Religion Dispatches
…ogy that has led to acts of terrorism both within Pakistan and in adjacent India, including the recent attacks in Mumbai. For this reason, a strategy for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and from Iraq, should be a high on the list of objectives for the Obama administration. 4. Become a problem solver not a problem maker. Aside from what is regarded as its military meddling, the other thing that makes the United States appear as an enemy to many Muslim…
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…man in a white sari oversees the care of mangled patients at a hospital in India. Maasai tribesman in Kenya sacrifice a goat to God for rain, to the disapproval of a collared Christian priest. There’s a healthy helping of English atheists, each with particular and charming ways of scoffing off the notion entirely. “God is a word,” one of them explains. And then the silence of all eternity passes through snowy Himalayan vistas. It is true. God is a…
Read More…ivative. But Islam has been in Bosnia for as long as it’s been in much of India, where my family’s from. It’s possible that many South Asians have been Muslim for less time than many European Muslims. The same goes for Istanbul, which came under Ottoman rule after parts of the Balkans. When we travel, we find such assumptions challenged, and we find that the ways in which the world works right now did not necessarily hold true in the past—in ba…
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…per that showed the effects of fireworks on air pollution during Diwali in India, “fireworks contain harmful chemicals such as potassium nitrate, carbon and sulphur apart from an array of chemicals such as strontium, barium, sodium, titanium, zirconium, magnesium alloys, copper and aluminum powder to create the colourful effects. On burning they release gases such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide.” The study concluded that fireworks contrib…
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…ned their wealth in complicity with the violent British colonial regime in India alongside questions about her lifestyle and motivations? Wouldn’t it be logical to ask what bolstered her lavish lifestyle of private flights and endless parties and fundraisers? And what, exactly, her wealth did?Remember, this is a show that has clearly demonstrated its concern over climate change, to which the wealthy disproportionately contribute (even as they’re l…
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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. #2 Confront Death by Avoiding Fritos: The…
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…sis in countries as diverse as Brazil, Central African Republic, Pakistan, India, and Myanmar, where vigilantes from dominant religious communities routinely attack the homes, businesses, and houses of worship of religious minorities with impunity. As I show in my recent book The Global Politics of Jesus: A Christian Case for Church-State Separation, similar dynamics appear to be unfolding in the United States today, where a combination of forces—…
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…slim. Musically, they function in a similar way to qawwals in northwestern India and in Pakistan. Their music draws on Indic and Islamicate sources. Parvathy Baul was the first female Baul I had seen in public, and her music demonstrated the ways that cultures combine to create new forms. The song in the clip below ends with an invocation of figures normally associated with the qawwali tradition, showing how the Baul tradition is still evolving. B…
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…M. Hutchens of the Christian Zionist “Jerusalem Connection,” who has been promoting the piece. Why? Bartholomew: “I can see why Freund would enthuse over this, but it’s less clear why a conservative evangelical like Hutchens would want to promote the idea of 500,000 to 1 million Portuguese and Spaniards embracing a religion other than Christianity. Such are the mysteries of Christian Zionism.” Coral Ridge Ministries Produces Is Jesus God?: Since…
Read More…bridge by reminding the jumper of his Christian faith. A former pastor in Indiana is going to trial for 10 counts of securities fraud after he defrauded parishioners in a Ponzi scheme. Archaeologists unearthed an 1800-year-old statue of the Buddha in India. In Iowa, a pastor is praying that the IRS comes after his church for his political campaign against three Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled to allow same-sex marriages. The American Family A…
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