Archive for the ‘religion’ tag
Food, Faith, Peace Focus of Interfaith Seder in Pomona, California
Ding Elnar-Wicker, of Claremont, breaks apart matzah, a bread used in the Jewish passover seder, Sunday, April 1, 2012 at the Islamic Center of Claremont. Elnar-Wicker and others participated in an interfaith seder held by the Claremont Interfaith Working Group for Middle East Peace. Khai Le/Correspondent.
by Jannise Johnson
from the Daily Bulletin
POMONA – For the second straight year, an interfaith Seder has been hosted in what some would consider an unusual venue.
The Islamic Center of Claremont, which is actually 3642 N. Garey Ave. in Pomona, held the event called “From Slavery to Freedom, An Interfaith Seder Experience” on their quad.
The mosque provided tents, tables and chairs for visitors from both the Islamic center, various churches and Jewish temples.
Traditional Seder foods such as Matza and eggs were placed at each of the tables. In addition traditional foods, olives, oranges and humus also made an appearance.
All foods eaten during the Seder meal are symbolic. Olives symbolize peace in the Middle East and the orange symbolized fruitfulness “that occurs when even the most estranged among us are welcomed as contributing and active members of our communal life,” according to information placed at each table.
London 2012: How Do the Olympics Handle Religion?
by Michael Hirst
from BBC News
How do you cater for athletes of nine different religions at the Olympic Games?
The man charged with answering that question for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, Locog, is Reverend Canon Duncan Green, an Anglican priest who has been seconded to Locog as its head of faith services.
His starting point was to form a faith reference group comprising representatives of the UK’s nine largest religions – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Jain and Bahai – to advise on issues around faith in order to cater to the observations of practicing athletes, spectators and officials.
Rise in UK Multifaith Prayer Rooms, a Liverpool Study Reveals
The multifaith space at the Museum of Liverpool
from BBC News
The number of shared spaces for prayer, reflection and meditation has risen over the last 10 years, a study has found.
Researchers from The University of Liverpool said there were more than 1,500 multifaith spaces in the UK.
Dr Andrew Crompton from the University of Liverpool said the increase came in spite of “a decline in the popularity of established religion”.
A Jewish Synagogue Makes a Comeback in Lebanon
Two Syrian workers in the Magen Abraham synagogue. Photo Credit: Natalie Naccache
by Nicholas Blanford
from the Christian Science Monitor
Amid the new tower blocks that are changing this city’s skyline rises a newly restored symbol of Beirut’s multireligious society.
The Magen Abraham synagogue is the last Jewish place of worship to survive in Beirut, a lone reminder that a few decades ago a thriving Jewish community lived in the city center.
The Jewish faith is one of the 18 officially recognized sects that exist in Lebanon. When the synagogue was built in 1920 there were some 12,000 Jews in Lebanon. But the Arab-Israeli conflict and Lebanon’s devastating 1975-90 civil war spurred Jews to emigrate, and today there are only around 150 left here.
On Day of Silence, Religious Tolerance Speaks Loud and Clear in Bali, Lombok
A Balinese man is hit with fire during a pre-Nyepi ritual in Ubud on Thursday. Reuters Photo
by Made Arya Kencana & Fitri
from The Jakarta Globe
Denpasar/Mataram. It was an unusual sight for anywhere in Indonesia: Muslim men arriving for Friday prayers in an atmosphere of complete silence, without the usual call to prayers blaring from the mosque loudspeakers.
But the fact that they were still allowed to go to mosque on a day when virtually all of predominantly Hindu Bali remained shuttered at home for the holy day of Nyepi was itself testament to the high degree of religious tolerance on the resort island, said Ketut Teneng, a spokesman for the provincial administration.
Although religious and administrative authorities are strict about people remaining at home during Nyepi, the Hindu Day of Silence, Teneng said Muslims were welcome to go to mosque, as long as they only walked there and did not turn on the mosques’ loudspeakers.
Integration in Germany is Making Progress
by Jonathan Laurence
from Qantara.de
You wouldn’t expect it in light of the resurgent German debate about the willingness of young Muslims to integrate into mainstream society, but integration in Germany is actually faring better than expected.
With his highly selective summary of a 700- page integration report – focusing on the one in four “non-German Muslims” who resist majority society – Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich confirmed his pattern of expressing skepticism about Muslim integration in Germany.
From the moment Friedrich took office, he updated the 1990s conservatives mantra that “Germany is not a country of immigration” for the post-citizenship reform era by arguing that Islam did not truly “belong” to Germany. He thereby inserted himself in a decades-long tradition of conservative politicians in denial of the country’s ethno-religious diversity.
Germany is lacking the mainstream political leaders who can take away the punchbowl of nationalism and assume the adult role of informing the German public that they are now a diverse society. The new nationality law may mean that most Turkish-Germans would be born with German citizenship from 2000 onwards, but German politicians have still not fully digested the implications of cultural diversity that follow from that reform.
Dalai Lama Wins Templeton Prize for Work on Science, Religion
by Chris Herlinger
from Religious News Service
The Dalai Lama is best known for his commitment to Tibetan autonomy from China and his message of spirituality, nonviolence and peace that has made him a best-selling author and a speaker who can pack entire arenas.
