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Since the beginning of the history of human civilization, religion has been used to justify war, intolerance, injustice, murder and torture. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the history of violence in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia and 9/11 are just a few examples. This sordid past is one of the arguments that many atheists put forward in their critiques of religion.
On the other hand, religion has also provided millions of people with comfort in times of need, purpose in their lives and moral directions for their

The highly anticipated The Book of Mormon didn’t quite provoke the highly anticipated shower of controversy we were told to highly anticipate. In the months leading up to its debut, the show indulged the predicted criticism by dismissing it. Its website touted reviews calling it “blasphemous,” “boundary-pushing,” and “crudely provocative.” Trey Parker, one of the show’s director/writer/composers, publicly declared “We’re just not scared… And not like in an ‘Awesome, we’re fearless’

As I sit here typing away on this piece, I do so with full knowledge that I risk offending anyone who doesn’t believe in a supreme being. I am sure that some atheist will bash this article and me for even mentioning the possibility of a God. I also risk offending the people who believe in God. So just for grins, let’s not even debate that

The new Broadway show, The Book of Mormon, opened on Thursday to rave reviews and has immediately become one of the hottest ticket on the Great White Way. Since the show is written and produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the guys who brought us “South Park,” the project had been met with intrigue from its onset; now, though, thanks to all the accolades, some are second-guessing whether the show is so controversial after all. Mormons have even reportedly been fans of the show.
Larger questions still loom. As Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, who both happen to be Mormons, considering presidential runs in 2012, what’s “unclear is how the Mormon faith will play” in the run-up to the election, reports USA

The conflict in Murfreesboro, TN over whether or not to allow that town’s Muslim community to build a new mosque is much more than a test of our nation’s commitment to our Bill of Rights. How this matter is resolved could end up defining the very soul and future of America.
There was, from the beginning, a dualism that shaped our national character. We were, after all, a people who fought a revolution inspired by high-minded freedoms. And yet the republic we formed was born with the original sins of ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples and slavery.
This conflict between our two personalities has shaped our

Who has it? Who doesn’t? What exactly is it?
The dictionary cites that the origin of “integrity” are the words “entire,” “whole,” or “complete.” So if you are a whole, complete, an entire person, it stands to reason you will have integrity. So are we born with it? Do we forget? Can we acquire it? Do we learn what integrity is? Can we think we have it when we don’t? Do we fool ourselves, or have we managed to integrate our internal conflicts into a whole — a person who lives, acts from heart consciousness and from truth?
An easy test: Do you say what you mean and mean what you say? Do you practice what you preach or do lip service? Do you tell white lies, half-truths, incomplete truths, shades of the truth or just down and out lie when you think it serves you to do so? Do you keep your word? Can others count on you? Can they take your word to the bank? Do you call something truth even when you’re really not sure? Do you exaggerate? Do you correct yourself? Do you apologize and make amends? Is there a price, a number, something that may cause you to relax, compromise, or forget your integrity?
I am not talking about honesty, fairness, ethics or moral character because we can all be honest about some things, then skirt the line on others. We can all be fair, especially when it suits us. We can all have ethics when we have nothing to

The expression “Islamophobia” to describe anti-Muslim hostility in Europe and North America is becoming increasingly common. Even though the use of this expression is still not quite as trendy as a Lady Gaga song, one can already find numerous books, articles and websites that expound on the phenomenon of “Islamophobia”. The views on “Islamophobia” are quite diverse, ranging from people on one end of the spectrum who do not believe that there is any significant anti-Muslim hostility in Europe and North America and no need for the term “Islamophobia”, to those on the other end of the spectrum who frequently invoke the term “Islamophobia” to describe perceived hostility towards Muslims or Islam.
During the last few months at least three books on the topic of “Islamophobia” have been published by academics and scholars: Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims by Stephen Sheehi, Islamophobia by Chris Allen and Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century edited by John

