Posts Tagged ‘Christian’

News & Submissions 2/22/2011

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

New Zealand earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing at least 65 people
At least 65 people have died and more than 100 are missing after a powerful earthquake struck the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch, collapsing buildings, burying vehicles under debris and sending rescuers scrambling to help people trapped under rubble.

The 6.3-magnitude quake struck the country’s second largest city on a busy weekday afternoon.

The mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, has declared a state of emergency and ordered people to evacuate the city centre. “Make no mistake this is going to be a very black day for this shaken city,” he said.

Power and water was cut and hundreds of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared throughout Christchurch in the aftermath of the quake, which was centred three miles from the city. The US Geological Survey said the tremor occurred at a depth of 2.5 miles. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Burial ground of Bunyan, Defoe and Blake earns protected status
Bunhill Fields
, the London cemetery where some of the most radical figures in history lie quietly side by side in unhallowed ground, will today be declared a Grade I park by the government, with separate listings for scores of its monuments.

The cemetery, founded in the 1660s as a burial ground for nonconformists, radicals and dissenters, holds the remains of John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe, and the poet and artist William Blake, among thousands of others.

In the 19th century, when it had already become a place of pilgrimage for nonconformists and radical reformers, the poet Robert Southey called it the Campo Santo (holy ground) of the dissenters. By the time it was finally declared full and closed in 1853, at least 120,000 people had been interred in the four acres. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Planet could be ‘unrecognizable’ by 2050, experts say
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an “unrecognizable” world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday.

The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, “with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia,” said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, “we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,” said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Read full story from yahoo.com

‘Yoga’ – Another Serious Acid Test For Naga Christians?
I have come across the word ‘Yoga’ for many years but it didn’t register or make any impression on me until  21st Feb. 2011 when I glance through an article, ‘Yoga for healthy living’ in a local daily written by Imtila Sangtam.  She introduced herself as being born into Baptist background whose grandfather and grandmother were the first convert to Christianity from Kubza village on 25-01-1914 and whose father died while in service as a lay evangelist.  She also quoted from Bible- Luke 2:14, ‘Glory to God in the highest’, to support her belief and acknowledges God as the one who brought her to this beautiful world. .After reading the writer’s article, which she wrote in support of her work in promoting Yoga as a harmless exercise, I started questioning myself,  If Yoga is harmless, what harm would there be for a Christian to practice Christian Astrology? Christian Goddess Worship? Christian Animist? Christian New Age? Christian Shamanism? Christian Reincarnation? Christian Tai Chi? Christian Wicca? Christian Witchcraft? Christian Hinduism? Christian Islam? or Christian Zen Buddhism? My intent in writing this article is not to attack anybody, religion or the writer whose purpose I believe is of good intention but to let every reader examine the other angle point of view.

Firstly, I want to cite the definition from Webster’s on “yoga.” It says it’s “a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.”  Read full story from morungexpress.com

The Theological Dilemma of Medieval Neuroscience
To casual observers the history of science goes something like this: Greek philosophers introduced the world to rational, naturalistic ways of thinking which freed us from superstition and myth. Sadly, the Roman Empire crumbled, Christianity replaced paganism, religious dogma replaced rationalism, and progress stagnated until about the 16th century when the foundations of science began taking shape. Of course, the real story is more complicated (interested readers should see David Lindberg’s The Beginnings of Western Science). At the risk of disorienting casual observers, I am going to explore one of those interesting complications: Medieval neuroscience.

The 12th and 13th centuries witnessed a flourishing of natural philosophy in Christian Europe. While creation, the cosmos, miracles and the nature of God were uppermost on the agenda, medieval natural philosophy also included the biological basis of the human mind. The major brain theory of the time was called the theory of the “inner (or interior) senses,” the roots of which ran back to Aristotle (see Simon Kemp’s book Cognitive Psychology in the Middle Ages, chapter 4). In his De Anima, Aristotle identified a number of intellectual functions including sensation, imagination and memory. Originally, Aristotle located these functions in the heart, but the renowned Roman physician Galen relocated them to the brain. Physicians after Galen (precisely who is unclear) put these function specifically in the ventricles of the brain given that the ventricles were highly interconnected via nerve fibers to sensory and motor systems throughout the body. Animal spirits flowing from the ventricles through the nerve fibers could then account for the direction of thought and action throughout the body. Read full story from huffingtonpost.com

On the edge of history
Carleton University will award an honorary doctorate to Aung San Suu Kyi in absentia on Tuesday. I would like to share, in honour of the moment, a personal memory of my own visit to Burma (now Myanmar). This visit inspired a book of poems I wrote and attempted to send to Aung San Suu Kyi, to whom I dedicated the book. Her husband notified me that there was no means to deliver the book to her but that he thought she would have appreciated it as she was teaching herself French to pass the time in her house arrest.

Pagan, the plain stretching out along the Irrawaddy River, dotted with hundreds of ancient temples, captured my imagination. In my mind’s eye I could see the temples, shimmering in a mist of heat. I could imagine richly detailed carvings and ponder the mystery repeated in so many sites around the world. What causes humankind to create great works of art and architecture in one century and then abandon them abruptly to live amidst their ruins for centuries to come? Is it, as in Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse, because of over population and eco-failure? If so, why do remaining citizens not continue the traditions? Why are the noble arts lost? Read full story from ottawacitizen.com

Pilots, boaters adjust to shift in magnetic north
Magnetic north, the point at the top of the Earth that determines compass headings, is shifting its position at a rate of about 40 miles per year. In geologic terms, it’s racing from the Arctic Ocean near Canada toward Russia.

As a result, everyone who uses a compass, even as a backup to modern GPS navigation systems, needs to be aware of the shift, make adjustments or obtain updated charts to ensure they get where they intend to go, authorities say. That includes pilots, boaters and even hikers.

“You could end up a few miles off or a couple hundred miles off, depending how far you’re going,” said Matthew Brock, a technician with Lauderdale Speedometer and Compass, a Fort Lauderdale company that repairs compasses. Read full story from sunsentinel.com

Death Toll From Quake In New Zealand May Top 200 (source npr)
At least 65 people are reported to have died in the powerful earthquake that rocked Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier today.

Burial ground of Bunyan, Defoe and Blake earns protected status

News & Submissions

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Accused pig killer in trouble again
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) – The woman accused of killing and maiming two pigs, then leaving one of the pig’s heads on its owner’s front porch last week is in trouble again.

Police say 21-year-old Ashley Marie Fowler was arrested at her place of employment last Wednesday after they found evidence in her car linking her to a recent church burglary.

On February 9, just a day after the accused pig killings, Chesapeake police responded to the Northwest Baptist Church on Ballahack Road in reference to a burglary. Several items were taken from the church, according to police reports, including: three fire extinguishers and three wooden crosses. Read full story from wavy.com

Indonesian blasphemy law sparks Muslim violence in Java
Indonesia has been shocked this month by two outbreaks of religious violence on the island of Java, involving Muslim fundamentalists who attacked members of the Muslim Ahmadiyya sect and, in a separate incident, three Christian churches.

On 8 February an angry mob condemned a court in Temanggung for its “lenient” sentence against a Christian convicted of blasphemy. Antonius Banwengan, 58, was arrested last year for handing out a Christian book and leaflets poking fun at some of the most sacred Islamic symbols. The five-year prison sentence for blasphemy, the maximum allowed under Indonesian law for this type of offence, was not enough for the crowd. “Kill him,” chanted more than 1,000 demonstrators who attacked the building and police, threatening the judges and prosecutor, the accused and his counsel. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Fortune telling ordinance challenged
MERIDIAN — Sandy Mitchell stood in front of his computer Tuesday afternoon and pointed indignantly at the section of the city’s Web page that boasts of the historic Rose Hill Cemetery and its primary attraction, the side-by-side graves of the king and queen of the gypsies.

“They can use my family’s gravesite as a tourist attraction,” he said,” but they won’t let their descendants do business in the city.”

Mitchell is a Roma gypsy, a self-proclaimed descendant of Meridian’s famed Gypsy Queen Kelly Mitchell and King Emil Mitchell. He and his family have been reading palms and tarot just outside of Meridian for decades, but his repeated attempts to move his business inside the city limits have been denied —  fortune telling as a business has long been outlawed within the city limits.

