HealthDay News - Being 'Born-Again' Linked to More Brain Atrophy: Study

WEDNESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds.

According to the study, people who said they were a "born-again" Protestant or Catholic, or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again.

The study is published online in PLoS ONE.

As people age, a certain amount of brain atrophy is expected. Shrinkage of the hippocampus is also associated with depression, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

In the study, researchers asked 268 people aged 58 to 84 about their religious affiliation, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Over the course of two to eight years, changes to the hippocampus were monitored using MRI scans.

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Rev. Howard Bess - Would Jesus Join the Occupy Protests?

Published on Saturday, November 26, 2011 by Consortiumnews.com

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/11/26/would-jesus-join-the-occupy-protests/

by Rev. Howard Bess

When the Martin Luther King Jr. monument was dedicated recently in Washington DC, I was reminded that the civil rights movement in America was led not by a politician fulfilling campaign promises, nor by a popular evangelist bent on saving souls, but by a highly trained theologian who put his religious teachings into practice with a demand for justice for those who had suffered at the hands of the rich and the powerful.

The Rev. King was a Baptist preacher who took his religion into the arena of racism, economics and social disparity. However, hatred caught up with him, and he was killed.

Now, nearly a half century later, there is another broad-based protest that is gaining momentum. The Occupy Wall Street protests echo some of King’s complaints about economic inequality and social injustice – and the message can no longer be ignored.

The significance of this latest public protest movement, erupting all over the country, may eventually rival the impact of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, yet when comparing the two movements, there is one glaring difference: priests, pastors and clergy of every stripe are rarely in the forefront of Occupy protests.

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UPI - Dalai Lama questions self-immolation

by Staff Writers
New Delhi (UPI) Nov 21, 2011

The Dalai Lama said he doesn't encourage self-immolation by monks and nuns protesting China's control over Tibet and questions the usefulness of the acts as a protest tool.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the 76-year-old Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader denied accusations by Chinese authorities that he is actively encouraging Tibetans to set themselves on fire in public places.

He said "the question is how much effect" the self-immolations have on the Chinese authorities and their more than 50 years of rule in Tibet.

"There is courage -- very strong courage" by the people who set themselves on fire. "But how much effect? Courage alone is no substitute. You must utilize your wisdom."

He said many Tibetans of all walks of life have died for a more free Tibet and the Chinese authorities response is to clamp down harder on the population.

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Michael Beckel - Religious Lobby on the Rise

Published on Monday, November 21, 2011 by OpenSecrets Blog

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/21-4

by Michael Beckel

The religious lobby is on the rise, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The number of religious organizations playing the influence game in Washington has swelled since 1970, according to the Pew study. In 1970, less than 40 groups were involved with lobbying or advocacy efforts. Now, that number has risen to more than 200.

The Pew report notes that lobbying for the faithful is often a multi-million-dollar prerogative.

Pew estimated that more than 200 groups currently spend a combined nearly $400 million a year on lobbying and advocacy work.

As OpenSecrets Blog has previously noted, only some of this is directly disclosed to Congress in the form of regular lobbying reports.

When Congress passed the Lobbying Disclosure Act in 1995, it provided for a few exceptions to disclosure rules, including lobbying communications made by a “church, its integrated auxiliary or a convention or association of churches that is exempt from filing a federal income tax return," as well as a "religious order."

The only instances in which a church must disclose its lobbying is if it spends a “substantial” amount of money on lobbying, if more than 20 percent of its lobbyist’s income is from direct lobbying on behalf of the church or if it hires an outside lobbying firm.

Then, the hired firm is required to disclose that it has lobbied on behalf of a religious institution.

The “substantial” test is a murky one, with little enforcement of it, and as is the 20 percent rule, unless attention is drawn to the organization.

Nevertheless, research by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that lobbying by religious organizations frequently exceeds $1 million a year.

In 2007, the highest year on record, 34 religious groups spent a combined $3.7 million on lobbying and hired 108 lobbyists, according to the Center's research.

During the first three quarters of this year, 23 religious groups spent a combined $1.7 million on lobbying and hired 68 lobbyists, according to the Center's research.

The Telegraph - Meditation improves the immune system, research shows

Meditation improves the immune system, reduces blood pressure and even sharpens the mind, according to research.

