We need more a inclusive label than ‘interfaith’ and ‘multi-faith’

My office recently received a flyer to advertise a program to combat violence. It was labeled as “Women of Faith: Voices Against Violence” and the program was described as a “Consciousness-Raising Multi-Faith Service and Ceremonial Walk Celebrating Women’s Power and Presence”.

The flyer described who was being invited to take part: “We are Baha’i, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Hare Krishnas, Humanists, Muslims, Sikhs, Unitarian Universalists, and more.” And it had separate comprehensive lists for the various ethnicities and professions. [Read more…]

Pope Francis’s interesting rhetorical moves

The world of religion is agog over the extensive interview given by pope Francis to various news outlets. In the interview, he did not announce any changes in policy on the core social issues of ordaining women, celibate clergy, abortion, and contraception, but he definitely signaled that he wants to see a change in focus of the church, away from these divisive issues, saying: [Read more…]

How do you make a smart phone kosher?

By making it into a dumb phone and disabling its internet and call-making capabilities.

From time to time I have been having fun at the expense of religious institutions that try to find ways of getting around the restrictions that their religious rules place on them. Orthodox Jews are the most source of fun, both because of the Byzantine rules that they have as well as for the convoluted logic used to get around them when they become inconvenient in this day and age. But this latest move is one of the most absurd. [Read more…]

Israel going against the trend?

In general, I find that the next generation to be more tolerant, more accepting of diversity, less religious, and less warlike than the earlier ones, which gives me some hope for the future. But on a recent visit to Israel, Philip Weiss finds (admittedly based on personal experiences and not as part of a scientific survey) that the younger generation there was more warlike about Syria than the old-timers. [Read more…]

How not to explain the lack of responsiveness to prayers

One of religion’s weakest points is that of prayer. People are urged to pray to their gods and invariably these prayers end up at least partly being requests for things or other forms of divine intervention. Naturally, prayers are not answered (except by sheer coincidence) so it becomes the task of religious leaders to rationalize away this seeming lack of responsiveness on god’s part. [Read more…]

Terry Jones stopped from burning Korans (again)

The pastor who gets himself in the news by periodically threatening to burn copies of the Koran has done it again. This time he threatened to burn 2,998 copies of it (one for very person killed in in the 9/11 attack) on the anniversary but he and his assistant pastor were stopped and arrested by police as they were taking the fixings to the bonfire site, and slapped with a felony charge of “unlawful conveyance of fuel”, plus a misdemeanor charge of “unlawful open-carry of a firearm”, and also for not having a valid registration for the trailer. [Read more…]

The religious drive for war

There are a lot of people in the US who advocate for war. The neoconservatives are one such group, because they have as their goal the projection of US power all over the globe to establish complete dominance. The Israel lobby is another group that seeks to have the US act on Israel’s behalf and attack and destabilize and even overthrow all the Middle Eastern countries that it sees as enemies. And of course, there is the military-industrial complex that makes a lot of money out of the death and destruction wreaked by the US on other people. [Read more…]

Pledge of Allegiance challenged again

The issue of whether the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance made it unconstitutional to say at state-sponsored events seemed to have been settled in 2010 when several US Courts of Appeals ruled that since no federal law required people to recite the pledge, no violation of the US constitution occurred. Since there was no divergence in the various appeals court rulings, it was unlikely to be heard by the US Supreme Court and the issue seemed no longer contestable. [Read more…]

How far should accommodation of religion go?

The province of Quebec proposing a ban on all public sector employees wearing headgear or jewelry that is overtly religious raised the issue of how far a government should go to accommodate the religious preferences of people. My personal view, and one that I think is consistent with the US constitution, is that people should be allowed to wear what they want provided: (a) it does not interfere with how well they can perform their jobs; and (b) the rule should be such that anyone, whether religious or not, should be allowed to wear similar items if they wish. [Read more…]