Now, the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the constitutionality of the law, and the city council has declared a temporary moratorium on fortune telling. Read full story from Read full story from meridianstar.com

Make your own talisman
What, you may wonder, is a talisman? According to Dictionary.com it is:

1. a stone, ring, or other object, engraved with figures or characters supposed to possess occult powers and worn as an amulet or charm;

2. any amulet or charm.

3. anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions; Read full story from journalgazette.com

The administration of magic
I love Harry Potter. I’ve read the books more times than is socially acceptable, and I have been to every midnight movie showing since “Order of the Phoenix.” But like any superfan, I have overanalyzed the Harry Potter universe many times, and I always wonder: Who pays for Hogwarts? Where do the professors get their salaries? If it’s apparently tuition-free, does the Ministry of Magic collect taxes from magical families?In the real world, it seems Romania, land of Transylvania and the largest concentration of Gypsies in Europe, has considered the taxation of witches.

In legislation aimed at helping finance Romania’s debt obligations, Romania reclassified witches and soothsayers as a “taxable profession” one month ago.  Read full story from idsnews.com

Evidence of slave life found at Eastern Shore estate
One day more than two centuries ago, a Maryland slave of West African descent took a smooth stone he had probably found in a plowed field and slid it between the bricks of a furnace he was building.The slave might have believed, as West Africa’s Yoruba culture held, that such stones had connections to Eshu-Elegba, the deity of fortune, and were left behind like mystical calling cards after a lightning strike.

The bond servant sealed the stone into the brickwork, where it would stay for generations, an artifact of the enslaved man as much as the god whose favor he sought.

On Monday, the University of Maryland unveiled, among other things, details of the stone’s discovery at the Wye House “orangery” – a jewel of European architecture, now found to have imprints of the slaves who built it. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

Dalai Lama’s nephew killed while walking road in Palm Coast
The nephew of the most recognized figure in Buddhism was killed Monday while walking along a Florida highway in an attempt to draw attention to the struggle of Tibetans to gain their independence fromChina.

Jigme Norbu, 45, of Bloomington, Ind., was the nephew of theDalai Lama. Norbu was walking along the white line on the side of the dark highway when he was struck and killed by an SUV about 7:30 p.m. on State Road A1A, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Norbu was struck by an SUV driven by Keith O’Dell, 31, of Palm Coast. O’Dell had two children with him in his vehicle at the time of the crash. They were not injured, and O’Dell was not charged.

Few other details about the crash were revealed. In September, a man was killed on a bicycle on the same highway.Read full story from orlandosentinel.com

Apostasy Now
In contemporary America, apostate is a casual term of derision used to describe someone who is in some vague way at odds with a party, as in Charles Krauthammer’s discussion of the two Republicans who gunned for the 2008 presidential nomination: “Giuliani’s major apostasy is being pro-choice on abortion. McCain’s apostasies are too numerous to count … . [On] tax cuts, immigration, campaign finance reform, Guantanamo he … opposed the conservative consensus.” Paul Waldman used the same metaphor in a recent post at the American Prospect blog: “the Republican Party takes a harsher view of apostasy than their Democratic counterparts.”

To risk splitting hairs: Krauthammer and Waldman should have invoked heresy, not apostasy. Heretics continue to claim identification with their religious community, even as they hold heterodox views. (Martin Luther, for example, was charged with heresy—he did not reject Christianity; he just had revolutionary ideas for reforming it.) The heretic might get thrown out, but she wants to belong, and indeed often claims to represent the authentic expression of the faith. An apostate, by contrast, rejects her faith and religious community altogether—like Paul Haggis, Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter of Crash. As Lawrence Wright describes at great length in his much discussedNew Yorker article, Haggis resigned from the Church of Scientology in 2009 over the church’s refusal to denounce California’s Proposition 8, which aimed to undo the state’s recognition of same-sex marriage. Read full story from slate.com

Nigeria’s celebrity preacher wants to save your soul
Dressed in simple trousers and a shirt and bowtie, Enoch Adeboye’s modest appearance belies the enormous influence and power he wields.The Nigerian pastor, known to his flock as “Daddy,” is one of the world’s most influential spiritual leaders. On any given night, he can draw more than a million to his service at Nigeria’s Redeemed Christian Church of God.

His fervent sermons, coupled with his magnetic personality, have turned the Pentecostal church into one of the fastest-growing evangelical congregations across the globe. Read full story from cnn.com

The World’s Worst Place to Be Gay? (source YouTube – TreVelocita)

Sunday Morning Post

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Valentine’s Day: Love… actually?
Valentine’s Day didn’t begin with a pair of star-crossed lovers or a hallmark greeting card campaign — it started with a bunch of half-naked Romans running through the streets  whipping women with strips of goat hide to cure their infertility.

In ancient times February 15 was the Roman feast of Lupercalia, which also included one other rather interesting  tradition: a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box. The lucky, or not so lucky, girl would then be the fellow’s sexual partner during the remaining year. Often the lady would receive a gift or a greeting in the name of Juno, a Roman goddess. Was this the precursor of the Valentine’s Day card?

Unsurprisingly, the church didn’t quite like all this carrying on so they did what they usually did with deeply ingrained pagan festival — they rebranded it. The date was changed from February 15 to February 14, and the lottery was expanded to allow girls to pick names as well. Now, the names were of Christian saints and the lucky ones who drew the names had to imitate the saints’ actions for the rest of the year. It didn’t catch on. Read full story from tribune.com.pk

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Imagine, for just one minute, that vampires, witches and so on really do exist. Where would they go to meet each other? What sort of jobs would they do? In her day-job, Deborah Harkness is an academic historian of science; her novel started, she says, the day she asked herself that question. The resulting opus is 600 pages long, the hit of the 2009 Frankfurt book fair, the first volume in a projected trilogy; I don’t think we need even mention Dan Brown or Stephenie Meyer, or the entire walls of our suffering local libraries given over to “urban fantasy” and “dark romance”.

It probably is worth noting, however, that as a historian, Harkness specialises in the 17th century, the time when, as her novel puts it, “astrology and witch-hunts yielded to Newton and universal laws”; and that she decided, in answer to her own question, that nowadays vampires and witches would probably work, like her, as academics. Vampires would stick to science – the long hours in chilly labs would suit them. Witches would do well in the humanities. It’s a neat concept, and easy to see why the publishers were hooked. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Spelling victory with magic
Supermen love superstition. Or so it seems in Karnataka politics. Yeddyurappa — named after a god; benefactor of temples; pilgrim of occult exotica from the sites of donkey sacrifice to the famous Rajarajeshwari temple in Taliparamba in Kannur district, Kerala — fears black magic is afoot, to bring him to a grisly end; if not politically at least personally. His nemesis and Voldemort is none other than senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah who is so offended by what he calls “character assassination” by the Karnataka chief minister he has threatened to drag Yeddy to court.

The shadowy world of politics has always been inhabited by dubious practitioners of the occult, upon whose advice, it is whispered in the corridors of power, politicians perform nocturnal rituals and pujas, wear saris to bed (as the late NTR did), wear talismans and visit powerful temples. Remember Dhirendra Brahmachari and Chandraswamy?

These days, the action has shifted to Karnataka; the current occult calendar going back to the eve of the trust vote on October 10, 2010. Within the Vidhana Soudha premises surfaced a voodoo doll, a lemon pierced with nails, chopped chicken heads and entrails, eggs, blood, vermillion and strings of coloured thread strewn all over. Read full story from expressbuzz.com

Build respect and tolerance
A WEEK before Chinese New Year, the Prime Minister and his family sent me a Salam 1Malaysia e-mail wishing me Gong Xi Fa Cai.

For those who haven’t received the message, he said this in his e-mail: “May the Year of the Rabbit bring blessings of much happiness, good health and prosperity always. With new beginnings comes new opportunities and as we usher in the Lunar New Year, it is my sincere hope that you achieve success and satisfaction in all your undertakings. Your accomplishments are reflective of our nation’s triumphs, and may we always excel beyond expectations!”

As a Christian, I credit the many blessings in my life to God. But as one who had a multi-ethnic education at the Methodist Girls’ School in Ipoh I accept his sincere greetings and look forward to getting a Salam 1Malaysia e-mail at Christmas too.