The Telegraph, UK,  01 Nov 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8862275/Meditation-improves-the-immune-system-research-shows.html

The practice - an essential part of Buddhist and Indian Yoga traditions - has entered the mainstream as people try to find ways to combat stress and improve their quality of life.

Now new research suggests that mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure and enhanced cognitive function.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, draws on existing scientific literature to attempt to explain the positive effects.

The goal of this work, according to author Britta Hazel, of Justus Liebig University and Harvard Medical School, is to "unveil the conceptual and mechanistic complexity of mindfulness, providing the big picture by arranging many findings like the pieces of a mosaic."

The authors specifically identify four key components of "mindfulness" - the state of meditation - that may account for its effects: attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and sense of self. Together, these help us deal with the effects of stress.

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Adam DeRose - An Interfaith Occupation

The Occupy movement is bringing deep moral questions that many religions confront to the forefront of national conversation. How faith groups are joining in. 

by Adam DeRose

posted Nov 11, 2011

http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/an-interfaith-occupation 

The Rev. Faith Ballenger wears her collar at Zuccotti Park in New York City. Amidst the banging of drums, chants for change, and urban noise, she talks with protesters about their politics, their economics, and especially about their spirits.

Ballenger is the interim pastor at Transfiguration Lutheran Church in Harlem. She knew right away she’d be spending time at Occupy Wall Street, which is, she says, a tense place to be—there is a heavy police presence and the occupiers are often very tired.

“Clergy should be down there,” Ballenger says. “When people don’t go to church, you go to where the people are.”

Ballenger encourages religious communities to join the movement and spend time on Wall Street or in the financial districts in cities across the world. “Faith is an action word,” she says. “This is what faith in action looks like.”

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Progressive Radio Host Mitchell J. Rabin Mondays @ 6pm - Once Upon A Time....There was a Beautiful Planet

By Mitchell J. Rabin

Yes...there was a big, beautiful planet called Earth. And running all around her, as well as swimming inside her, were all types of interestingly shaped, sized and colored beings, each making their own unique sounds, hums and noises while moving about in their own unique ways. SSome walked, others crawled, some swam and yet others slithered. Despite the fact that some ate others for their sustenance, they all had a way of finding time to frolic, pro-create, rest, and those who were on land, bask in the warmth and rays of the sun. And in a strange, somewhat abstract way, all were somehow, more or less, co-existing on this beautiful, blue-green planet. 

At a certain point along the way of the multi-billion-year history of this marvel of an Earth, a green gem of the solar system, appeared a being known initially as Neanderthal, and who later, much later, came to be known as a chimpanzee, oh wait, excuse me, as homo sapiens. Yes, in one of his now considered ancient languages, this meant "rational, or wise man" with a brain volume of a minimum of 1,350 cubic centimeters. What we have learned from biology and history, it is apparently not size that most matters.

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Winslow Myers - Social Psychosis and Collective Sanity

Published on Thursday, November 10, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/10-8

by Winslow Myers

We know from the sad experience of Nazi Germany or Khmer Rouge Cambodia that it is possible for whole nations to become mentally ill, with horrendous consequences. At the time, however, the Nazis or the Khmers had no idea that they were deeply out of touch with the reality that all people are equally worthy of respect and care.

The population of the earth recently surpassed 7 billion. As we move further into the condition of global villagehood, it becomes more important than ever to assess our shared mental health. Collectively we can less and less afford the distortions that afflict the psyches of individual persons, such as denial, regression into infantile rage, fantasy ideation, or blind projection outward onto “enemies” of our unresolved inner tensions. Everyone is aware of the potential horror, for example, of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of someone not in the clearest of minds.

The social psychosis of denial is one of the greatest of our temptations. As I write I’m sitting outdoors on my back porch in Boston. It is November 8. The “expected” temperature for an average day at this time of year might be around 40. Today it is 70. News stories in the last week have once again sounded the alarm of the amounts of CO2 going into the atmosphere being much greater than previously estimated. The displacement of millions of people by climate instability has the potential to be the primary cause of future conflict.

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Dalai Lama - 'Cultural genocide' is behind self-immolations in Tibet

by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Nov 7, 2011

http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Cultural_genocide_behind_self-immolations_Dalai_Lama_999.html

The Dalai Lama on Monday said Tibetans faced "cultural genocide" under hardline Chinese rule that he blamed for a recent wave of self-immolations in China's southwest.

