Search for "Delta Airlines 800-299-7264 Official Site Number"

Beliefnet Readers: Are You Really Offended by the Word “Feminism”?

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ent years crafting. What does surprise me is this: Evidently a non-trivial number of readers of Beliefnet out there are offended by the word feminist. They don’t just disagree with certain tenets of feminism (which is far from monolithic, btw). They don’t just think, “Eh, that’s not really my thing, but whatevs, I like the site anyway and there are zillions of other people to read there. Oh, say! I think I’ll take the ‘What religion are you?’ quiz…

History Channel’s The Bible Keeps Conservatives (Mostly) Happy and Jesus White

By Paul Harvey

…With a lineup like that, and with Christianmingle.com (a Christian dating site in the wake of some bad press), being a primary sponsor of the show, the audience seems clear, and the first night’s ratings were pretty good, if not off the charts. But so far the effect is far murkier than the intent, as I will detail in future posts. Thus far, the show appears to take too many liberties with the text to satisfy the most biblically-minded of viewers…

God at the Gay Pride Parade

By Peter Montgomery

…of Washington National Cathedral, the seat of the Episcopal Church and the site of many presidential funerals and major national interfaith gatherings. The Episcopal Church, a small but prominent Protestant denomination, has been generally in favor of gay equality for years but the Cathedral leadership has been raising the bar in the last few months. It’s not that religious groups haven’t been part of celebrations before – it’s that gay-affirming…

On the Ethics of the Tibetan Self-Immolations

By José Cabezón

…thers is not only permissible but actually necessary. When all the prerequisites for engaging in such an act are met, this is regarded as an act of great moral courage. Drawing from earlier scriptures, the fourth-century Indian Buddhist master Asaṅga speaks of a threefold classification of “giving” that includes giving material goods, spiritual counsel, and life. Of these three, Asaṅga considers offering up one’s life to be the highest form of giv…

The Racial Politics of Atheism

By Sikivu Hutchinson

…bsessed with church/state separation and battling creationists. Again, the number of atheists of color has grown, but the atheist movement as a whole has not embraced the issues that people of color struggle with on a daily basis. For example, the wealth gap between blacks and whites is more pronounced now than during the Brown vs. Board era. When I drive around in my community I see scores of abandoned businesses, boarded up buildings, vacant lo…

Yes, Virginia, There Were Cannibals

By Paul Harvey

…human flesh: Archaeologists excavating a trash pit at the Jamestown colony site in Virginia have found the first physical evidence of cannibalism among the desperate population, corroborating written accounts left behind by witnesses. Cut marks on the skull and skeleton of a 14-year-old girl show that her flesh and brain were removed, presumably to be eaten by the starving colonists during the harsh winter of 1609. The remains were excavated by ar…

Forget the Pope—We Need a New Caliph!

By Haroon Moghul

…he modern Hejaz area which includes Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca, the site of the Kaaba and annual Hajj, and Medina, the city of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). As such, the Saudi Royal Family believe they are the rightful custodians and caretakers of the Kaaba, which automatically cedes them religious authority and influence. Due to the gift/curse of oil, the House of Saud has immense wealth and resources that it has used for phil…

The Papal Prayer Machine

By Peter Manseau

…r avatar. While some accounts, such as @request_prayers and its affiliated site www.prayerrequest.com, are crowdsourced, others have volunteer prayer teams standing by. @OurPrayer, the prayer request handle for Guideposts magazine, offers a description of its service that could serve as a script for heaven’s own automated telephone response system: “Your prayer concerns are important to us,” OurPrayer.org says, “and that’s why each and every praye…

From Confusion to Kardashian: Misreading the Middle East

By Haroon Moghul

…live tweeted from Gaza. Hacker collective Anonymous tied its disruption of official Israeli Twitter accounts to its intervention against Mubarak’s authoritarianism. Among celebrities, too, there were consequences. Stevie Wonder, a “messenger of peace” and fundraiser for the IDF, canceled a concert for the latter’s benefit. Kim Kardashian, whose prayers of sympathy for Israelis under threat of Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire, drew anger, uglines…

Are Women “Secondary” in Catholic Church?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…h is out of touch, and as the religiously unaffiliated continue to grow in number, how women—the majority of active church-goers—experience the church is hardly a secondary concern. Gendered church language seems as good a place to start as any. The liturgies of most churches are lousy with sexist godtalk. This is the case well beyond the limited texts in which, arguably, tradition and aesthetics make make gender changes difficult. First on the li…