The fuss that was made by a non-Muslim aide in the Prime Minister’s Office over a cross at the annual Christmas tea party for Najib last year has not helped his 1Malaysia campaign.

The aide later apologised but the incident led to rumblings the next time the Prime Minister or one of his Cabinet members called on Malaysians to fully embrace the philosophy of 1Malaysia. Read full story from thestar.com.my

Gay couples may soon be able to tie the knot in church
The Coalition government is considering a change in the law to allow gay people to have marriage-style ceremonies in places of worship.

Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone is expected to announce later this week that a ban on civil partnerships being conducted in religious venues is to be lifted.

The move, which could also allow hymns and readings from the Bible, is likely to be welcomed by gay rights groups but met with strong opposition from traditionalists within the Church of England, other mainstream religions and the Conservative party.

However minority religious groups such as Unitarians, Liberal Jews and Quakers, who already carry out ceremonies for gay people, will be sympathetic to the move. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

The revolution that has given Egypt new hope, pride and confidence
Akhem Hassan came so late to the revolution he thought he might have missed it, but on Saturday he discovered that it is far from over. For days, Hassan watched events unfold on television. Or rather, he fumed as the state broadcaster spewed forth a stream of lies about the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“They said the demonstrators were paid by foreigners and agents of Israel,” said the 41-year-old driving instructor. “They said they only went to Tahrir Square because there was free Kentucky [Fried Chicken]. But we Egyptians were afraid of the government since the day we were born and no one would go against it just for free Kentucky.”

It took Hosni Mubarak‘s television address, though, to get Hassan down to the square. Like many of his countrymen, he had been expecting the Egyptian president to quit on Thursday night. When he didn’t, it was too much.

“I decided that for my sons’ future, I too must be brave,” he said.

Hassan arrived in Tahrir Square on Friday morning as the growing crowd seethed with anger at what was widely regarded as the regime’s duplicity after the near euphoria of the day before at statements from the army and politicians that Mubarak was about to quit. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief, VS Naipaul, Picador
VS Naipaul travels through Africa to gauge and gain input on the beliefs of the continent. Much of Africa has changed because of the white man’s touch and the evangelical campaign. The natives are getting farther and farther away from their ‘paganism’ to embrace the new religion, which brings them ‘prosperity.’ India has received and withstood the onslaught. Africa seems to be shriveling under it. As Naipaul, the master of words travels from Uganda, to Ghana, to Nigeria and then finally South Africa, he observes unmistakable similarities of the practices of magic.

“To believe in the traditional African religion was to be on the defensive. There was no doctrine to hold on to; there was only a sense of the rightness of old ways, the sacredness of the local earth,” says Naipaul, whereas the new religions, Islam and Christianity, offered a philosophical base, a book, one god and global connectivity. Read full story from organiser.org

The boy who ‘went to heaven’
“MANY people all over the world would love for this to be their worst day.”

It’s tough advice from your dad to contemplate when your six-year-old has been left paralysed and fighting for life after a car crash you caused.

Incredibly, father of four Kevin Malarkey has not only seen more good come out of the horrific accident that almost cost his son’s life – but if he had his time again, he would not change a thing.

The story of Alex Malarkey, The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, has not only made the New York Times’ best seller list, but has attracted interest from people around the world, particularly in Australia.

After hearing of his plight on the internet, people as far away as Afghanistan began praying for the little boy who suffered the most severe spinal injury, a broken pelvis and traumatic brain injury. Read full story from dailymercury.com

Horse owners warned plaiting could be for theft or rituals
A worried horse owner has issued a warning for people to be on their guard after she discovered one of her animals with a plait in its mane.

The owner, who lives near Shepton Mallet, but does not want to be named for fear of reprisals, fears her horse could have been targeted for theft by gypsies or travellers after similar incidents were featured in the equestrian press.

Horse owners claim the plaiting of a mane carried out by an intruder in daylight could be a signal for horse-stealers returning under covering of darkness. Feeling the plait in a mane could indicate the horse has already been checked as not being branded or micro-chipped and so is free from any identity coding that could prove it stolen when it later comes up for sale.

But other comments on websites say it could be a plague of My Little Pony fans just wanting to plait horses manes. And another correspondent states: “If they’ve got time to plait a mane they’ve got time to steal the horse.” Read full story from thisissomerset.co.uk

News & Submissions 2/8/2011

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

On Evolution, Biology Teachers Stray From Lesson Plan
Teaching creationism in public schools has consistently been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts, but according to a national surveyof more than 900 public high school biology teachers, it continues to flourish in the nation’s classrooms.

Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology. At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light.

That leaves what the authors call “the cautious 60 percent,” who avoid controversy by endorsing neither evolution nor its unscientific alternatives. In various ways, they compromise.

The survey, published in the Jan. 28 issue of Science, found that some avoid intellectual commitment by explaining that they teach evolution only because state examinations require it, and that students do not need to “believe” in it. Others treat evolution as if it applied only on a molecular level, avoiding any discussion of the evolution of species. And a large number claim that students are free to choose evolution or creationism based on their own beliefs. Read full story from nytimes.com

Catholics change position on Wicca and witchcraft
London, UK – According to Elizabeth Dodd, a former Wiccan, in her pamphlet: Wicca and Witchcraft: Understanding the Danger, published by the Vatican associated publisher, the Catholic Truth Society in England, the Roman Catholic Church has changed its position on the treatment of persons who are Wiccans and witches. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353517/Catholic-Church-issues-guide-convert-Harry-Potter-witches-Christianity.html;http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/04/catholic-church-issues-guide-on-how-to-convert-witches. In the guide, the author says that it is important to recognize that Wiccans are on a genuine spiritual quest providing a starting point for dialog that may lead to their conversion. She goes on to say that “whether spellwork is effective or not has no bearing on the psychological damage that can be done to a young person who is convinced that they have summoned the dead, or have performed a spell that has hurt or injured another.”John Lenz, the assistant manager of the popular Kansas City religious bookstore, Aquarius Books, and a Second Degree Initiate of Wicca, commented on the statements in the article. He noted that most former Catholic witches have left the Church because they have been “bludgeoned” with the Love of Christ. He means that they have been told that to believe in a spiritual path not approved by the Church would be a sure pathway to hell and that because people love you and want to help you, you should not follow this path. He points out that true followers of the Path of Wicca do not believe in harming others as the adopt the creed of Wicca, which is “Do what thou willst, harming none.” Read full story from wwrn.org

Which witches?
A while back I watched a rather chilling history program about the occult, witchcraft and witches down through the ages. I guess the main object was to establish as undeniable fact that such things do exist.

With the plethora of horrendously violent, gory and mind-boggling computer-enhanced movies and TV productions roaring forth nowadays, a lot of it replete with magic, the occult and just plain horror, I suppose that younger folks would have thought this was pretty innocuous and boring stuff. Asked if they believe in witches, and they’d probably answer: “which ones?” But, to me, it’s rather disturbing to consider how prevalent such evil activities actually are and, apparently, have always been.

I have a rather large book that traces a branch of my ancestry about 500 years back into England from whence my English ancestor immigrated to America in 1626. I remembered even that obscure genealogical volume contained some reference to witchcraft, so I looked it up and re-read it. Read full story from thetandd.com

St Brigid, a pagan goddess turned christian saint in Ireland
Spring in Ireland officially starts on St Brigids Day which is February the 1st in our calendar? Which may not be accurate as this is a celebration that has its roots along way back in pre-christian times, some 6000 years ago actually when there was no written tradition. Like many other cultures around the world female deities ruled supreme, the similarities between Egyptian mythology and Irish mythology being quite remarkable? For example most people will be familiar with Egyptian ritual from the Book of the Dead, of Isis breathing life into the mummified corpse, well not many know that the same scene is depicted in stone at the foot of a high cross in Ireland. Read full story from irishcentral.com

Romania may get even tougher on witches
BUCHAREST, Romania — There’s more bad news in the cards for Romania’s beleaguered witches.

A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country’s soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don’t come true.

Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.

Witches argue they shouldn’t be blamed for the failure of their tools.

