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Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…seeking to broaden the dialogue about what “counts” as religious and why. Does the over-worn phrase “spiritual but not religious” adequately describe a phenomenon like this? Are individualistically authorized and eclectic spiritualities necessarily void of complex ritual traditions and a well-articulated community-based ethos? And what does all this potentially show us about the dynamics of cultural and religious change, looking to both the past…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?” It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…

Does War Make Sense? Science and Religion on the Battlefield

By Nathan Schneider

…tual community,” linking alienated elements of the Muslim diaspora through cheap communications technology and easy air travel. Islamist military tactics (Web sites as command centers, commercial airplanes as weapons) developed not simply from Hollywood movies, as was so often claimed following the 2001 attacks, but from the experience that constitutes the Muslim sacred community. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is therefore at least partly right in insist…

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…n atheist protagonist who is attractive and charming, a guy who chills and doesn’t believe in God, but he’s cool with your belief system. You wouldn’t mind having a beer with this guy at all—or coffee as the case may be. “I’m here to get your help,” Chapman tells us. “Help me get the word out. If enough people buy tickets to The Ledge, Hollywood will have to pay attention.” I scribble in my notebook thinking of the war against family values we’ve…

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ramadan

By Haroon Moghul

…culture because we just stand there, scratching our heads, thinking, “how does this work?” “Maybe I put my foot into it?” “Is this the women’s section?” Stimulus Package: Sudden boost in revenue at grocery stores anywhere Muslims live in large numbers. Hint: If you think buying food while you’re hungry can help the economy, grocery shopping in Ramadan could save the Eurozone and prevent a Grexit. Suhouri: Suhur: Meal you eat right before the fast…

World Congress of Families Draws Anti-LGBT Activists to Budapest; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…n review the status of LGBT people in Cambodia, which “has seen increasing numbers of gays emerging into public life as the country continues to rapidly normalize after three decades of war.” Cambodians have traditionally shunned the gay community, and LGBT practices are often viewed as being against nature and a threat to rebuilding the social order in the aftermath of three decades of war, which obliterated the country’s social fabric. Overcomin…

With the Pope at Ground Zero

By Anthea Butler

…ester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board American Airlines Flight 11. Mr. Roger said he hoped the pope would say prayers for the place, for the people, and for his daughter Jean. Praying at a unlighted candle next to the prie-dieu Pope Benedict XVI used on his visit, the Pope offered those prayers silently while looking at the south pool of the memorial. The 9/11 site has become not just a memorial or a museum—it is a pilg…

Finding the Missing Airliner with Coconuts

By Joseph Laycock

…at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and attempted to locate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 using a magical ritual that combined Islamic elements with shamanic practices. On Thursday Ibrahim Mat Zin, also known as Rajah Bomoh Sedunia Nujum, delivered a press conference (in which he demonstrated a squint that bore an uncanny resemblance to Pat Robertson.) He initially stated that he had been invited to perform his ritual by one of Malaysia’s “…

What Makes a Human Bomb Tick?

By Gordon Haber

…y is that it is not limited to religiopolitical violence. Lankford cites a number of American suicide terrorists that exhibited “classic suicidal traits.” Like Joseph Stack, a divorced software engineer with tax problems. In 2010, Stack crashed his single-engine plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, killing himself and an IRS manager; “There isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken [with me],” Stack wrote in the…