"Chinese communist propaganda create a very rosy picture. But actually, including many Chinese from mainland China who visit Tibet, they all have the impression things are terrible," the Dalai Lama told journalists in Tokyo.

"Some kind of policy, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place," the 76-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader said, in comments that are likely to rile Beijing.

Eight Buddhist monks and two nuns have set themselves alight in ethnically Tibetan parts of Sichuan province since the self-immolation of a young monk in March at Kirti monastery sparked a government crackdown.

Activists say that at least five monks and two nuns have died and that Chinese police have at times responded by beating the burning protesters and their colleagues rather than providing assistance.

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Naomi Wolf - We May Be Witnessing the First Large Global Conflict Where People Are Aligned by Consciousness and Not Nation State or Religion

By Naomi Wolf, Al Jazeera English

Posted on November 1, 2011, Printed on November 2, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152932/we_may_be_witnessing_the_first_large_global_conflict_where_people_are_aligned_by_consciousness_and_not_nation_state_or_religion

America's politicians, it seems, have had their fill of democracy. Across the country, police, acting under orders from local officials, are breaking up protest encampments set up by supporters of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement - sometimes with shocking and utterly gratuitous violence.

In the worst incident so far, hundreds of police, dressed in riot gear, surrounded Occupy Oakland's encampment and fired rubber bullets (which can be fatal), flash grenades and tear-gas canisters - with some officers taking aim directly at demonstrators. The Occupy Oakland Twitter feed read like a report from Cairo's Tahrir Square: "they are surrounding us"; "hundreds and hundreds of police"; "there are armoured vehicles and Hummers". There were 170 arrests.

My own recent arrest, while obeying the terms of a permit and standing peacefully on a street in lower Manhattan, brought the reality of this crackdown close to home. America is waking up to what was built while it slept: Private companies have hired away its police (JPMorgan Chase gave $4.6m to the New York City Police Foundation); the federal Department of Homeland Security has given small municipal police forces military-grade weapons systems; citizens' rights to freedom of speech and assembly have been stealthily undermined by opaque permit requirements.

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Kamran Mofid - Global Crises are Spiritual: A Time for Awakening

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by Share The World's Resource (STWR)

http://www.stwr.org/economic-sharing-alternatives/global-crises-are-spiritual-a-time-for-awakening.html

In modern economic thinking, greed and selfishness are upheld as guiding the ‘invisible hand’ of the market and are therefore exempt from moral consideration. It is time for us to redefine our values and build a just economy for the common good

by Kamran Mofid

Many sages, philosophers and theologians throughout history have reminded us that there are two forces at work in society, the material and the spiritual. If either of these two is neglected or ignored they will appear to be at odds with one another: society will inevitably becomes fragmented, divisions and rifts will manifest themselves with increasing force and frequency

It is clear that this is exactly what has happened today. We have a situation of disequilibrium and disharmony. Only the reawakening of the human spirit will save us from our own worst extremes. Physical wealth must go hand in hand with spiritual, moral and ethical wealth.

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Progressive Radio Host Mitchell J. Rabin, Mondays @ 6pm(EDT) - We Meet at the Crossroads of History

I didn't hear him but I heard that Einstein said that "Time was Nature's way of keeping everything but happening at once..." That is time in its garb as linear, sequential. But there is another sense of time, several as I experience it. Another one is synchronistic, a fine term coined by Dr. Carl G. Jung, to describe a series of events occurring at pretty much one and the same time, or in fairly rapid succession, all of which seem inter-related and inter-connected in some ways that appear to defy probability or ordinary logic, as though everything in the Universe is mysteriously and finely connected in ways that ordinary consciousness cannot fathom on that very same level.

Then there is the idea of multi-dimensionality of time, that it exists with different sensibilities in different, respective dimensions, suggesting the notion of parallel universes. While we're making a God-awful mess of this one, there exists another one, at least a probable one, parallel to this one, into which we could likely hop if we could gather enough metaphysical momentum in one moment.

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Science Daily - Yoga Eases Back Pain in Largest U.S. Yoga Study to Date

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111024164708.htm ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2011) — Yoga classes were linked to better back-related function and diminished symptoms from chronic low back pain in the largest U.S. randomized controlled trial of yoga to date, published by the Archives of Internal Medicine as an "Online First" article on October 24. But so were intensive stretching classes.