“They can’t condemn witches, they should condemn the cards,” Queen Witch Bratara Buzea told The Associated Press by telephone. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

What gets on your Wiccan?
There’s no denying the appeal of witches. When I was a teenager I was dead keen on the notion of being one. Partly this is because teenage girls are mental, partly it was because I am of a generation that has been exposed to a lot of Duran Duran music videos and cinematic adaptations of Stephen King novels, hence I was of the belief that exercising witchly powers would also involve dramatic backlighting and some kind of localised wind generation that would make your hair look all supernatural and cool. So clearly, my interest was deeply spiritual.

And this interest was very superficial. I never read any books on Witchcraft or attempted any spells. Why spend time gathering ingredients, following a specific set of instructions and then crossing your fingers that it all works if you don’t get a banana cake at the end of it? Madness.

No, really any tendency toward the Wiccan crafts that I might have had was slight and probably stemmed from a love of the book The Changeover by Margaret Mahy as well as a general feeling that I was a bit of a dork and wouldn’t it be cool if you could get the upper hand with some kind of magic (because sure as eggs, I wasn’t going to get anywhere on social cachet alone, given that I didn’t have any). And then I grew up and realised that a good vocabulary, manners, and confident demeanour (faked) could be just as useful. And suddenly a desire to do magic only reared its hopeful head in the changing cubicles in women’s fashion outlets. Basically, I figured out that I don’t need so much of a helping hand as I may have thought (except with skinny jeans). But I did think it would be cool to make stuff fly across the room (Lord knows it’s sometimes a chore getting up to fetch that remote control from the coffee table). Read full story from stuff.co.nz

Jury told of ‘witch stuff’, then killing
A man accused of a stabbing death then inflicting knife wounds to himself, claimed the dead man had been calling up Maori gods and going on about “witch stuff’, a jury in the High Court at Rotorua was told today.On trial is Christopher Allan Heenan, 51, an artist, carver and tattooist, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Raukawa Newton, 38, at Rotorua on October 11, 2007.

Opening the Crown’s case, prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch said Newton had suffered from a bi-polar illness but with medication this was under control at the time of his death, although his condition could be aggravated by alcohol. Read full story from tvnz.co.nz

Revisiting the “Moon”: An Interview with Ben Whitmore
Ben Whitmore shares what led him to author of a critique of Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon.

Editor’s Note: Ben Whitmore is an Alexandrian High Priest, Co-Freemason, Morris dancer, artist, and software engineer. He is the author of Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft, a critique of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. You can read an excerpt of his book on his website. He lives in rural Auckland, New Zealand, with his partner and daughter. Read full story from pantheos.com

Revisiting the “Moon”: An Interview with Ben Whitmore
Ben Whitmore shares what led him to author of a critique of Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon.

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News & Submissions 2/3/2011

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

How to convert witches to Catholicism
Witches can and should be converted to Catholicism, according to a robust new booklet from the Catholic Truth Society that portrays spell-casting as spiritually empty, exhausting and immoral. Instead of “seeking to change God’s mind or violently alter his plans through circle-casting”, it says, Wiccans should be encouraged to surrender this often frightening burden and accept the love of Christ.

In other words, come to Mass, leaving your broomstick at the door.

Actually, I should make it clear that Wicca & Witchcraft: Understanding the dangers by Elizabeth Dodd doesn’t make any silly cracks about broomsticks. But I can’t resist. There’s no eco-bore like a Wiccan eco-bore. I’ve met a few and, believe me, you need to be under a spell to sit through a three-hour whinge about Mother Gaia from a practitioner of white magick. It makes one long for the days when witches restricted themselves to a quick cackle before riding off into the night. (Just kidding, witches and pagans! Seriously, last time I had a go at them they reported me to the Press Complaints Commission, which proved resistant to their magick.) Read full story from telegraph.co.uk

Pagan Spirit Gathering Moves to Illinois
Pagan Spirit Gathering, one of America’s oldest and largest outdoor Pagan festivals, has announced that it has moved its base of operations from Missouri to Illinois. This is the festival’s second move since cutting ties in 2009 with Wisteria (and Ohio-based Pagan-friendly campground). Read full story from wildhunt.org

Coffin abandoned in woods sparks mystery
About a month ago, Scott Owens set out to find a prime fishing spot near Slidell.

The 37-year-old outdoors photographer from River Ridge thought he had found one off winding, tree-lined McManus Road. But before he crossed the woods and got to the water, he stumbled across an open and empty casket that might have been unearthed from a nearby graveyard that was flooded during Hurricane Katrina.

Owens, struck by the mystery of whom it belonged to, called a local television news reporter. The reporter notified authorities and aired a story about the discovery during the weekend, launching an effort to find the deceased person’s relatives and properly recover the coffin.

But on Monday, coroner’s office investigators determined that the woman who once rested in the casket is indeed properly buried. Though Hurricane Katrina’s flooding unearthed the coffin years ago, authorities subsequently managed to recover the remains and bury them again; the funeral box, however, was apparently discarded nearby and forgotten. Read full story from nola.com

The stuff of folklore
THE Rabbit or Hare is an emblem of longevity and is regarded as a symbol of fertility or innocence (a prey animal). The fourth animal sign in the 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac, the Rabbit has built a legend that revolves around the Moon.

In Chinese astrology, the year 2011 is said to be the Year of the Rabbit.

According to Chinese folklore, the white Hare with its gleaming fur is a divine creature that has lived 1,000 years. Its coat was blue if it lived only 500 years, according to author Ruth Q. Sun in The Asian Animal Zodiac.

Legend has it that during the Chou Dynasty, white hares once frisked on the streets of Ch’ang-an, the capital city. Thereafter, it became customary that whenever a white hare was found, it would be caught and delivered to the emperor. Read full story from thestar.com

Vikings considered Stone Age objects ‘to have magical qualities’
Oslo, Feb 3 (ANI): Vikings considered Stone Age objects to have magical qualities, and such ‘antiques’ were more important in Viking culture than previously understood, according to new archaeological findings.

Excavation of around 10 Viking graves in Rogaland, southwest Norway, had uncovered Stone Age items, such as weapons, amulets and tools.

Olle Hemdorff of Archaelogical Museum in Stavanger told Aftenposten newspaper that he believes these items were buried so that ‘they would protect and bring luck to the dead in the after-life’. Read full story from yahoo.com

Chilean miner sheds light on underground religious life
One of the rescued Chilean miners shed new light Thursday on the intense religious and spiritual experiences of many of the miners while trapped underground for 52 days last year, saying that faith was a key part of surviving t he ordeal.

“We realized we had only one alternative and that was God himself,” said Jose Henriquez in an address to the National Prayer Breakfast on in Washington, speaking to a crowd that included President Barack Obama.

“We were different creeds and churches,” Henriquez said, speaking in Spanish with simultaneous translation. “So I got them in a circle and made sure everyone could pray in a participatory fashion. And as we prayed we began to know the presence and blessing among us of God in the mine. We were strengthened, our spirits were revived.” Read full story from cnn.com

Download: Cult Of Youth’s Unnerving Goth-Folk Terror “New West”
Lean toward the folksy and brooding? Not afraid of the dark? Chances are you’ll bump into Cult of Youth frontman Sean Ragon in 2011, as his New Year’s resolutions seem to make him the busiest man in the Brooklyn indie underground. After quitting his house-painting job and vowing to go “all in,” Ragon has become a black-clad mogul-in-training. There’s his vintage record store, Heaven Street, located in the back of Greenpoint’s Fox & Fawn: “As far as used vinyl goes, it’s highly edited, so no endless rows of Molly Hatchet records.” There’s his record label, Blind Prophet: “I’m up to the fifth release now — the amazing debut LP from the Argentinean duo Mueran Humanos, out Valentine’s Day.” And of course, there’s his own band, Cult of Youth, which has evolved from a bedroom project into a fleshed-out goth-folk-punk terror. Mixing the unnerving shanties of The Wicker Man with the post-apocalyptic strum of Current 93 or Angels of Light, Cult of Youth is definitely walking in the shadows, even if their jaunty, fiery grooves remind us more of Wall of Voodoo, Adam Ant, and Big Country. The Morricone-core of “New West” is the first track off their self-titled debut (due February 22 on Sacred Bones), a rollicking dust-sucker that teams a Gun Club-style twang-punk screed with soaring strings and post-industrial ‘tude. Read full story from villagevoice.com

TRENDING: Obama delivers major speech on personal faith
President Barack Obama gave an unusually personal speech about his religious faith on Thursday, saying that “it is the biblical injunction to serve the least of these that keeps me going and keeps me from being overwhelmed,” in address to a prayer breakfast in Washington.