All this week I’ve resisted putting something terrible into words.
All this week I’ve been wondering why the Jerusalem burial ceremony for Ruth and Udi Fogel, their infant daughter Hadas and their two small sons Yoav and Elad, seemed so much like a funeral for the State of Israel itself.
What was the meaning of this funeral, and of the monstrous crime of slaughtering a lovely young family in its sleep? For the religious right, it seemed to be saying: This is what you can expect, now and forever, over and again, until the Messiah comes to put an end to this unbearable, unextinguished anguish.
For the rest of us, it seemed to be saying, if possible, something even worse:
This is exactly what you can expect. This is your future. An endless procession of killings and escalation and enmity and settlement and condemnation and heartbreak and no negotiations and a broken Jewish people and no compromise and more settlement and a shattered Judaism, until the day that a vote is taken and the Palestinians are more numerous than we, and the flag which is based on the prayer shawl and the Shield of David is pulled down for the last time.
For years now, and especially over the last decade, the adults on both sides have made children into legitimate targets. And now we, the adults on both sides, have made slain children into legitimate tools — for incitement, for escalation, for the production of more deaths of the innocent and the defenseless.
The length of this unbearable week, the Fogel family has been all but forgotten in the welter of uses that have been made of them, polemic, political,

Four hundred years since the King’s Printer published the first edition in 1611, the King James Version Bible continues to reign supreme. Not only is it by far the bestselling translation of all time, with more than 5 billion copies sold, it is the very icon of Bibleness, the Book of books, the premier image of the printed and bound Word. Indeed, many assume it’s the only Bible. “I’ve never read the Bible,” people tell

Last week I called my brother Leon, who lives in Jerusalem, to wish him a happy birthday. As soon as he answered the phone, I knew something was wrong.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Not really,” he murmured in response. “I had to put Lyle to sleep.”
Named for the Texas country singer Lyle Lovett, the dog had been Leon’s companion in Israel since the time he made aliyah 15 years ago. I didn’t know quite what to say, other than, “I’m so

On Saturday, March 19th, an unprecedented collection of community advocates, service providers, public safety personnel and public health professionals will come together at a day-long conference to chart a new course in drug policy that could serve as a model for the nation. The New Directions conference will examine the decades-old ramifications of President Nixon’s declaration of the “war on drugs” in urban communities like Newark and African American communities in particular.
One of the unique themes of the conference will be how the war on drugs has increased prohibition-related violence, leading to declines in property values, the evaporation of local businesses, and an array of social ills in urban areas. Convened at Bethany Baptist Church, one of the oldest and largest African-American churches in Newark, the conference will speak to the unique concerns and viewpoints of communities of color as they look for new ways to reduce the harms of drug use and drug

There is a famous Buddhist saying: “It is not the appearance that binds you, it’s the attachment to the appearance that binds you.” What does that really mean, and how might it apply to you and me?
If you and I are anything alike, then I know there is a constant hunger in you that longs for something. Just stop and look for a moment, and you will find it. You may be successful, yet still you strive. You may be wealthy, yet still you seek

The recently held Congressional hearing about Muslims in America returns us to the question of whether “Islam is peace,” as President George W. Bush put it on September 17, 2001, or a religion that promotes hate and violence, as its critics allege. Both are wrong. Islam — like all other religions — can be read both

Do you bow down before you chow down?
Do you say grace before mealtime? (By grace I mean saying any prayer from any faith tradition before you eat.) Do you? Turns out this is a major indicator of your political bent, Republican or Democrat, according to authors Robert D. Putman and David E. Campbell in their colossal tome American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. I’ll try to keep some suspense here by not immediately revealing which party does which, but I can feel myself already objecting to being so quickly categorized.
First of all, saying grace before you eat is healthy for

Last Friday, I saw a preview performance of The Book Of Mormon, the Broadway musical written by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Avenue Q’s Robert Lopez. I wondered how Parker and Stone’s tendency toward scatological sacrilege would work on staid, conservative Broadway, which has been playing it safe for a decade with revivals, reviews and adaptations of hit movies, books and albums. (Not to knock American Idiot, a raw, visceral theater experience. I’d trade every show running for one based on a Green Day

Do individuals become more religious as they die? This question has often been debated among academics who study death. Such debate avoids the central issue that the dying process raises profound spiritual concerns of meaning and connection for individuals. Whether those who are dying reconnect, review, or renew prior religious beliefs — or are even open to new religious experiences — they are likely to engage in some form of spiritual searching.
That search may be deeply religious or not, but it is always spiritual, and it can occur whether the person was traditionally religious or followed another belief system, whether the person was a humanist, atheist, or agnostic. Despite this reality, spiritual needs of the dying are often overlooked or ignored by family caregivers, clinicians and even clergy, who may be uncomfortable with spiritual searching by the dying and with conversations that may occur that have strong spiritual significance.
There are certain basic human needs that exist as long as we live — comfort, connection, and care, but there are also three distinct spiritual needs that arise as individuals become aware of their finitude, or the sense that their life is now severely limited.
The first of those spiritual needs is affirmation that the dying individual’s life has had