"We found yoga classes more effective than a self-care book -- but no more effective than stretching classes," said study leader Karen J. Sherman, PhD, MPH, a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute. Back-related function was better and symptoms were diminished with yoga at 12 weeks; and clinically important benefits, including less use of pain medications, lasted at least six months for both yoga and stretching, with thorough follow-up of more than nine in 10 participants.

In the trial, 228 adults in six cities in western Washington state were randomly assigned to 12 weekly 75-minute classes of either yoga or stretching exercises or a comprehensive self-care book called The Back Pain Helpbook. Nine in 10 of them were primary-care patients at Group Health Cooperative. Participants in the trial typically had moderate -- not severe -- back pain and relatively good mental health, and most had been at least somewhat active before the trial started.

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"Frank Schaeffer" - How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1% to Exploit the 99%

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet

Posted on October 13, 2011, Printed on October 15, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152724/how_christian_fundamentalism_helped_empower_the_top_1_to_exploit_the_99

As the Occupy Wall street movement spreads across the country and the world, we must bring attention to the enablers of the top 1 percent exploiting the 99. Fundamentalist religion made this exploitation possible. Evangelical fundamentalism helped empower the top 1 percent. Note I didn't say religion per se, but religious fundamentalism.

Why? Because without the fundamentalists and their "values" issues, many in the lower 99 percent could not have been convinced to vote against their (our) economic self-interest; in other words, vote for Republicans who only serve billionaires.

Wall Street is a great target for long-overdue protest, but so are the centers of religious power that are the gatekeepers of Republican Party "values" voters that make the continuing economic exploitation possible.

Fundamentalist religion -- evangelical and Roman Catholic alike -- has delegitimized the US government and thus undercut its ability to tax, spend and regulate.

The fundamentalists have replaced economic and political justice with a bogus (and hate-driven) "morality" litmus tests of spurious red herring "issues" from abortion to school prayer and gay rights. The result has been that the masses of lower middle-class and poor Americans who should be voting for Democrats and thus their own economic interests, have been persuaded to vote against their own class and self interest.

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"Dave Gabriele" - Meditation nourishes the brain

by Dave Gabriele

http://www.naturalnews.com/z033850_meditation_brain.html

(NaturalNews) What is it about meditation that invokes so much mystery? When asked, people conjure images of difficult lotus positions, strange beliefs and exotic settings. Of course, none of that is necessary and the realities of a person sitting comfortably on their living room floor for a few minutes isn't quite as interesting. Confounding public perceptions even more are the religious connotations that are sometimes connected to meditation. This only serves to further alienate people who could potentially benefit. This is unfortunate since it can easily be argued that prayer in any religion is a form of meditation. The practice of meditation has a long history in almost every major historical civilization and religion, yet there is so much that is not known.

When we look at the past philosophies and beliefs associated with meditation, we can understand the perspectives of the ancients according to contemporary science. Science has not replaced the old views; so far it has mostly served to strengthen many of the ancient beliefs. However, modern science has been able to fill in essential details of underlining processes.

It has been shown that meditation can increase pain tolerance (see below for sources). One study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience (2011), showed that meditation caused a 40% lowering of pain intensity and a 57% lowering of pain unpleasantness. That is impressive when you consider that morphine and other pain relieving drugs only lower these symptoms by about 25%. This relief came from subjects with no previous meditation experience who were taught basic meditation in a total of four 20 minute classes.

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"Tana Ganeva": 5 Signs That America Is Moving Away from Religion

In between bragging about the number of people they've killed and vilifying gay soldiers, the GOP presidential candidates have spent the primaries demonstrating how little they respect the separation of church and state. Michele Bachmann seems to think God is personally invested in her political career. Both she and Rick Perry have ties to Christian Dominionism, a theocratic philosophy that publicly calls for Christian takeover of America's political and civil institutions. (Even Ron Paul, glorified by civil libertarians for his only two good policy stances -- opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and drug prohibition -- sputtered about churches when asked during a debate where he'd send a gravely ill man without health insurance.) GOP pandering to the Religious Right is just one of those facts of American political life, like climate change denial and Creationism in schools, that leave secular Americans lamenting the decline of the country, and of reason and logic. Organized religion's grasp on the politics and culture of much of Europe has been waning for decades -- why can't we do that here? But there are signs that American attitudes are changing in ways that may tame religion's power over political life in the future.

