Posts Tagged ‘Quran’

News & Submissions 12/15/2010

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

‘Goddess Temple’ planned at Wellsprings
ASHLAND — Nearly 20 local women plan to open an Ashland Goddess Temple dedicated to the “sacred feminine” in a dome at Jackson Wellsprings north of town.

The temple, founded by Graell Corsini and 18 others, will open under a full moon on the spring equinox, the women say.

It will enshrine the great goddess mother of ancient times, working in equal partnership with the “sacred masculine” God to “celebrate the divinity in everything,” Corsini said.

The women say the goddess path honors and supports all faiths, includes both genders and provides a space for ceremonies of the solstice and equinox, weddings, births, dance, music, meditation, counseling, classes in sacred subjects and alternative healing using reiki, cranial-sacral therapy and other modalities. Read full story from mailtribune.com

Mummified head is skull of Henri IV, say historians
A gash above the lip, a beauty spot and a pierced ear were among key features that helped identify the well-preserved head as that of the “Gallant Green” king, stabbed to death by a Catholic fundamentalist in 1610.

Jean-Pierre Babelon, France’s leading Henri IV scholar told The Daily Telegraph he and the other experts were “99 per cent sure” of their findings.

He will be alongside the 19-man team of international experts when it details its historic discovery in Paris’ Grand Palais after two years of painstaking research.

The experts, led by the renowned pathologist Philippe Charlier, used a “whole range of methods” to cross check their discovery. Read full story from telegraph.co.uk

Man in cemetery IDed
PICAYUNE — The man photographed naked in a local cemetery says he didn’t mean anything crazy by it, he was trying to capture pictures of spirits, or do orb photography.

The man, 47 year-old Robert T. Hurst, of 208 Mitchell St., said he was in the cemetery conducting his year-long hobby, orb photography, which is capturing circles of light at night, some of which appear to be faces. As for why he was naked the night he was caught by a game camera set up by cemetery staff, he said skin can be the best canvas for such photography. Read full story from picayuneitem.com

Archaeology: 8000 year-old Sun temple found in Bulgaria
The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northwest Bulgaria, near the town of Vratsa, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on December 15 2010. Read full story from sofiaecho.com

Pompeii skeletons reveal secrets of Roman family life
The remains of the Roman town of Pompeii destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD79 continue to provide intriguing and unexpected insights into Roman life – from diet and health care to the gap between rich and poor.

The basement storeroom under a large agricultural depot in the little suburb of Oplontis was full of pomegranates. To many of the Pompeiians trying to find shelter from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, it must have seemed strong and safe. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Storm in Israel uncovers ancient statue
Jerusalem (CNN) — A huge storm that collapsed part of a cliff on Israel’s central coast led to the discovery of a statue dating back to the Roman period, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Tuesday. Read full story from cnn.com

The Film That Brought Down Youtube in Indonesia
Geert Wilders, a Dutch parliamentarian leading the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, caught the attention of the world when he released a short film on his views on Islam in 2008, titled Fitna. The 15 minute film juxtaposes several passages from the Q’uran with images of Islamic. Of course, the film was to be a controversial bombshell, so to speak. But the response that ensued was not merely limited to the expected hordes of Muslims chanting ‘Death to Wilders’ on the streets of Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan. Read full story from ISSA

On the 120th Anniversary of Sitting Bull’s Death
One hundred and twenty years ago today, Sitting Bull was killed during a confrontation with Indian police in Grand River, S.D.

Excerpt from the Smithsonian’s American Indians/American President: A History:

The campaign to take Indian lands led some Native people to seek answers and hope from spirital sources. In the winter of 1889, shortly after President Benjamin Harrison took office, a Paiute man named Wovoka, from the  Walker River Indian Reservatio in Nevada, had a vision of being “taken up into the spirit world.” Wovoka later told enthnographer James Mooney that while in the spirit world he saw “God and the dead of his nation, happily alive in a beautiful land abundant with game.” When Wovoka returned from his experience, he told the Paitue people to “work hard, and to live in peace with the Whites and that eventually they would be reunited with the dead in a world without death or sickness or old age.” Read full story from nmai.si.edu

Celebrate the start of winter at Stonehenge
Astronomical calculator? Sacred burial ground? Landing spot for UFOs? Altar for human sacrifice? Whatever the wild theories about Stonehenge, it’s clear that the monument is an awe-inspiring work of vast antiquity, which comes into its own at the solstice celebrations. Read full story from hellomagazine.com

Drug lord with a spiritual bent (source cnn)

Hookers for Jesus (source cnn)

News & Submissions 10/25/2010

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Lost Abbey Ale may Change Label on Witch’s Wit after Wiccan ‘Brewhaha’
The bottle label shows a picture of a “witch” burning at the stake. Vicki Noble, who is “famous” in the pagan and Wiccan communities saw the bottle. What ignited was not just a witch on the bottle, but a fire storm about beer, being politically correct or offensive, and what is considered satire on a bottle label. Read full story from gather.com

