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September 17, 2010 By A. James Rudin
Religion News Service
(RNS) The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is credited with saying that "everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
Some leaders of the religious right would have us believe that America was founded as a "Christian nation." The facts, however, say otherwise.
August 30, 2010 last updated: August 27, 2010 07:47:46 PM
WASHINGTON — Nearly a decade after 9/11, less than a third of the country feels favorably toward Islam. Most Americans reflexively oppose an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, and the lower the Christian president's approval ratings, the higher the percentage of people who think he's Muslim.
Why?
August 17, 2010 There is already a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center -- it’s been there since 1985. Men and women pray together at Masjid al-Farah; its services are led by a woman, Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi. The New York Times described it as “among the most progressive [mosques] in the city” and “a quintessentially New York combination of immigrants and native New Yorkers, traditionalists and spiritual seekers."
July 27, 2010 In the old days in Japan a spiritual aspirant would kneel in the snow at the gates of the monastery for several days before either gaining entrance or being turned away.
These days in the West, we have weekend enlightenment intensives promising realization by Sunday night or your money back.
July 27, 2010 Huffington Post | Karl Giberson, Ph.D
Analogies are dangerous weapons. If you can persuade someone convinced that "B is terrible" that "A is like B," then they will have to agree that A must also be terrible. Having established with this analogy that A is terrible, it follows that we must then abandon A, go to war against A, stop believing A, vote A down, invade a Middle Eastern country that starts with A, keep A out of our schools, send the CIA to kill A, lampoon A until it is a laughingstock, or all of the above. "A" must be dealt with because "A is like B," and we all know how terrible B is.
July 27, 2010 The realities explored in science and spirituality are often assumed to be unrelated to one another. Both find their basis in a spirit of inquiry. Modern science is objective analysis, while spirituality is subjective understanding. Science explores the outer world with a series of questions beginning with the basic query, "What is this? What is this world all about?" while spirituality begins with the question, "Who am I?"
June 29, 2010 I want your opinion about something. I’m a liberal religious person who doesn’t believe in doctrines, dogma or a supernatural God. 19% of members in my tradition identify as atheist, 30% as agnostic and the rest Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Pagan or otherwise. Many of us have been wounded by the bigotry, homophobia and dogma in the religions we grew up in and find refuge, support and community in my tradition. We come together on Sunday mornings to enjoy music and hear sermons about social justice, the power of community and how to live inspiring and meaningful lives. Some ministers may use the word God in an all-inclusive way but most choose to avoid the term because of its troubled history. Here’s my question for you: Should I abandon my tradition because liberal and moderate religion serves to justify the extremes?
June 9, 2010 If God is real, and religious believers can perceive him... why is anyone an atheist?
This is a question I always want to ask religious believers. (One of many questions, actually. "What evidence do you have that God is real?" and "Why are religious beliefs so different and so contradictory?" are also high on the list.)
If God is real, and religious believers are perceiving a real entity... why is anyone an atheist? Why don't we all perceive him? If God is powerful enough to reach out to believers just by sending out his thoughts or love or whatever... why isn't he powerful enough to reach all of us? Why is there anyone who doesn't believe in him?
It seems to be a question that troubles many believers as well. At least, it troubles them enough that they feel compelled to respond. And as atheism becomes more common and more vocal, this compulsion to respond seems to be getting more common and more vocal as well.
June 7, 2010 By Rev. Carole Hallundbaek / PRN Host, GODSPEED
"The struggle to put an end to the Wandering Jew could not have, as its result, the creation of the Wandering Arab." -Baron Edmond de Rothschild, 1934
The state of Israel was established sixty two years ago in 1948, but its story begins long before that and has many participants.
One of the more interesting family histories in Europe belongs to the Rothschilds, a Jewish family that pulled itself up from generations of poverty. Their rise began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1744 in the ghetto called “Judengasse,” or Jew Alley. Their name, Rothchild, comes from the German for red shield or sign, literally describing the location of their home (the house by the red shield).