Cognitive scientist George Lakoff, in his major work of philosophy, Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenges to Modern Thought, explores the notion of time as partly the correlation of events and as partly characterized by metaphor. Time, he points out, is defined by conflicting metaphors — as flow, as a continuous unbounded line, as a linear sequence of points or as a single spatial-like dimension in a mathematical theory of physics. Holding together multiple metaphors, Lakoff says this about the experience of time:
From this we can identify that time is constructed in two ways — one as metonymic (the correlation of events) and one as metaphoric (from an understanding of motion and resources). For Lakoff this is important and holding the twin constructions together we can identify the way in which time is both a constructed and experienced phenomena with out reducing it to any one system of

In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a popular notion called lungta (Tbn) or windhorse (English). The central image of windhorse is a powerful horse that can fly through the air, representing strength, vitality and energy that can meet and transform obstacles.
The image of a flying horse is a cross-cultural and ubiquitous archetype found in various places and times. It represents the “force” that we can harness to face all kinds of life challenges — personal, communal and even societal.
A very wonderful second generation Tibetan lama, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, once mentioned that he felt that there was an almost all-pervasive, low level depression that many westerners suffered from — a difficulty in finding the energy to counter the draining and stressful quality of our modern

Members of the Baha’i Faith around the world begin a season of fasting March 2. “I love that each day of the Baha’i Fast begins in the darkness before dawn when all is silent and I am a bit weary of winter. I say dawn prayers. Each morning of my prayers, the sun rises earlier and earlier and I can perceive this, the bright moon and the sun’s rays both visible at early dawn,” said Cheryl Cudmore, 56, who lives in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on the east coast of

We live in an iWorld. Surrounded by iPhones, iPads, MYspace, YOUtube, the focus is clear: Me, my, I. One need not look far to see this obsession with the self. In order to sell, advertisers must appeal to the

The premise sounds crazy: the significantly named Ignatius Perrish awakens from a drunken stupor to discover that he’s the devil. Painfully fleshy horns have sprung from his head, and he is suddenly endowed with powers no sane person would want. Everything that is nasty in people is now an open book for Ig, and his presence drives them to act on their ugliest repressed impulses.
Once on his way to an altruistic career in social activism, Ig’s life changed forever when his girlfriend was brutally murdered and he became the prime suspect. Grieving and wrecked, Ig doesn’t think his life can get any worse — until he morphs into the very thing everyone believes he

Noor Almaleki, a pretty 20-year-old, was walking across a suburban Phoenix parking lot in 2009 when her father slammed into her in his Jeep Grand Cherokee, fracturing her face and spine, and ultimately killing her. Why? He was angry at his daughter for refusing to marry an Iraqi man — of her father’s choosing — back in his homeland. Noor had different ideas: She had lived in America for most of her life and wanted to marry a man of her own choice. She wanted to define her own future.
This week, justice is being

Crossposted with TheGreenGrok.com.In the words of Alice, “It would be so nice if something made sense.”
Alice, of course, was talking about the strange wonders she encountered after tumbling into the rabbit hole. But you don’t have to fall into a rabbit hole to encounter uncommon nonsense. Following the antics of our Congressmen and Congresswomen while passing a continuing resolution on the budget does quite nicely, thank you.
The House Goes on Record in Favor of Air Pollution
In a 249-to-177 vote, the House approved Amendment 466, proposed by Texas Representative Ted Poe (R), that prohibits funds from being used by the Environmental Protection Agency to implement and enforce any requirements or issue permits for stationary source emissions of six greenhouse gas pollutants [pdf] (i.e., carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons). OK, no surprise there.
The House also forbade expenditures “to develop, promulgate, evaluate, implement, provide oversight to, or backstop total maximum daily loads or watershed implementation plans for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.” I find this to be an elegant solution to the annual dead zone in the Chesapeake

Commerce has no shame–it really doesn’t. From 1919 to 1923, Lloyd Loar worked for the Gibson company, making F-5 mandolins whose quality has never been matched, according to everyone, including mandolin hero Ricky Skaggs, who played at the BB King Blues Club a few weeks ago. There are some few hundreds of these instruments in existence, and their price depends on their provenance. Did Bill Monroe, who invented bluegrass, ever play it? Did David Grisman? It could cost you up to a million