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"Diane Silver" -Beyond PTSD: Soldiers Have Injured Souls

Saturday 3 September 2011

http://www.truth-out.org/beyond-ptsd-soldiers-have-injured-souls/1315066215

by: Diane Silver, Miller-McCune [3] | Report

John Fisher got his soul back when he visited a cemetery in Greece.

Shelley Corteville felt “rocketed” into healing when she told her story at a veterans’ retreat after 28 years of silence.

Bob Cagle lost his decades-long urge to commit suicide after an encounter at a Buddhist temple.

These veterans and thousands like them grapple with what some call “the war after the war” — the psychological scars of conflict. Working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and private organizations, these men and women are employing treatments both radically new and centuries old. At the center of their journey is a new way of thinking that redefines some traumas as moral injuries.

The psychological toll taken by war is obvious. For the second year in a row, more active-duty troops committed suicide in 2010 (468) than werekilled in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan [5] (462). A 2008 RAND Corporation study reported that nearly 1 in 5 troops who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress or major depression [6].

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"Adele M. Stan" - Why the Mainstream Media Are Clueless About the Religious Right

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet

Posted on August 16, 2011, Printed on August 18, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152053/why_the_mainstream_media_are_clueless_about_the_religious_right

Every four years, just as a presidential campaign kicks up, legions of media types who make their living outside the right-wing echo chamber emerge as a militia of Margaret Meads, descending on flyover country, trying to make sense of that exotic phenomenon, the religious right. In the end, those who actually get it are few. 

From the attitudes shown by media toward the religious right, you'd never know that more than one-quarter of the U.S. population identify as evangelicals, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and among white self-identified evangelicals, 62 percent told Pew in 2006 that they believe the Bible to be the literal word of God. 

These, by and large, are the people who determine the outcome of the Republican presidential primary, thanks to the early stacking of states heavily populated by evangelicals, and the propensity of most evangelicals to align with the Republican Party. And yet, we who cover these races often know very little about the voters whose person-on-the-street interviews they're recording, except to know that these people are very different from us in their view of the world. So as everyday doctrines come to light in one or another campaign incident, the media either find themselves aghast at the implications, or simply choose to ignore them.

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"Michael Haederle" - How Meditation Makes You More Rational

By Michael Haederle, Miller-McCune.com
Posted on August 14, 2011, Printed on August 15, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152011/how_meditation_makes_you_more_rational

It’s no secret that humans are not entirely rational when it comes to weighing rewards. For example, we might be perfectly happy with how much money we’re making — until we find out how much more the guy in the next cubicle is being paid.

But a new study suggests that people who regularly practice Buddhist meditation actually process these common social situations differently — and the researchers have the brain scans to prove it.

Ulrich Kirk and collaborators at Baylor Medical College in Houston had 40 control subjects and 26 longtime meditators participate in a well-known experiment called theUltimatum Game. It goes like this:

One person has a sum of money to split with another person. If the other person accepts the offer, they both walk away with cash in their pocket, but if he or she rejects the offer as too chintzy — which happens surprisingly often — neither receives anything.

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"Adam Lee" - Goodbye Religion? How Godlessness Is Increasing With Each New Generation

By Adam Lee, AlterNet
Posted on August 10, 2011, Printed on August 11, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151947/goodbye_religion_how_godlessness_is_increasing_with_each_new_generation

Something strange is happening to American teenagers. If you believe popular wisdom, young people are apathetic, cynical and jaded; or, they're supposed to be conformists whose overriding desire is to fit in and be popular. But if you've been paying close attention over the past decade, you might have seen any of a growing number of cases that conspicuously defy these stereotypes: stories of teenagers who have strong principles they're unashamed to display and which they're committed to defending, even at great personal cost, against the bullying of a hostile establishment.

For example, in 2002, an Eagle Scout named Darrell Lambert was threatened with expulsion from the Boy Scouts, despite his having earned dozens of merit badges and having held literally every leadership position in his troop. His crime? He's an outspoken atheist. When the news of his beliefs reached scouting officials, they demanded that he change his mind. He was given a week to think it over. All he had to do was lie, but if he did that, he said, "I wouldn't be a good Scout then, would I?" For his honesty, he was kicked out of the organization he'd devoted his life to.

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