May 26, 2010 Following the catastrophic earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12th, public statements were made by some Evangelical preachers who tried to shame and discredit Haiti’s practice of voodoo. Notably, Pat Robertson suggested that the African-born religion was in fact responsible for bringing on the earthquake – calling voodoo “a pact with the devil” that resulted in this punishment against Haiti.
This accusation added an extra layer of pain to an impoverished country that lost more than 300,000 people in those days.
Max Beauvoir, Haiti's "supreme master" of voodoo, had this to say about Pat Robertson: "I don't know much about him… and I don't think I'm missing much." He added that “to ask us to stop voodoo would be like asking an American to stop heating hamburgers."
May 24, 2010 By Rev. Carole Hallundbaek / PRN host, GODSPEED
NEW LISTING! Stunning architectural wonder on 109 acres in center of bustling European city. Short walk to everything — yet oh-so private behind sturdy stone walls! Expansive classical estate in Greek revival and Renaissance style boasts rare works of art, original stained glass, unique chapels with restored vaulted ceilings, and statues, statues, statues! This sprawling property,which features generous space for public gatherings, comes with libraries of medieval texts, throne rooms and other yesteryear collectibles. Meticulous attention to detail, including gardens, marble floors, spiral staircases, well-maintained reliquaries, secret passageways. Perfect for national museum, world-class mall, university, soccer stadium. Planetarium possibility for dome. Potential Olympics site perhaps as early as 2016. Move in,turn-key condition—slightly antiquated, waiting for your contemporary touch!
I wrote this faux real estate ad for the Vatican in tongue-in-cheek style, but the future of this famous, and increasingly infamous, property may indeed be up for grabs one day.
May 11, 2010 As we devolve into a commodity culture, in which celebrity, power and money reign, the older, dimming values of another era are being replaced.
It is hard to muster much sympathy over the implosion of the Catholic Church, traditional Protestant denominations or Jewish synagogues. These institutions were passive as the Christian right, which peddles magical thinking and a Jesus-as-warrior philosophy, hijacked the language and iconography of traditional Christianity. They have busied themselves with the boutique activism of the culture wars. They have failed to unequivocally denounce unfettered capitalism, globalization and pre-emptive war. The obsession with personal piety and “How-is-it-with-me?” spirituality that permeates most congregations is narcissism. And while the Protestant church and reformed Judaism have not replicated the perfidiousness of the Catholic bishops, who protect child-molesting priests, they have little to say in an age when we desperately need moral guidance.
I grew up in the church and graduated from a seminary. It is an institution whose cruelty, inflicted on my father, who was a Presbyterian minister, I know intimately. I do not attend church. The cloying, feel-your-pain language of the average clergy member makes me run for the door. The debates in most churches—whether revolving around homosexuality or biblical interpretation—are a waste of energy. I have no desire to belong to any organization, religious or otherwise, which discriminates, nor will I spend my time trying to convince someone that the raw anti-Semitism in the Gospel of John might not be the word of God. It makes no difference to me if Jesus existed or not. There is no historical evidence that he did. Fairy tales about heaven and hell, angels, miracles, saints, divine intervention and God’s beneficent plan for us are repeatedly mocked in the brutality and indiscriminate killing in war zones, where I witnessed children murdered for sport and psychopathic gangsters elevated to demigods. The Bible works only as metaphor.
May 10, 2010 By Chris Hedges
It is hard to muster much sympathy over the implosion of the Catholic Church, traditional Protestant denominations or Jewish synagogues. These institutions were passive as the Christian right, which peddles magical thinking and a Jesus-as-warrior philosophy, hijacked the language and iconography of traditional Christianity. They have busied themselves with the boutique activism of the culture wars. They have failed to unequivocally denounce unfettered capitalism, globalization and pre-emptive war. The obsession with personal piety and “How-is-it-with-me?” spirituality that permeates most congregations is undiluted narcissism. And while the Protestant church and reformed Judaism have not replicated the perfidiousness of the Catholic bishops, who protect child-molesting priests, they have little to say in an age when we desperately need moral guidance.
