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The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ramadan

By Haroon Moghul

…Muslim tradition describes our resurrection with all humanity for Judgment, but, you know, that’s between you and anyone you tell and judges you for it), and a beautiful person has your pre-fast meal prepared for you. This person is your suhouri, your beautiful best friend in the world. No greater gorgeousness can be imagined or described. (Despite this beauty, please keep an eye on small children, who may fall asleep and drown in cereal bowls be…

Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

By Peter Laarman

…se sectarian moments are right to wince, I think. And although Garth Brooks, a Republican, proved to be a gracious presence today, I dearly would like to see all explicitly Christian hymns (“Amazing Grace” included) retired from public events. But leaving the Christian bits aside, the other and far more important civil religion elements—the oath-taking, the flags and bunting, the glorious band—seem to me indispensable. Retaining the proper setting…

The Faith that Faith Produced

By Haroon Moghul

…of purple reign. He’d sat through the playoffs, too. Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Shaq, Kobe. On their way to ten titles! I was ablaze with jealousy. But later in our conversation, as the topic shifted to our respective travels, he made an offhand remark about how Middle Easterners “don’t respect human life,” and complained that Muslims don’t condemn terrorism. I’m usually stunned when folks make wild generalizations to my obviously non-European face;…

Why the Disappeared Malaysian Airliner Brings Out the Paranormal

By Joseph Laycock

…cultural crisis. My last post discussed Ibrahim Mat Zin, a Malaysian bomoh, who claimed that government authorities asked him to help locate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 using a shamanic ritual. Israeli psychic Uri Geller has now announced via Twitter that he too has been asked to help search for the missing plane. Geller rose to media fame in the 1970s for his alleged ability to bend spoons with his mind. He’s hinted he could help find the mis…

With the Pope at Ground Zero

By Anthea Butler

…om the New York area, with over 600 interfaith leaders in attendance: Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists Muslims, and Christians participated, with reflections offered by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove and Imam Khalid Latif. All were invited to pray with and listen to the pope, who emphasized the importance of dialogue and diversity. The Pope remarked “In opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity o…

The Sex Scandal Following Whole Foods’ Guru

By Michael Schulson

…caring.” Examples include Whole Foods Market, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and, somewhat mysteriously, Amazon.com, which is known for using underpaid temp-style labor in its warehouses and allegedly mistreating employees at its home offices. You don’t have to be a Marxist to question whether these institutions are “fulfilling every major value of the great spiritual traditions.” At the very least, that sentiment might seem alien to wage laborers…

Ponzi Pastor, Bacon Terrorism, & Spiritual Jewelry

By Michael J. Altman

…Disney is marketing its new movie about the triple-crown winning racehorse, Secretariat, to “faith-based audiences” and offering special screenings to Christian bloggers and reviewers. The market for spiritual jewelry is heating up as more and more celebrities are sporting bracelets and necklaces with religious symbols. So, put on your Tibetan “Fearless” necklace, grab some popcorn, and be inspired by a horse. Apparently, the First Amendment prot…

How We Got to Super: Grant Morrison’s Visionary Gnosticism

By Jeffrey J. Kripal

…writes about hyperdimensions, the brane and bulk of contemporary cosmology, and, of course, evolution. These scientific models are never sufficient, however. And so the creators turn to mystical literature as well. Indeed, over and over, they actually call themselves Gnostics, by which they mean to invoke both their radical rejection of institutional religion as so many power-games and the fantastic ways they have encountered Mind beyond the spac…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…ed to a halt last year, when one of its founders, 35-year-old Xulhaz Mannan, a USAID official, was hacked to death by suspected Islamist extremists. AFP noted, “Bangadesh criminalizes gay sex under a law dating back to the British colonial era that has never been repealed but is rarely enforced.” Scotland: Church of Scotland moves toward blessing same-sex couples’ weddings The Church of Scotland’s governing body accepted the recommendations of its…

Founding Father John Adams’ Advice to Rick Perry: Don’t Meddle in Religion

By Warren Throckmorton

…hodists, Catholicks, protestant Episcopalians, Arians, Socinians, Armenians, &c, &c, &c, Atheists and Deists might be added. A general Suspicion prevailed that the Presbyterian Church was ambitious and aimed at an Establishment as a National Church. I was represented as a Presbyterian and at the head of this political and ecclesiastical Project. The secret whispers ran through them [all the sects] “Let us have Jefferson, Madison, Burr, any body, w…