The speech, delivered at the National Prayer Breakfast, comes on the heels of public opinion surveys that show only a minority of Americans know that Obama is a Christian and that a growing number believe he’s a Muslim. Read full story from cnn.com

Visitors to Reading shop say Virgin Mary statue is crying
READING, Ohio – Some are calling it a miracle.

There is a statue of the Virgin Mary that appears to be crying tears inside a Reading shop.

In the back of the small shop is a statue of Mother Mary. It looks like she is weeping and there are two teardrops on her face.

The statue of Mother Mary crying inside Our Lady Queen of Reading religious lending library is bringing tears to some visitors’ eyes. Read full story from wcpo.com

News & Submissions 1/19/2011

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

International Pagan Coming Out Day – May 2
Coming out to someone is a decision only you can make and it’s a decision best made when you are ready to do so. IPCOD encourages Pagans who are ready to come on out!

There are benefits, personally and for our religious community as a whole, as more Pagans come out. Some of these benefits include the reduction of anxiety caused by living a double life and creating a climate of greater acceptance for all Pagans. Read full story from pagancomingoutday.com

Bountiful a ‘cult,’ says polygamous leader’s brother
The isolated polygamous commune of Bountiful, B.C., is a “cult” where religion is used to control residents and take away their rights, says the brother of one the community’s leaders.

Truman Oler, whose brother James leads one of two divided factions within Bountiful, left the fundamentalist Mormon community in southeastern B.C. several years ago and has rarely seen his family since.

Oler, now 29, testified Tuesday at a B.C. court case examining Canada’s anti-polygamy law, describing a community where children are taught from an early age that anything less than complete obedience — including entering into polygamous marriages– would mean an eternity in hell.

“My thinking about Bountiful and the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) has evolved the longer I have been away from the community,” Truman said in a written affidavit filed in advance of his testimony.

“I now think that the FLDS is like a cult and that it is damaging for children to grow up in that environment. The FLDS does not permit anyone free choice. You are told what to do.” Read full story from ctvbc.ctv.ca

Savannah officials reject ghost film in cemetery
The Syfy TV channel wants to shoot an epsiode in a Savannah cemetery, but city officials won’t approve the idea.

Producers want to film an episode of “Fact or Faked,” which would examine a tourist’s 2008 claim that he filmed a ghostly image of a boy running through the cemetery.

Acting City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney and Jerry Flemming, director of cemeteries, say they’re following city policy on the use of cemeteries.

“The municipal cemeteries are not for sensational or entertainment purposes. Any tours or events marketed as haunted, paranormal, or involving ghosts, spiritualists or mediums are strictly prohibited from any of the municipal cemeteries,” the policy states.

Aldermen Tony Thomas, Mary Ellen Sprague, Clifton Jones and Larry Stuber agreed the sanctity of the cemetery and the respect owed to the deceased and their families has to be considered. Read full story from ajc.com

Faith & Religion: ‘Living Library’ allows the curious to explore other faiths at Ann Arbor event
In small circles inside the Social Hall at the Temple Beth Emeth/St. Clare Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, “patrons” leaned in close to hear “living books” like Doug Jackson talk about their religious experiences.

As part of the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County’s “Living Library” program last Sunday, representatives from various religions and faiths shared their experiences and answered questions while maintaining the feel of a traditional library.

“My first patron asked about my life, the success and failures in my own practice of Christian Science,” said Jackson, representing the First Church of Christ, Scientists.

Each representative was given a call number and patrons were allowed a 20-minute checkout.

“It’s nice for me to hear the variety of paths people have taken,” said Mark Salzer of Ann Arbor Township.

Salzer, who attends a Mennonite church, was conflicted as to whether he wanted to look into the Pagan or Universalist faiths next after having heard about Science of the Mind. Read full story from annarbor.com

An act of faith, desperation or protest: Self-immolations through time
(CNN) — Night had fallen when the men heard the sounds on the mountain. First it was a chime, then a recitation of verses, followed by the crackle of wood burning. They scrambled to the summit to see what was happening.

There, seated with his palms together and facing west, was their friend. Flames leapt around the peaceful man, engulfing him. It was just as he’d intended.

The year was 527.

This story of Daodu, a Buddhist monk, is told in James Benn’s “Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism.” Benn, an associate professor of religion at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, writes that the act of setting one’s self on fire dates back in Chinese Buddhist tradition to the late fourth century.

But no matter how old, self-immolation still leaves people horrified, riveted and moved. Read full story from cnn.com

Psychotherapy and the healing power of narrating a life
An important part of the psychotherapy process, as I understand it and have practiced it, involves constructing a narrative of one’s life.

This may seem like a curious task given that we all know or should know the story of our lives. We’ve been imagining the movie to be made from that story forever, right?

Well, that may be true of some us, but a surprising number of people actually don’t have a coherent story: something that hangs together, makes sense, and has some internal consistency. The story may have large, important chunks missing. Or the narrative is fragmented and chaotic. Sometimes the story is there but it is self-condemnatory and unfair.

A woman who was raped at the age of 16 was telling herself that she consented to sex with a man much older than she was, someone she barely knew. She thought of herself as a slut. All the adults in her family would agree (if they knew the story): a 16-year-old is a grown-up and responsible for her actions. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

India must face up to Hindu terrorism
For far too long, the enduring response of the Indian establishment to Hindu nationalists has rarely surpassed mild scorn. Their organised violent eruptions across the country – slaughtering Muslims and Christians, destroying their places of worship, cutting open pregnant wombs – never seemed sufficient enough to the state to cast them as a meaningful threat to India’s national security.

But the recently leaked confession of a repentant Hindu priest, Swami Aseemanand, confirms what India’s security establishment should have uncovered: a series of blasts between 2006 and 2008 were carried out by Hindu outfits. The attacks targeted a predominantly Muslim town and places of Muslim worship elsewhere. Their victims were primarily Muslim. Yet the reflexive reaction of the police was to round up young Muslim men, torture them, extract confessions and declare the cases solved. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Russians seek omens and foretell husbands in winter ritual
MOSCOW — On winter nights set aside for fortune telling, young Russian women drip hot wax, throw shoes out of the window and crumple newspapers, hoping to foresee their future husbands and careers.

In a ritual vividly described in 19th century literature and still alive today, Russians tell fortunes in the evenings between Russian Orthodox Christmas (January 6-7) and the festival of Epiphany on January 19.

While fortune-telling is practised between Christian holidays, it is frowned upon by the Russian Orthodox Church, which sees it as a remnant of paganism. Read full story from google.com

Church letter warns against mandatory reporting of child sex abuse
Belfast, Northern Ireland (CNN) — Irish victims of sexual abuse are “disgusted” by a newly revealed letter in which a Vatican official expresses “serious reservations” about requiring bishops to report suspected abuse by priests to police, they said Wednesday.

Abuse survivors will question the cardinal leading a special papal delegation to Ireland about the letter, they said.

“We are disgusted by details revealed in the letter. Many of our members just can’t take this in and have been deeply affected by the revelations,” Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse spokeswoman Margaret McGuckin told CNN. Read full story from cnn.com

Yoga For Unity Flash Mob (source YouTube – YogaForUnity)

Unreported World: Witches on Trial (source YouTube – TrVelocita)

News & Submissions 1/12/2011

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Haiti one year on: “living in a tent is not really a life”
The angelical voices of a choir dressed in pristine white singing hallelujahs do not match the hellish scenery that surrounds them: piles of debris, an acid stingy smell of rotten rubbish, women crying while waving their hands at the skeleton of what used to be the country’s main Catholic church, Cathédrale Notre Dame de L’Assomption, thanking God for still being alive, but some also blaming him for plunging the Caribbean country into an abyss.

Exactly a year ago the earth grumbled violently, killing 230,000 people and flattening the cities along the centre of an impoverished country that is now no more than a mass of rubble and twisted iron. Today, broken Haitians are commemorating their losses following their hearts and their faiths. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Faith: Local community responds to hate by celebrating religious freedom day
This year, many in Ann Arbor will celebrate our local religious diversity and freedom through community service, discussion, and learning about other faiths as they mark Religious Freedom Day on Jan. 16. While these activities affirm respect and inclusion, they come in response to bigotry and harassment.