But somewhat under the radar screen, the Tibetan Buddhist leader and Nobel Prize laureate has also had an abiding interest in the intersection of science and religion.
That interest won Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the 2012 Templeton Prize on Thursday (March 29), a $1.7 million award that is often described as the most prestigious award in religion.
The Dalai Lama is the highest-profile winner of an award that in recent years had been given to physicists and theologians not well known to the general public, but earlier had been given to the likes of evangelist Billy Graham and the late Mother Teresa.
“With an increasing reliance on technological advances to solve the world’s problems, humanity also seeks the reassurance that only a spiritual quest can answer,” said John M. Templeton, Jr., the president and chairman of the Pennsylvania-based John Templeton Foundation and the son of Sir John Templeton, who founded the prize in 1972.
“The Dalai Lama offers a universal voice of compassion underpinned by a love and respect for spiritually relevant scientific research that centers on every single human being.”
For his part, the Dalai Lama, in a video statement released during a live webcast announcing the prize, struck a modest note. He said he was nothing more than “a simple Buddhist monk,” despite the 2012 Templeton or his 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
Religion in an Age of Science
by V. V. Raman
from the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science
The benefits that humanity has derived from scientific knowledge and its applications range from the eradication of dark-age superstitions and effective cure for diseases to never-before-imagined creature-comforts and ease of communication and travel. With all that, science’s framework is neither appreciated nor embraced whole-heartedly by the general public. Instead, there are doubts about science’s capacity for objective knowledge, suspicions about its goals, and charges to the effect that it has landed us in life-threatening environmental predicaments. There are deep concerns about its sweeping epistemology that forecloses important dimensions of traditional religious worldviews.
It is also a historical fact that many creative thinkers and scientists in all cultures have been religious. So a group of scientists and scholars founded The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) in 1954. One purpose of IRAS is “to formulate dynamic and positive relationships between the concepts developed by science and the goals and hopes of humanity expressed through religion.” Another is to foster values that have universal and cross-cultural validity.
What the founders wisely realized was that religions play important roles in human culture, and that unless they are informed and transformed by science they could stagnate and become anachronistic. The less desirable aspects of religion have provoked the New Atheist movement, while the actualization of some of the catastrophic potential of technology and the faith-devaluing proclamations of some scientists have pushed many to the fundamentalist wings of religion.
Religions are coming back to the public arena with a zest that is heartening to their followers. But some of their expressions are disturbing, such as the anti- science stance of those who, for example, call for the teaching of ancient worldviews on cosmogenesis, anthropogenesis, astrology, and the like in schools. The resurgence of religions is also of concern to many because some of its expressions are associated with bigotry, hate, and intolerance. But it would be rash to conclude from all this that religions are intrinsically maleficent enterprises. It cannot be denied that religions have been the source of wisdom and some enlightened ethics, and have contributed abundantly to art and architecture, music, poetry and sophisticated philosophy. They also give meaning to individual lives, and comfort from convictions on matters relating to the Ultimate.
There is a crying need to bridge the chasms between the opposing forces that keep us in tension everywhere. The metaphor of the bridge is to remind us that though the chasms cannot be wished away we should never forget we are interconnected, and that we can visit the islands of separation for better mutual understanding.
Americans are Polarized on Religion but Agreeable About It
By Katie Glaeser and Emma Lacey-Bordeaux
From CNN
Forget the economy. Debate about contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage, even Satan, has attracted just as much attention on the presidential campaign trail in recent weeks.
While culture war issues make headlines galore, an exhaustive study of Americans’ religious attitudes shows the public as a whole might not find the debate so enticing.
Robert Putnam and David Campbell are authors of the recent book “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” and say that Americans have a knack for being able to disagree about hot button issues without being disagreeable.
“America is very unusual in being able to live comfortably with the people we disagree with,” says Putnam, a Harvard University professor who also wrote the book “Bowling Alone.”
Putnam and Campbell, of Notre Dame University, spent several years surveying thousands of Americans, seeking to understand how voters deal with religious differences.
Their portrait of the American faithful does reveal some rising tension. Putnam and Campbell found that the nation has grown increasingly polarized as more people either strongly identify with a particular religion or avoid organized religion altogether. But this polarization doesn’t always mean conflict.
“If you only read the newspapers, you’d think that Americans really were at each others throats when it comes to religion” Campbell says.
Where Do “Sacred” Values Live in the Brain?
by Arri Eisen
from Religion Dispatches
What role does science play in what we believe and in how we understand belief? I teach a college course called “Science & the Nature of Evidence,” in which that question is considered at length. Few of my students (few of any of us, perhaps) have thought about it, and they love the chance to take it on.
It matters what we believe and why we believe it. Not just in terms of religious identification, not just for deciding what and how we do things in our day-to-day lives, but also in relation to politics. Take such monumental policy decisions as those regarding health care, or the military. Do we go with what we feel is right and wrong, or—as is the more commonly understood basis for such policy decisions—do we do what will be best for the most people? How about suicide bombers? Why are they willing to lose their lives for their beliefs? Now, we can begin to better understand the mechanisms of such decisions by combining expertise in religion, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, economics, and even genetics.
