marvels that: According to the research, many same-sex couples are doing something straight couples have been doing for generations: getting older, having kids, and moving to the suburbs… These trends, both the spread of gay people living openly, and of gay populati…

Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”

By Johnny P. Flynn

…s. In following the Ray story over the past few months, I am amazed at the number of non-Indian sweat lodge experts the media has been able to locate. Few Indians if any have been interviewed; and even decidedly liberal MSNBC featured Court TV anchor Ashleigh Banfield as their expert on the sweat lodge. Banfield’s expertise, admitted on air, was one sweat experience with her stepbrother or brother-in-law (she wasn’t sure how he was related), “step…

After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…what’s going on, but too few seem capable of saying it. We now have a fair number of political and civic leaders who are willing to say the word trauma and talk about the all-pervasive violence in this culture, not to mention the extent of mental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roo…

Does God Want Jeremy Lin to Win?

By Jay Michaelson

…whether in terms of kindness, or humility, or following their dreams, or any number of other positive values—just as it’s at its worst when it takes agency away. The particular myths that Tebow or Lin happen to believe in are secondary (and of course, I mean ‘myths’ in the sophisticated sense of stories that give meaning to human life, not false tales). What’s primary is that they believe, despite ample reasons not to do so, in the possibility of…

Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…er religion, or no religion?” while ARIS asks, “What is your religion, if any?” The Pew ask a different question: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in particular?” Pews researchers said they believe, “by explicitly offering respondents the chance to identify as atheist, agnosti…

Dispatches from the Workplace: Postville: Ground Zero for the Intersection of Immigrant and Workers’ Rights

By Kim Bobo

…ors, dangerous conditions and insufficient safety measures. The workers, many of them undocumented immigrants, spoke to the Forward on condition of anonymity, fearing dismissal or deportation if they were identified. But their stories were backed up with on-the-record testimony and documentation from a host of clergy and community leaders, Iowa academics and union officials. The story they tell is consistent, and shocking. How AgriProcessors and i…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ng those activists. A press officer said the embassy “deeply regrets that any individuals were attacked based on any kind of orientation they might have.” The photo was taken down on Wednesday. A bit of additional background from AP: Same-sex relations are not a crime in Ivory Coast, but there are no legal protections for sexual minorities. In January 2014, a mob ransacked the Abidjan headquarters of the country’s most prominent gay rights organiz…