When Bryan Weinert saw the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in September of last year, including the stabbing of a New York cab driver for being Muslim, vandalism of mosques and a burnt Qur’an left outside a mosque in East Lansing, he felt that it was important for the community to respond.

Weinert, who serves as the board president for the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ), explains, “I saw the hatred, the animosity and the violence, and I thought, ‘This isn’t how we should be treating members of our community.’” So ICPJ began working with local faith leaders, the Ann Arbor City Council and others to respond to the anti-Muslim activities and promote a community that welcomes and respects all. Read full story from annarbor.com

Phelps won’t picket girl’s funeral
Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church won’t picket the funeral of a 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., in exchange for getting airtime on two radio stations, a church spokeswoman said Wednesday morning.

Church members earlier had announced plans to picket the funeral of the girl, Christina Taylor Green, who was one of six people killed during Saturday’s shooting spree that also wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

However, Shirley Phelps-Roper, a spokeswoman for the Westboro church, said KXXT-AM, a 50,000-watt radio station in the Phoenix suburb of Tolleson, Ariz., and Canadian station CFNY-FM, 102.1 “The Edge” in Toronto, offered to give the Topeka church airtime to discuss its views in exchange for its members not picketing the girl’s funeral. Read full story from cjonline.com

Interview with P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, Founder of Ekklesía Antínoou
I was fortunate enough to spend some time this past week with Pagan author P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, a scholar, devotee of Antinous, and author of the book The Phillupic Hymns through Bibliotheca Alexandrina and The Syncretisms of Antinous through The Red Lotus Library. He’s been doing some fascinating work in reviving the cultus of the God Antinous within contemporary Reconstructionist Paganisms, so I was very happy when he agreed to answer a few questions.

This interview took place on November 7, 2010. Read full story from patheos.com

Alcohol poisoning, not avian flu, killed Romanian birds
Birds that were thought to have died from avian flu in Romania instead apparently drank themselves to death.

Residents of Constanta in eastern Romania found dozens of dead starlings on the outskirts of the city on Saturday.

They alerted authorities, fearing the birds had died from avian flu.

But local veterinary officials decided the starlings had died after eating grape ‘marc’ – the leftovers from the wine-making process. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Casting a spell on the government
THERE’S been a lot of talk about the rising popularity of paganism and witchcraft in Wales.

So here’s their chance to do something about VAT and all those hidden taxes.

Simply consult their Romanian sisters like Bratara Buzea, who, although she sounds like a Mafia hitman, is actually the Queen Witch of that country. For years Romanian witches have gone about their eerie business untaxed. Read full story from walesonline.co.uk

Religion is not needed to teach morality
The question: Should schools require Christian worship?

I asked my nine-year-old son, who attends an ordinary – though high-achieving – primary school in Clapham, what the “collective worship” mandated by English law in his school assemblies consists of. He reports that his assemblies feature a hodgepodge of broad brush-stroke outlines of a variety of religious festivals – Diwali, Eid, harvest festival – mixed in with basic moral messages about things like bullying (bad), being kind (good) and the dangers of Facebook (many). God, he was pretty sure, has never been mentioned and nothing he would describe (within his admittedly limited experience) as “worship” has ever taken place. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Why people abandon religion
The question of why some people lose their faith and what to do about it has long vexed those who don’t – check the Old Testament for some heated discourse on the topic. Recent polling indicates that the trend toward secularism has increased – even in the United States, one of the most religious countries in the world. The results of the latest American Religious Identification Survey (Aris) reveal that the “nones” – people whose stated religious affiliation is “none” – have grown from 8.1% in 1990, the first year the study was conducted, to 15% in 2008.

A November 2010 article in Christianity Today sought to discover why, and cited “moral compromise” as the first reason, meaning that people leave religion because they want to do things religion forbids, such as have premarital sex. Other reasons include intellectual doubts and being hurt in some way by a church.

Recognising the necessity of understanding specific reasons for specific departures, I propose an overarching reason for why people abandon religion: they leave when the tension becomes too great between what they want and need, and what religion tells them they should want and need. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Jared Lee Loughner apparently sought community online at Abovetopsecret.com
The Web site Abovetopsecret.com is a place where odd ideas are welcome: Its discussion threads ask questions about UFO sightings, evidence of God, and “How do you kill an alien zombie?”

But it became an unwelcome place for a new user, who joined the site in early 2009 and called himself “Erad3.” Now – based on the language in his postings, and information about where he logged on – the site’s operators believe Erad3 was accused Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner, 22.

“I’d go with 99 percent,” said Bill Irvine, chief executive of the site’s parent company, when asked how certain he was that Erad3 and Loughner were the same person.

The story of those postings – now compiled online at Abovetopsecret.com – adds new detail to the story of Loughner’s apparent unraveling. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

Skull pulled from box renews Bradenton mystery
BRADENTON
– Police here are trying to solve a mystery over how an unidentified human skull sat in a box in their property room for more than 35 years until it was discovered last week.

And they have virtually no records to indicate to whom it belongs or what happened to the person.

In late 1974, someone found a human skull submerged in 4 inches of water in an area vaguely described as “near Bradenton.”

The skull was apparently sent by the Bradenton Police Department to the FBI and back again to the local agency’s evidence room, where it was wrapped in newspaper, put in a box, marked with the word “SKULL” and forgotten.

Until last week. Detectives, sifting through old evidence to see if any of it could be used to crack cold cases, found the box, and the skull, and are now trying to figure out to whom it belongs. Read full story from heraldtribune.com

Authorities handling fallout of breaking up polygamist cult
One year after police raided the Tel Aviv headquarters of a suspected polygamist cult that involved some 40 children and 20 women, welfare authorities say they are still dealing intensely with the fallout and rehabilitation process of the cult members as they return to live a normative life.

According to information published Tuesday by the Welfare and Social Services Ministry, the 20 wives and 40 children of the yet-to-be convicted cult leader Goel Ratzon continue to receive a wide range of welfare services, including constant psychological monitoring.

“The Goel Ratzon affair is a clear sign that we have a policy of zero tolerance to cults and other groups that prey on vulnerable women and children,” Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog said in a statement Tuesday. Read full story from jpost.com

Jewish groups respond to Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’
Several Jewish groups are criticizing Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” in her video statement on the Arizona shootings. The phrase traditionally refers to false anti-Semitic myths about Jews using the blood of Christians, often children, in their rituals.

[Defining terms: What is "blood libel"?] Read full story from yahoo.com

Voodoo priests killed in Haiti (source cnn)

News & Submissions 1/4/2011

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

World’s Buddhist Traditions Pray for Peace and Inter-faith Harmony
Taipei: Addressing a grand prayer congregation for world peace and religious harmony held on the New Year eve in Taipei, Tibet’s spiritual leader His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s Representative to Taiwan has underscored the importance of religious harmony among different religions of the world.

Representative Mr Dawa Tsering also spoke on the essence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s commitment in the promotion of religious harmony and understanding among the world’s major religious traditions. Read full story from thetibetpost.com

More atheists to come out in 2011, leader predicts
We kicked off this new year by asking thinkers representing various traditions to offer predictions for 2011. The responses came in from best-selling authors, esteemed religious leaders and heads of organizations dedicated to faith awareness and understanding. Read full story from cnn.com

Jason and the argot: land where Greek’s ancient language survives
An isolated community near the Black Sea coast in a remote part of north-eastern Turkey has been found to speak a Greek dialect that is remarkably close to the extinct language of ancient Greece.

As few as 5,000 people speak the dialect but linguists believe that it is the closest, living language to ancient Greek and could provide an unprecedented insight into the language of Socrates and Plato and how it evolved. Read full story from independent.co.uk

Finding the Fingerprints of Climate Change in Storm Damage
Hurricanes could become more prevalent with climate change, but the economic pain they deliver might not be recognized as man-made for 260 years.

That means smashed homes and ruined roads may not be attributable to greenhouse gases for centuries, according to new research that suggests climate policies like adaptation should be designed without financial evidence of climate-enhanced windstorms.

