Religion Dispatches
…o feel like I’m in high school. Let me remind you, this does not happen in international airports the world over. I and every feeble-on-their-feet person gets to keep our shoes on. I get to keep all my clothes on, including both scarves, even though one is not even covering anything I wish to observe discretion about. Like poverty, in America, some people have to suffer an attack on their dignity and this is legitimated by the nature of the instit…
Read More…s greater than the need of a non-Muslim. This is like the tendency in some international circles to consider the blood of non-Muslim combatants more important than Muslim civilians and combatants with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have a very different sense of the shared human community now, and we need to adjust accordingly. This year, I face a dilemma because it seems the most pressing needs are actually in my own family. Some jurists sa…
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…had gained the respect of the Israeli public (both Jewish and Arab) and of international disaster relief organizations. These have either used Zaka’s direct services of have emulated their techniques in their own relief teams. The Israeli police force now teats the Zaka volunteers and staffers as colleagues. And the Israeli government has recognized a year of service to Zaka as a form of Shnat Sherut—national service. This all sounds very positive…
Read More1 in 5 Americans think President Obama is a Muslim. A recent medical journal report speculated that Jesus’ healing of a febrile woman may have been the first reported cure of influenza. However, Virology Journal quickly retracted and apologized for the article and its explanation of the New Testament miracle. Save a soul and win a prize. $250 to spend at Ziggy’s Fun Park! Here’s a look inside a Hindu home adjoining a temple in the Bronx. While…
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…e or less the same background and cultural assumptions to a vastly diverse international and cultural smorgasbord. Famous Harvard researcher Marc Hauser, who ironically studies the evolution of morality, has had to retract one published paper and is caught in the gnarly web of university and federal investigation he said/she said that I would wish upon no one. From the eventual investigation reports we will one day learn the final word on the alle…
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…the government, industry, universities, and scientists at the federal and international level should be and are discussing and monitoring such issues; Homeland Security should be (and of course is already) aware of and monitoring such research. But I have a suggestion: let’s take this—the language of creation and religion crossing into science—as a positive, if provocative sign, perhaps even as a call for engagement. Where ethicists, religious le…
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…l valence of war, the pursuit of peace through force, and the noble causes American wars have defended. He forcefully affirmed that some evils—Nazism, al-Qaeda—require coercive force to confront. Speaking especially to Europeans, Obama left no room for presidential pacifism. (The German Marshall Fund reported that over 70% of Europeans disagree—about 50% strongly—that war sometimes is necessary to achieve justice.) He lamented that “in many countr…
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…stration can acknowledge the reality of religious pluralism in America and thusly promote the greater good for all by ensuring that a wide range of religious and non-religious representatives—a wide range that will necessarily include Buddhist Americans—is in dialogue on the Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Like their sisters and brothers from various other backgrounds, Buddhist Americans clearly have wisdom to bring and impor…
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…he Smithsonian Institution, and other notables were on the board of Keats’ International Association for Divine Taxonomy—his work more often gets called absurd. He takes this as a compliment. “Absurdity is the circus quality of profundity. Where things get deep and disturbing, laughter is the only reflexive response. I see it as a way to accept, and indulge in, mystery as a part of life.” But what he’s raging against most of all is not authority—s…
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…rns, “have replaced the citizens of Communist countries as a key target of American elites. They seek to win hearts and minds of devout Christians through quasi-intelligence techniques.” Revelations Cont’d: CIA & Watergate: In a related point, Baker notes that Nixon suspected the CIA of infiltrating his White House staff. Nixon recognized the Watergate burglars from his own days supervising covert operations as vice president in the Eisenhower adm…
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