The NewYork Times- The opinion pages JAKARTA — Just a few days after Lady Gaga’s concert in Indonesia was canceled after protests by Islamic groups, I flew 1,370 kilometers from Jakarta to Padang, West Sumatra, and drove a further 130 kilometers, a four-hour journey along rough, winding roads, to Sijunjung, […]
Huff Post Growing up, we have a intuitive sense of wanting to belong or fit in. The emptiness in our hearts says that something is missing in our life. That dormant desire for acceptance gets cultivated into full blown beliefs, usually inherited and taught to us. We believe in things […]
Pulse of The People:It’s not about peace The record. Published: Sunday, May 20, 2012 Islam is not a religion of peace. It is and has been a religion of violence, vengeance, and conquest for 1,400 years. Western Civilization is at war with Islam. Saying that we are at war with […]
Huff Post The central text of the Sikh religion — the Guru Granth Sahib — is a different kind of scripture. A number of features mark its distinctiveness among the scriptures of the world, including its style, content, history and authority. One unique aspect of the Guru Granth Sahib relates […]
Let it be understood that, by and large, Islam is the only unifying factor in countries of the Muslim World. The Muslim heart, no matter how much of a hypocrite, […]
Huff Post Most, if not all religions, function in the world of symbolism and communicate their universal messages to their followers through these religious symbols. Rituals, sacraments, prayers, worship services, religious ceremonies and more are nothing but to invite believers to engage with very deep ethical, moral and spiritual teachings […]
Huff Post (RNS) The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven — a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels — has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won’t be “saved,” surveys show that a vast majority Americans believe that after […]
Belongings of a “GODLY PERSONA” are IMPORTANT # ONE of FOUR – Why the Holy Belongings are Important The Holy Promised Messiah Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, a.s. has ascribed the phenomenon of “Barakat in the Belongings” as below:- Rookhani Khazain Volume 5 – Aaenae Kamalate Islam – Page 69 […]
Huff Post If the greatest achievement of a major study of religion is to bring the curtain down on purely religious research, it really will have done a valuable service. This month the door closes on a path-breaking research initiative investigating contemporary religion. With £12m and the clout of two […]
Editor’s comments: Karen Armstrong presents these twelve steps in a secular tone, while drawing from her extensive knowledge of all religions. This becomes an easy read for one who is […]
Source: BBC By Shoku Amirani & Stephanie Hegarty Kahlil Gibran is said to be one of the world’s bestselling poets, and his life has inspired a play touring the UK and the Middle East. But many critics have been lukewarm about his merits. Why, then, has his seminal work, The […]
Source: Spirituality & Health As a surgeon I have used the word “cancer” — the C-word — thousands of times in my life. I have spent my entire professional life researching it, trying to find ways to resect it, suppress it, and, whenever possible, outright annihilate it. I knew what […]
Huff Post The “God-given vision” started out simply enough: build a 7-foot-tall cross on a mountain and invite people to meditate there with the Creator. Now, 20 years later, the cross will cost $5 million and rise nearly 200 feet once complete, making it the largest cross in the world. […]
Huff Post I was sitting on the dirt floor with about a dozen of my seminary students. Bugs crawled along the walls of the shack constructed of discarded wood, cardboard and plasterboard. Empty plastic bags and trash littered the flimsy structure, hugging the hut as if they were adornments. The […]
Huff Post Looking back on the 2012 presidential campaign up to this point, one wonders why there has been an active effort by some Republican candidates to alienate American Muslims. This is especially surprising since, according to a recently published report by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, American Muslims are […]
Huff Post As far as I can remember, I’ve always looked different. In elementary school, my classmates called me a girl, a genie and Aladdin. In middle school, I was […]
The Nation: LONDON – The Dalai Lama will receive the 2012 Templeton Prize, one of the world’s biggest monetary awards, in a ceremony at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London on […]
Hindustan Times: When Alex Aan picked up a copy of Karen Armstrong’s Holy War from his local library in west Sumatra in 2005, he had little inkling of his own religious battle to come. But after posting “God doesn’t exist” on Facebook, the soft-spoken civil servant, 30, faces up to […]
the guardian Today is Star Wars Day, being May the Fourth. (Say the date slowly, several times.) Around the world, film buffs, storm troopers and Jedi are gathering to celebrate one of the greatest science fiction romps of all time. It would be easy to let the fan boys enjoy […]
Ahmadiyya Times: Several Ahmadī volunteers at a bookstall organized by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community were beaten and abused by an Islamist mob in Kasaragod, Kerala, India. The bookstall was part of […]