I grew up in the church and graduated from a seminary. It is an institution whose cruelty, inflicted on my father, who was a Presbyterian minister, I know intimately. I do not attend church. The cloying, feel-your-pain language of the average clergy member makes me run for the door. The debates in most churches—whether revolving around homosexuality or biblical interpretation—are a waste of energy. I have no desire to belong to any organization, religious or otherwise, which discriminates, nor will I spend my time trying to convince someone that the raw anti-Semitism in the Gospel of John might not be the word of God. It makes no difference to me if Jesus existed or not. There is no historical evidence that he did. Fairy tales about heaven and hell, angels, miracles, saints, divine intervention and God’s beneficent plan for us are repeatedly mocked in the brutality and indiscriminate killing in war zones, where I witnessed children murdered for sport and psychopathic gangsters elevated to demigods. The Bible works only as metaphor.
April 30, 2010 By Rev. Carole Hallundbaek / PRN host, GODSPEED
The 19th century poet and artist William Blake once wrote,
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour...
In 2005, The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, invited us to see “The Universe in a Single Atom,” a book he wrote on the importance of science in the modern world. In it he shares his view that the studies of science and Buddhism have a similar goal: that of seeking truth.
April 16, 2010 Sally Quinn
Washington Post, Sunday, March 14, 2010
His band is called Junoon. In Urdu, that means "obsessive passion" -- the kind that drives Pakistani rock star Salman Ahmad, often called the Bono of South Asia. The word "junoon" comes from the root "majnun," which means "totally crazy," going by Ahmad's translation. In "The Arabian Nights," he says, Majnun is a character who falls madly in love with Laila, the inspiration behind the "Layla" in Eric Clapton's song about crazy passion.
"Even I don't know what my junoon is," Ahmad says. "It's that whisper which comes from the heart. It might not have wings, but it has the power to fly. People see it as impulsive, but it's more intuitive."
His intuitions have served him well. Through his baritone and his acoustic guitar, he has found a way to bridge bitter divides -- the clash that keeps westerners and Middle Easterners apart as well as the conflict within Islamic sects. His concerts in South Asia often draw tens of thousands of screaming fans. On a more stately occasion, he provided the entertainment in Oslo when former U.S. vice president Al Gore received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Ahmad recently recorded a best-selling CD with Melissa Etheridge, "Ring the Bells," and gave a huge concert at the United Nations in the fall to raise money for Pakistan. Even with all that acclaim, there is not an ounce of self-importance in the way he carries himself.
April 16, 2010 By Rev. Carole Hallundbaek / PRN Host, Godspeed
Sundays at 2 pm
Danish Newspaper Apologizes for Reprinting Mohammed Cartoon
In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon by Mr. Kurt Westergaard which depicted the prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog. It offended Muslims and caused unrest around the world, leading to death threats and attempts on the life of the cartoonist and the newspaper
During this conflagration, another Danish paper, Politiken, reprinted the cartoons as part of their breaking news, adding gasoline to this religious fire, and drawing negative focus to this newspaper as well.
On February 26th, 2010, after years of strife and suffering around this matter, there was forward movement toward reconciliation. What it took: an apology.
This is from a joint press release issued by Mr. Toger Seidenfaden, Editor-in-Chief on behalf of Politiken (the newspaper) and Mr Faisal A.Z.
Yamani, attorney-at-law, on behalf of his clients, the nearly 95,000 descendants of the prophet Mohammed.
March 22, 2010 By Mitchell J. Rabin
Host of A Better World, Mondays and Wednesdays at 6 pm
“May you live in interesting times…” is a phrase bandied about not infrequently these days, perhaps because we all know that we do, and that there’s an “interesting” twist to this “grant”. It is not exactly “May you be among the blessed”, but has a near sardonic tone to it.
Attributed to the Chinese, and said to have been a curse we actually have no extant documentation of this. We have primarily an Occidental source, none other than Robert F. Kennedy in a speech he gave in South Africa in 1966. No matter what the source of that phrase, or the source of these “interesting times”, certainly we can agree that these are.
With science and consciousness beginning to hold hands once again after a long divorce effected by the Roman Catholic church, an institution that does not believe in divorce, and with spirituality emerging outside the box of the temple or the church but blossoming in the streets and in the sanctuary of our daily lives where it is most needed and useful, we are bearing witness to a renaissance in thinking and being. It’s like a veil—in place for a long time-- is lifting.