The researchers also warn environmentalists and policymakers against making claims that damage from Hurricane Katrina and other storms are rising from carbon dioxide emissions. Insurance companies that promote climate change as a reason for rising prices could also lose credibility. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

We are programmed to believe in a god
As a psychologist, the focus of my work has been on people’s reasoning about such things as God, the afterlife, and destiny. I am not a philosopher or a theologian, so I have not considered the actual, outside-the-head existence of these things. Not only do I find the latter ontological question rather dull, but I also start with the assumption – because there is simply no good scientific reason to assume otherwise – that these things do not exist. In my view, atheism is an essential starting point for the psychological scientist, because it enables us to examine the more intriguing and, more importantly, empirical question of why the human mind is so easily seduced by a ubiquitous set of unnecessarily complex claims. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Sabretooth cats threatened most ancient human ancestor
Humankind’s oldest known ancestor probably lived in fear of several large sabretooth cats that roamed the same ancient lakeside habitat in Africa.

Palaeontologists have identified two new sabretooth species among fossils unearthed at Toros Menalla in Chad.

In 2001, a team unearthed remains of a seven million-year-old human-like creature – or hominid – known as “Toumai” at the central African site. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Haunting Beauty of NGC 3190: Prime Habitat of Deadly Supernovas
This magnificent galaxy forces us, again, to ask: does advanced life exist there? The fact that we have no proof of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe may simply mean that intelligent civilizations have all too finite lifetimes. NGC 3190 is a spiral galaxy of unbearable beauty in the constellation Leo. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. In 2002, astronomers uncovered one supernova in March in the southeastern part and then another team uncovered a second supernova on the other side two months later -sure destroyers of vicinity-based life. Read full story from dailygalaxy.com

Helping explore alternative healing
The sharp smell of herbs and essential oils greets health-seeking visitors at a unique shop in Ladysmith.

The Medicine Garden, owned and operated by Francis Cherrett and Connor Drader, is a one-stop shop for everything alternative.

Cherrett, a master herbalist, hypnotherapist, Reiki master and aromatherapist, is not only multi-talented, but has a warm and inviting presence. Read full story from bclocalnews.com

Years of seeking leads St. Petersburg woman to life as Buddhist nun
Sandra Steers dressed in white one recent Saturday morning and drove to Clearwater for one of the most significant moments of her life.

Hours later, the 68-year-old grandmother of five returned to her St. Petersburg home to begin a new life. If neighbors had been peeking through their windows, they would have seen a petite woman with a shaven head wearing saffron robes. Sandy, as she was known to friends, had taken the vows of a Buddhist nun and a new name — Ayya Suseela. Read full story from tampabay.com

Healing your pain
In Telluride, moms are mountaineers, schoolteachers are ripping snowboarders, the postal worker is an endurance runner and the guy at the gear shop is a super strong mountain biker.

It’s a town of athletes — of tough and sometimes half-crazy people who put their bodies through an impressive gamut. Which means that it’s also a town where people get injured often. And while some can afford to take care of their injuries, others forgo or cut short treatment because they simply don’t have the money. They power through it, with mixed results.

Jay Holt and Jane Del Piero, who run Luvlight Acupuncture, want to change that. The practitioners want to ensure everyone who is injured or in pain has the chance to get proper treatment, regardless of how much money they make. Read full story from telluridenews.com

Deadly blast outside Egypt church (source Youtube – AAIJazeeraEnglish)

BBC Horizon – The Secret You (source BBC)

This Remarkable Thing (source YouTube – philhellenes)

News & Submissions 12/28/2010

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

What is paganism, really?
Paganism.

Who wrote the dictionary on the word paganism exactly? The World English Dictionary defines this interesting umbrella term as “a member of a group professing a polytheistic religion or any religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam” then in the second definition names a pagan as “a person without any religion; heathen.” Pagan, to The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, is a term that describes a person who “belong[s] to a religion which worships many gods, especially one which existed before the main world religions.” Its origins span as far back as to the early Roman empire as another word for “civilian” compared to “miles Christi” (Soldiers of Christ). More derivations conclude the simple-minded ridiculed “country bumpkins,” “outsiders,” and “hicks.” Basically an episode of Glee. The pagans are the underdog, the overseen and underrated. At least in word alone, causing animosity through time of medieval Witch hunts, the obsession with magic and outside misunderstanding of human mortality in a organized religion. Read full story from examiner.com

A Cultural History of the Moon
The book “Moon: A Brief History,” with its wide variety of illustrations from classical texts, science fiction and other sources, describes not just the history of the celestial body but the ways it inspired the human imagination to take flight, fueled, as Proust put it, by “the ancient unalterable splendor of a Moon cruelly and mysteriously serene.” Read full story from nytimes.com

2010: A Good Year For Neanderthals (And DNA)
This year was a good year for Neanderthals. Yes, they did go extinct about 30,000 years ago, but scientists now say their genes live on — in us.

Scientists also found a 40,000-year-old finger in a Siberian cave that apparently belonged to an unknown human-like creature. And hair from the corpse of a 4,000-year-old hunter revealed his blood type and a predisposition for baldness.

What made these discoveries possible was DNA, which is becoming biological science’s window into the past. Read full story from npr.org

Harry Potter was a good Christian?
In a new book out this month, author Danielle Tumminio asserts Harry Potter is good Christian. Tumminio argues Potter lives a life that lines up with Christian values.

“I see him best as a seeker in a world where Christianity is not the vocabulary. I see him best as a seeker trying to live a life of faith in the same way a Christian seeker tries to live a life grace,” Tumminio told CNN.

Tumminio said she wrote God and Harry Potter at Yale: Teaching Faith and Fantasy Fiction in an Ivy League Classroom, to explore the contention by conservative Christians that Harry Potter is akin to heresy. Read full story from cnn.com

Neanderthals cooked and ate vegetables
Neanderthals cooked and ate plants and vegetables, a new study of Neanderthal remains reveals.

Researchers in the US have found grains of cooked plant material in their teeth.

The study is the first to confirm that the Neanderthal diet was not confined to meat and was more sophisticated than previously thought.

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The popular image of Neanderthals as great meat eaters is one that has up until now been backed by some circumstantial evidence. Chemical analysis of their bones suggested they ate little or no vegetables. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Palm oil in our everyday products pushing indigenous peoples off their land
It’s the usual morning rush. You put your makeup on, take a dry creamer in your morning cup of coffee, luxuries we don’t give a thought to in the U.S. What – luxuries?

When it’s “pushing indigenous peoples off their lands,” it’s a luxury, said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. “Hundreds are murdered and thousands are forced off their land of origin to grow the palm oil that goes in your cosmetics.”

Besides deforesting land for palm oil plantations, the controversial crop also used in biofuels, detergents, toothpaste and foods has fueled a ruthless landgrab by paramilitary groups in Colombia’s rural areas. In a desperate bid to protect themselves Colombia’s Internally Displaced People have set up “Humanitarian Zones” on small patches of collective land. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Santeria faith in Park City: decapitated animals are telltale sign of followers
The decapitated animals discovered in Park City in mid-December appear to have been killed in sacrificial ceremonies conducted by people practicing a faith that originated in Africa, an expert said in an interview, affirming a suspicion by local investigators that the animals were killed as part of some sort of ceremony.

Don Rimer, who spent 30 years as a law enforcement officer and now provides training in the fields of ritual crimes and the occult, said the decapitated animals are telltale evidence of people who practice a faith known as Santeria. Followers brought the faith with them to the New World when they were taken from Africa during the slave trade, first establishing themselves in the Caribbean region, he said. Santeria is a blend of ancient African religion and Catholicism, Rimer said. Read full story from parkrecord.com

WRIGHT WAY: Behind New Year’s Day
The New Year celebration is considered the oldest holiday observance in history, dating back some 4,000 years to Babylon. It was also known as Akitu and it lasted 11 days. Each day had its own unique celebration.

The carnival atmosphere laced with laughter, food and drinks epitomized each new year celebration as the most vibrant occasion of Mesopotamia, according to www.123newyear.com. Some form of a New Year’s celebration is performed around the world by people of all cultures.

In fact, it would be difficult to understand our days of the week and months of the year without considering the origin of New Year’s Day. Why is this true?

