Religion Dispatches
…est brother to it just last year). When I got the news, during the fast, a number of my friends told me just go ahead and stop fasting to address it. But, I thought if I do not get on top of it, this may be my last Ramadan; and I just wanted to finish what I had started. I’m glad I did, but here’s the thing. To stabilize the blood sugar, pre-diabetics and diabetics have to eat smaller meals dispersed through out the day. I started it yesterday but…
Read More
…r reasons that will soon become clear) went up on The Daily Universe’s Web site in the early morning hours of Tuesday, September 7: Defending Proposition 8—It’s time to admit the reasons By CARY CRALL Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the recent United States District Court case that overturned Proposition 8, highlighted a disturbing inconsistency in the pro-Prop. 8 camp. The arguments put forth so aggressively by the Protect Marriage coalition and by LDS…
Read More…burn a Qur’an on Saturday, had agreed to not proceed with his plan because the promoters of the Park51 project had agreed to move it to a different location, Sharif El-Gamal, Chairman and CEO of SoHo Properties, which owns the site, today issued this statement to RD: It is untrue that the community center known as Park51 in lower Manhattan is being moved. The project will proceed as planned. What is being reported in the media today is a falsehoo…
Read More…nwhile, federal investigators have ruled that a fire at a the construction site of an Islamic center in Murfreesborough, Tennessee was an arson. Elsewhere in the state, a Memphis pastor put a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” sign outside his church to welcome the new Islamic center being built nearby. And a new mosque has gone up in Lousiville, Kentucky quite peacefully. Is the BBC anti-Christian? The Florida pastor who had planned to burn Qur’ans on…
Read More…antly calls the center Cordoba House, the same day Park51 revamped its Web site, and one of principals says he wants to sell. Apparently no one told him that in his absence the Cordoba House name was dropped in favor of Park51. Either he is being kept out of the information loop or there is a leadership struggle happening within the team. The only other alternative is that he really is just clueless, as his wife constantly referred to the project…
Read More…e like his anti-divorce arguments so much: ‘I stole them from the Yes on 8 site.’ And he’s counting on support from groups who bankrolled the anti-gay-marriage initiative.” Sadly, the head of the California Family Coalition did not comment to Mercury News, but its president, Ron Prentice, had previously called the idea “impractical.” So, despite the religious right’s dedication to preserving marriage and family, its leadership seems loathe to do i…
Read More…majority religious) resistance? The courts and legislatures have been the site of all the other civil rights decisions over the years. Why are they not now—over this one issue of fairness for gays and lesbians? Imagine for a moment if the Supreme Court had said, “No, we believe the people should decide if separate but equal should be the law of the land. Such a big decision should not be left to a small panel of nine justices.” Perhaps, this coun…
Read More
…ally an Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California. As their Web site explains, the Institute “explores the frontiers of consciousness” to “build bridges between science and spirit,” and “research subtle energies.” Such baloney works wonders for middle-class self-absorption, and for Brown it serves as a useful device. By merging mind and matter, it allows Brown, through Katherine Solomon, to construct his own “missing link between modern…
Read More
…are difficult to substantiate. As one astute commenter on the Haaretz Web site put it, Sand’s book is more about the past than the future. Interviewed by that newspaper’s correspondent, Sand responded strongly to both academic and popular criticism of his thesis. But it is the book’s claims about the Jewish past that have caused the biggest buzz and generated the strongest condemnation by Israeli historians of the Jewish past. These critics point…
Read More
…thinks this is “humanly possible” and he is therefore a valid speaker. At the rate the ex-Muslim industry is growing, I suspect they will quickly outnumber Muslims—only, without the number of Muslims actually decreasing….
Read More