About the relationship of science to religion and spirituality, it is interesting to note that the divorce occurred in the Western part of the world, but not the East. In the west, a bifurcation was forged by the church fathers between faith in God and the workings and observations of science. One would ask of course, why? If all things are of God, what’s the trouble? It is not only worthy of scrutiny, but one could even argue, even more worthy! To think that something of God were to be found in every molecule, every atom explodes the world in Divine Joy. But, I submit that it was the fear of the church fathers and their own wavering faith and lack of deeper understanding of the Divine Reality that had them buckle under the force-field of fear and pursue the force-field instead of economic and political power. They abandoned the joy of observation and the miraculous nature of God’s creation that the scientists, ironically, reserved for themselves, for a more paltry, very human dimension instead. Not without its benefits, but these are not the joy and magnificence of Creation itself.
March 15, 2010 They plan to become doctors, researchers and professors, but these students from Liberty University, an evangelical school, also believe that God created the Earth in a week, around 6,000 years ago.
![[Polls taken in the last two years found that between 44 and 46 per cent of Americans believe that the Earth was created in a week, somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. (photo by flickr user PsychoBauble)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/uscreationists.jpg "uscreationists.jpg")
Each year, a group of biology students at the Christian university based in Lynchburg, Virginia, travels to the Natural History Museum in Washington to learn about a theory they dismiss as incorrect - Darwin's theory of evolution.
The young "creationists" examined a model of the Morganucodon rat, believed to be the first and common ancestor of mammals that appeared some 210 million years ago.
March 15, 2010 By Sister Joan Chittister, OSB l Huffington Post
John Henry Newman, whose own life was riddled with pressure from the church for thinking beyond the institution to the nature of the church itself, made a comment which in that period of church history was its own kind of heresy. Newman said, "To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often."
The application of that to the church -- the world is changing, therefore the church will have to change as well -- sent shivers up ecclesiastical spines. In this age, of course, the statement may even seem benign to a world struggling to understand the implications of Darwinian science for the teaching of theology, for instance. But then, in the mid-19century, plagued by the myth of changelessness, the Roman Catholic Church defined itself as immutable, as fixed and frozen in time. Every question had been asked. Every answer had been given. Church was a settled science. "Every Catholic church you go into," I was taught as a child, "is exactly like your own. The songs are the same, the mass is the same, the language is the same." Conformity had become the hallmark of the Catholic community.
But before you knew it, in the length of one lifespan, none of that was true anymore. Nor was it ever, if truth were known. The world had been changing, too, for a long, long time. The church has always been in a process of change -- from house churches to royal Roman courts, to the fiefdoms of Cardinal-princes, to theocracies, to a small newly displaced postage-stamp of a nation called The Vatican. The church had indeed changed with every wisp of political reality in the world. Its monarchical liasons disappeared, its missionary character reemerged, its regional quality became stronger with time and marked by its various 'rites' or adaptations to various ethnic churches.
March 10, 2010 (What Would Jesus Tweet?)
By Carole Hallundbaek
The Bavarian-born head of the Roman Catholic Church is renowned for his conservative theology – certainly not for his computer savvy – but Pope Benedict XVI, age 82, recently showed his changing attitude toward new technologies when he called upon priests to embrace new media and "proclaim the Gospel" through blogs, videos and Web sites.
Benedict has had a mixed relationship with new media over the years. On one hand, he has been wary, concerned about its tendency to trivialize relationships, promote violence and isolationism, and create insensitivity to real people and real human suffering. On the other hand, his own online presence has grown significantly in recent years, he has a Facebook page, and he is coming to understand the vast potential of cyberspace in reaching out to communicate and foster relationships around the world. That is, the Internet can be a tool for peace.
(My experience indicates that it is hard enough for parishes to keep the latest newsletter posted on the church web site.)
Benedict, the spiritual head of nearly one billion Catholics worldwide, advised young priests to become familiar with new media while still in seminary, although he also stressed that their work ‘must reflect theological and spiritual principles.’
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