Religion Dispatches
…rk than most imagine. Muslims settled in New Amsterdam with the Dutch West India Company as early as the 17th century. Indeed, mosques are nothing new to Manhattan. Two guys walk into a bar… to go to church. The Internet is the next mission field for the LDS Church. “Our leaders were struggling for years to find a more effective, less annoying way to get our message across than knocking on doors,” said Scott Swofford, director of media for the chu…
Read More…oncos games this season. Which prompts the question, is football its own religion? Does the black church keep black women single? Julia Roberts has become a “practicing Hindu” after spending time in India shooting her latest film. Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp commemorating Mother Theresa on August 26th, what would have been her 100th birthday….
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…e 1930s (Beau Hunks, among others) to Disney’s more recent Aladdin and the Indiana Jones franchise. It is so natural, so expected, that most of us have no idea how it affects us. I’ve asked my college students what they think of when they see a scene from a movie in which they hear the call to prayer and see a minaret or dome. The answer? “Something bad is about to happen.” Islamophobia can remain in latent form until it is triggered by economic,…
Read More…es with women-only mosques, including mu’adhan and imamahs, like China and India. Some countries have fewer restrictions, like Indonesia. It is so good to be in places like this because when it is suppose to be for the worship of Allah then, how is that man can get in the way? But we know the drill. Thanks to all who commented on these and other entries, like Houda, and mairedubhtx. Perhaps when Ramadan is over I can start making my reply on the b…
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…tionalism’ also exists among extreme Copts in Egypt and the Hindu right in India. Google-ocracy But two years into the second decade of the 21st century we’re seeing a difference, not only in the assault on Islam, but in the Muslim response to that assault. The difference between today and yesterday, between the Muhammad video and Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, is the rapidity and ubiquity of image-making. Images can be, and are, made and remade, remix…
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…a matter of fact, we’re seeing something of that with the sex selection in India and China, almost eugenic kind of selection. Walter: And the whole health care thing where rich people have access. That’s got to make a difference in longterm maintenance of genes and all that. Dan: That’s a trend that’s been accelerated, but it’s by no means a new one. I remember someone saying that we all have some royal blood in us because royalty tends to survive…
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…ks that Occupy Faith has set itself are: to ally with unions and others to promote fair wages for all, especially low-wage workers to work for fair tax policy to join coalitions supporting constitutional change to get money out of politics and limit the power of corporations to participate in events and initiatives organized to promote justice and fairness to take nonviolent, direct action to the streets and halls of corporate and government p…
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…tion that dates, according to a brief history, to the late 19th century in India. Capitalizing on the moment “mindfulness” is having, “heartfulness” seems designed to fit easily onto the menu of Western spiritual aspiration. Moreover, a post from the Heartfulness Facebook page seems to base heartfulness’ worth in its potential value to capitalism, boasting statistics of increased productivity and decreased absenteeism when workers at a Detroit fir…
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…) I knew Monsanto sues farmers into oblivion, caused a rash of suicides in India, suppresses negative media coverage, and pays politicians, and scientists to lie on its behalf. But there was one story I didn’t believe, because I knew it wasn’t true: Monsanto hadn’t paid me. So I did what any academic or journalist would do, and started learning more about the company that supposedly had me on its payroll. In the process, I discovered that very lit…
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…awaiting trial, for a rainbow-themed paint job that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Vice charged was promoting “emblems of homosexuality.” Taiwan: Marchers hope for marriage equality in near future Reuters reported that on July 11, “[t]housands of gay rights supporters marched through Taipei…months ahead of elections that are likely to usher in a pro-gay party and could make Taiwan the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marria…
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