Religion Dispatches
…one thing; putting that same theology into public policy crosses the line between church and state. Atheists in Kentucky are suing over such theology – written into the state’s anti-terrorism law: A group of atheists filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to remove part of a state anti-terrorism law that requires Kentucky’s Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can’t keep the state safe without God’s help. American Atheists Inc. sued in state co…
Read More…e away from long-suffering EuroAmerica, and focuses his gaze on the Middle East instead, a very different picture comes into view. In a year where religious tolerance and peaceful pluralism have been major papal themes, the Pope now declares that “Christians are the most oppressed and tormented minority” in present circumstances, worldwide. This is a stunning conclusion, and we have not one word about what metric Benedict has used to draw it. He c…
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…ame question. Critique of the West What Muslims around the world say they least admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values—the same responses given by Americans when posed the same question. Gender justice Muslim women want equal rights and religion in their societies. Respect Muslims around the world say that the one thing the West can do to improve relations with their societies is to moderate their vi…
Read More…nd there is a very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do. I’m certainly not an expert, to put it mildly. But there’s something there that teaches some very negative vibe. I mean things are happening, when you look at people blowing up all over the streets that are in some of the countries over in the Middle East, just blowing up a super market with not even soldiers, just people, when 250 people die in a super ma…
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…nown to have slipped out of the country to engage in acts of piracy on the east coast of Africa, or to help al-Shabab, a paramilitary youth group, topple Somalia’s transitional government.) Then there are the recent arrests in Sydney, Australia of Somali youth conspiring to storm an army base and kill soldiers indiscriminately. And this is not just about recent immigrants from third world countries. Reza Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology ma…
Read More…onspiratorial paranoia. The film offers a detailed step-by-step comparison between Jesus and various sun-worshiping cults of the ancient world. Comparing Jesus to the Egyptian god Horus, the film outlines how Jesus was a mythic figure derived from pagan sun worship. He was part of a long line of mythic figures including Attis, Krishna, Dionysus, and Mithra. They were all born of virgins, the film alleges, and also experienced death and resurrectio…
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…igration efforts as well as illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and elsewhere, supporting and often encouraging Israeli Jewish attacks and takeovers of Palestinian land, as is happening in Jerusalem and Gaza today. As shocking as it would have been, then, for an antisemite like Evans to lead the March of the Living, in one sense he would have felt right at home amidst the Israeli warplanes, soldiers, and evocations of na…
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…en it comes to the difficulty of achieving a two-state solution and Middle East peace, even if many partisans on both sides are hardly pious. But what about Christians? This is where it was most troubling to see religion not addressed in the debate. So, via an admittedly unscientific poll, I asked Twitter whether the Democratic candidates should have brought up the connection between evangelicals and Israel last night, and received a variety of an…
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…ma seems to be saying that religion needs to work harder to bridge the gap between the story that it tells and our actions in the world. It is not enough to provide believers with a comforting world view; religion should give people tools to act upon the sacred ideals that it preaches. The way to accomplish this, according to the Dalai Lama, is spiritual practice. “We are now in the twenty-first century,” writes Tibet’s leading monk. “The world is…
Read More…concern for the overwhelming majority of Muslims. When I mentioned traveling the Muslim world, include in those itineraries American and European Muslims. It’s pretty much a non-practice. Until someone comes along and produces the Big Love of the Middle East; there are, after all, substantive differences. The four wives cannot be related. There cannot be more than four wives. And they must all be maintained at the same standard. So when it comes…
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