More inter-religious dialogue!

Tomorrow (Saturday), a student group at CWRU will be hosting an inter-religious program at the Tinkham Veale University Center Ballroom, followed by a panel discussion. The first part from 5:00-6:00 pm consists of some kind of inter-religious celebration led by people from Protestant, Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu traditions and includes a dinner. From 6:00-7:00 pm, the campus Catholic chaplain and I will join those four for the panel discussion
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Interesting change in questions for the interfaith panel

Recall the post from a few days ago about the questions to be addressed at an interfaith panel that I will be on tomorrow (Thursday). I just received an email from the event organizer saying that they had slightly changed the questions for discussion. The old six questions and details of the event can be seen here and the new questions are:

  1. Why is there something rather than nothing?
  2. Are the gods of all the religions the same?
  3. What happens to us when we die, i.e., is there a heaven?
  4. Why do bad things happen to good people, i.e., what is the nature of evil?
  5. How does your religion address others from different faiths?

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Serving on an interfaith panel

have been invited to take part in an ‘interfaith’ panel to be held at the Cuyahoga Community College’s Western Campus, as part of their Diversity Day Program. The program is open to the public and is titled Voices – A Spiritual Mosaic of Humanity. It will be held on Thursday, April 14, 2016 at noon in the Galleria (Student Services building—center of campus). 11000 Pleasant Valley Road in Parma, OH.
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Adding a cross to Los Angeles county seal is unconstitutional

Back in 2014, I wrote about an interesting legal case out of Los Angeles where a new county seal was being proposed that would put a cross on the roof of an image of a church on the existing county seal. The case was interesting because of the role that history played in it and I discussed the legal aspects of it in that earlier post and will not repeat them here.
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When a militant atheist confronts religious conservatives…

David Silverman is the president of American Atheists and is a person who was born to wear the label of ‘militant atheist’. CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of some of the most extreme conservatives in the country, many of whom are extremely religious. Samantha Bee sent one of her producers to see what happened when Silverman attended CPAC three weeks ago.
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‘Pay to pray’ scam exposed

Desperate people are easily exploited and now another one of those exploiters has been exposed. An outfit called the Christian Prayer Center advertised that they could get many people to pray for one’s need and provided testimonials to the power of such mass prayers. It turns out that those testimonials were fake and that no one actually was praying on behalf of those who sent in money.
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God is not a good communicator

It is clear that god has been jerking the Republican party around. Many of the candidates vying for the nomination said that god had played a role in their decision to run. This article back in July of last year discussed god’s role in the decisions made by Scott Walker, John Kasich, Ben Carson, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee to run for president.
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