According to The World Book Encyclopedia, “The Roman ruler Julius Caesar established Jan. 1 as New Year’s Day in 46 B.C. The Romans dedicated this day to Janus, the god of gates, doors and beginnings. The month of January was named after Janus, who had two faces — one looking forward and the other looking backward.”

Although the Romans continued celebrating the new year into the first century, the early Christians condemned their festivities as paganism. Centuries later the church began having its own religious observances concurrently with many pagan celebrations, blending the two, including New Year’s Day. Read full story from clevelandbanner.com

News & Submissions 12/20/2010

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Total lunar eclipse on December 20 or 21, depending on time zone
There is a lunar eclipse on the night of December 20 or 21 – depending on your time zone. See below for the date in your location. This December solstice eclipse is also the northernmost total lunar eclipse for several centuries.

There won’t be a total lunar eclipse this far north on the sky’s dome until December 21, 2485.

That’s because this eclipse is happening almost simultaneously with the December solstice – which in 2010 occurs on December 21 – when the sun will be southernmost for this year. Remember, a totally eclipsed full moon has to lie exactly opposite the sun. The winter sun rides low to the south now, as it crosses the sky each day. So this December full moon is far to the north on the sky’s dome. It rides high in the sky – much like the June solstice sun. Read full story from earthsky.org

Whose Holiday Is It, Anyway?
It’s fundamental to who we are and how we behave. Humans are hard-wired for it.

It brings pleasure to those engaging happily in it, and grief to those who don’t.

Both war and Facebook are rooted in it.

We first become aware of it as toddlers, and spend the rest of our lives either trying to perfect it, wondering why we can’t, or both.

And until individuals understand its evolutionary underpinnings, we’ll never learn how to truly get along with each other.

It’s called ethnocentricity: the tendency to measure other groups according to the values and standards of our own, especially with the belief that one’s own group is superior to others. Read full story from naplesnews.com

The ‘zombie theology’ behind the walking dead
Some people find faith in churches. David Murphy finds them in zombies.

Murphy, the author of “Zombies for Zombies: Advice and Etiquette for the Living Dead,” says Americans’ appetite for zombies isn’t fed just by sources such as the AMC  hit series “The Walking Dead” or the countless zombie books and video games people buy.

Our zombie fascination has a religious root. Zombies are humans who have “lost track of their souls,” Murphy says.

“Our higher spirit prevents us from doing stupid and violent things like, say, eating a neighbor,” Murphy says. “When we are devoid of such spiritual ‘guidance,’ we become little more than walking bags of flesh, acting out like soccer moms on a bender.” Read full story from cnn.com

Ending ‘Don’t Ask’ Will Take Time
Congress has repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but the task of lifting the ban against gays serving openly in the military would likely take months, officials said.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a statement after the Senate voted Saturday to end the policy that he would “approach this process deliberately.”

Once the change becomes law with President Barack Obama’s signature, the military will need to revise policies and regulations that govern everything from leadership training to standards of conduct. And before the policy officially ends, the president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must sign a letter certifying that the changes wouldn’t affect military readiness. Read full story from wsj.com

President holds pre-meeting with select tribal leaders
WASHINGTON – A select group of tribal leaders from some of the 565 federally-recognized tribal nations invited to join President Barack Obama at his Dec. 16 tribal summit were summoned to meet with the president a day before the main event.

The White House announced the evening of Dec. 15 that 12 tribal leaders had met earlier in the day with the president in the Roosevelt Room. The meeting was closed to other tribal leaders, as well as press.

The president was in the room for approximately 15 minutes. His aides listened to tribal leaders speak for much longer, according to sources familiar with the event. A photo of the session was taken by a White House photographer while the president was in the room.

Complete details of the meeting were unavailable due to the closed nature of the event, but the White House released a statement to publicly document it. The National Congress of American Indians also released a statement. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Got the Winter Blues? Weather’s Effect on Mood Revealed
New research into the connection between weather and moods has started to chip away at old myths as well as uncover some potentially powerful treatments for the winter blues.

The first myth to die is the idea that everyone feels bad when the weather gets foul. It turns out that most people might fall into one of four categories when it comes to their moods and weather, say researchers who have studied more than 2,000 Germans by way of daily questionnaires about their moods and other happenings in their lives.

“We saw differences and we actually categorized people according to their differences,” said Jaap Denissen of Humboldt University in Berlin. He and his colleagues have submitted their latest work, an expansion of an earlier study, to the journal Emotion. Read full story from discovery.com

Beam Me Up: ‘Teleportation’ Is Year’s Biggest Breakthrough
Thanks to physics, and the truly bizarre quirks of quarks, those Star Trek style teleporters may be more than fiction.

A strange discovery by quantum physicists at the University of California Santa Barbara means that an object you can see in front of you may exist simultaneously in a parallel universe — a multi-state condition that has scientists theorizing that teleportation or even time travel may be much more than just the plaything of science fiction writers.

Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics, the rules governing ordinary objects. Toss a ball in the air and it falls back to Earth. Drop a coin from your roof and it falls into your yard. But back in March, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics — the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles.

And the implication — that teleportation and even time travel may someday, somehow be a reality — is so groundbreaking that Science magazine has labelled it the most significant scientific advance of 2010. Read full story from foxnews.com

Sun’s gravity could be tapped to call E.T.
Our own sun might represent the best communications device around, if only we could harness its power, scientists say.

If the sun’s gravity could be used to create a giant telescope, people could send and receive intensely magnified signals that could allow us to call an alien civilization, some researchers propose.

According to Einstein’s general relativity, the sun’s behemoth mass warps space-time around it, which actually bends light rays passing by like a giant lens. If a detector was placed at the right focal distance to collect the light, the resulting image would be extremely magnified. Read full story from msnbc.msn.com

Celebrate the return of the light with ice lanterns
The way light refracts through ice is fascinating. Forget the science — it’s just plain fun to look at. Flickering light, captured inside an ice lantern, adds a warm and distinctive ambiance to any winter setting. And the gentle glow of fire and light cutting through the dark of winter can take the chill out of the coldest days — at least in spirit.

In Norse mythology, the space where the worlds of fire and ice meet is the place of creation — a place of light, air and warmth. With the arrival of winter solstice and the sun on its slow return, ice lanterns are an easy and fitting way to welcome brighter days.

The formula is simple: Add water to any mold and set it outside or in the freezer. Five-gallon buckets work well if you like the look of a traditional lantern. If you prefer globes, balloons are the way to go. Start now, and with a few supplies and a little patience, you’ll have your own creation ready in time for Christmas or New Year’s Eve. The amount of water you’re freezing and the air temperature will affect how long it takes to make your lantern. The more science you apply — tap vs. distilled water, temperature variances, thin vs. thick walls — the more varied outcomes you can achieve. Read full story from alaskadispatch.com

Why doesn’t the latest sunset fall on the longest day of the year?
If the summer solstice falls on the longest day, why doesn’t it also coincide with the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset?

We all know that the summer solstice, the moment when the sun reaches its most southerly point in the sky, falls on the longest day. So it seems logical that the day would coincide with the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset of the year. But the earliest sunrise tends to happen in early December, while the latest sunset is on another day in early January.

This phenomenon is created by a combination of the Earth’s oval-shaped orbit and its tilt of 23.5 degrees, says Professor Fred Watson, astronomer-in-charge of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

“These two things together have a real effect on the sunrise and sunset times and they skew them so you don’t have the longest day, the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset all on the same day,” Watson explains. Read full story from abc.net.au

My Take: Religious Cities are Among the Most Violent
In one of the more jarring passages in God is Not Great, the celebrated atheist Christopher Hitchens writes of being asked a “straight yes/no question” by the conservative Jewish broadcaster Dennis Prager. Hitchens was to imagine seeing a large group of men approaching him in a strange city at dusk: “Now – would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting?”

Hitchens’ answer, of course, is that he would feel less safe. And the rest of his polemic, which is subtitled “How Religion Poisons Everything,” is an extended attempt to explain why.

Whether religious people are more prone to criminality than unreligious people is, of course, an empirical question. So in some sense it doesn’t make all that much sense to argue about it. Just go instead and look at the data. Read full story from cnn.com

Is There An Afterlife? Christopher Hitchens vs Shmuley Boteach (source Daily Hitchens)