Religion Dispatches
…was expecting it would be like the perfect synch between my laptop and my iPhone. Maybe it will be, but not yet. I am just at the place where I can say, it is lighter than my laptop. Oh yeah, and I got another plus: at airport security yesterday, I didn’t even have to take it out of the bag! That was the only good thing at the airport. Ever heard Robin Williams joke about the “random” checks at airport security?’ He reads all these, clearly, Musli…
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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 ultra-Orthodox are exempt from the draft. All Haredi men and women are free from the responsibility of spending years in the army. In the 1950s Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, granted this exemption to the then-small ultra-Orthodox population of the new state. Not that Haredim are strangers to one type of violence: that of violent demonstrations against government policies. These may be against autopsies, cremations, Sabbath d…
Read More…a short period of time than I could in most of my professional situations internationally. It does something to free my brain. But let me not side step the pace of my heart. I am not an intellectual separate from a Sufi, and not a Sufi without a very strong intellectual personality. I some times feel alone in this combination and there are actually some Sufi teachers who speak very negatively about scholars. So, to be in a place and time when I d…
Read More…religious charities. It remains to be seen how happy folks will be about “International Blasphemy Rights Day.” The September 30th event is being organized by the Center for Inquiry, a New York based atheist group. Got a problem? No time for church? Try drive-thru prayer . A 24-foot cross in Vermont pits local land-use law against claims of First Amendment Rights. And a bomb threat on Sunday at the shrine in Lourdes, France evacuated some 30,000 p…
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…ng settlements and a wall, intruding on land that the Palestinians and the international community say the Jews have no right to occupy. Who wouldn’t fight back against such intruders, as the villagers of Budrus ask, especially when the settlers’ violence against Palestinians continues to mount? But as long as Jews stay within the pre-1967 borders of their state, they are now almost completely safe from attack by politically-motivated Arabs. It’s…
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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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…g as a resource/publications specialist for the ex-gay organization Exodus International. These seminars, most led by former TG/TS folk who had come to accept their birth gender, were geared to give hope to those struggling with their gender identity and seeking change to live a “biblical lifestyle,” which constituted heterosexual marriage or celibacy. Andrew Marin, founder of evangelical-based The Marin Foundation has been working for over ten ye…
Read More…aking of poor judgment, a non-denominational Florida church plans to host “International Burn a Qur’an Day” on the anniversary of 9/11. The same Gainesville church made news in the past with its “No Homo Mayor” signs opposing an openly gay mayor. Lt. Governor of South Carolina André Bauer discusses how he uses shoes to save souls. New York Governor David Paterson denied reports that he had swapped Judaism for his Catholic faith. However, Gwyneth P…
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…s the Green Movement continues to agitate. I think we also need to look at international context as well. The spate of anti-Muslim debates in Europe, including the French ban of the burqa, demand Iran respond in a manner that indicates Islamic solidarity. The language of the haircut restrictions centers around “Islamic” and “Western.” It is not coincidental that these events are happening in close temporal proximity to one another. The New York Ti…
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