Interview with Janet Munin, author of “Queen of the Great Below: An Anthology in Honor of Ereshkigal.”
October, it seems, has been an interesting month for devotional work. This week has seen the release of the first devotional devoted entirely to Ereshkigal: the Sumerian Goddess of the Underworld. Janet Munin’s book, titled ‘Queen of the Great Below: An Anthology in Honor of Ereshkigal’ is an intense and beautifully written work of devotion, desire, and service in honor of a Goddess often overlooked by contemporary Pagans. To my knowledge, this is only the second contemporary devotional to any of the Sumerian Deities (the first being my own “Into the Great Below”) and it is the first entirely for Ereshkigal. Read full story from patheos.com

Counting down to calm
When I was at university, hypnotists were regular features at the May ball. One summer, I was lured on to a stage, somewhat the worse for drink, and persuaded that I was a lovelorn kangaroo in search of a marsupial mate. I’m not sure how effective the hypnosis was – I certainly remember acting like an idiot, but I suppose it did give me an excuse for doing so. Read full story from telegraph.co.uk

Crows And Scarecrows Occult Meaning
Let us consider the humble scarecrow. On the surface there wouldn’t seem to be any occult meaning behind the scarecrow. It was a farmer’s tool from agrarian times, used to literally scare away crows and other birds from their crops. What more could there be, outside of an occasional literary purpose (i.e. Wizard of Oz)? Today they are decorations for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Read full story from occultview.com

Burning the Holy Books Is a Loathsome Act:
Prof. John E. Hare is the Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at the Yale University’s Divinity School. A British classicist, philosopher and ethicist, he is the author of several well-known and best-selling books in religion and morality including “God and Morality: A Philosophical History”, “The Moral Gap”, “Ethics and International Affairs”, “Why Bother Being Good” and “Plato’s Euthyphro”.

John Hare has in his background the experience of teaching philosophy at the University of Lehigh from 1975 to 1989. In his “God’s Call” book, Hare discusses the divine command theory of morality, analyzing texts in Duns Scotus, Kant and contemporary moral theory.

John joined me in an exclusive interview and answered my questions on the necessity of establishing a universal inter-faith dialogue between the followers of Abrahamic religions, the impacts of materialism on the decline of ethical and moral values and the role of religion in solving the problems of contemporary man. He also answered my special question on the objectionable incidence of Quran burning in the United States on the anniversary of 9/11 attacks. Read full story from aljazeerah.info

Red Lake approves own wolf management plan
RED LAKE, Minn. – While children of European descent are raised on tales of the Big Bad Wolf eating Grandmother and menacing Red Riding Hood, Ojibwe children hear a different set of stories – of Wolf, Ma’iingan, living harmoniously with Naniboujou and grandmother, Nokomis.

It is said that the fate of wolves will parallel that of the Ojibwe people – a healthy wolf population signals a good future. So the strong comeback from near disappearance made by gray wolves, sometimes called timber wolves, in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan has been welcomed in Ojibwe communities. Now, as the wolf population has grown, the U.S. government is poised again, within as early as one month, to delist it as a threatened species, reverting management to the states. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Satanists’ event in Oklahoma draws Christian protest (source cnn.com)

News & Submissions 10/17/2010

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

Salem needs a new museum to explore its witch-trial past
OCTOBER HAS a special significance in Salem, where the month-long Haunted Happenings is the nation’s leading celebration of Halloween. It’s a unique event, combining everything from ethnic dance presentations to demonstrations by the city’s psychic community and followers of Wicca, to such family fare as haunted houses and fireworks. Read full story from boston.com

Victorian book proves Old wives aren’t all witchcraft and wizardry
First published in 1856 ‘Enquire Within Upon Everything’ was a how-to book for domestic life, first published in 1856 by Houlston and Sons of Paternoster Square. The book was a top-seller in its day, and was regularly updated with an encyclopedic collection of cheap and straight-to-hand remedies using day to day items found in an average house of the 1800’s (and latterly the 1900’s; its last edition was printed in 1976). Read full story from entertainment.stv.tv

Controversial pastor gets free car for not burning Quran
The Rev. Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who caused a firestorm last month when he came close to staging a public Quran burning, is getting a new car courtesy of a New Jersey dealership.

In the run-up to the planned book-burning, Brad Benson Hyundai in New Brunswick offered Jones a vehicle if the pastor backed down on his threat. Read full story from cnn.com

Exhibit explores how Hitler taught a nation to hate
(CNN) — Playing cards with images of Hitler. Toy fuhrers. And a lamp and church tapestry with swastikas emblazoned across the front.

No, it’s not a neo-Nazi convention. Rather, it is a groundbreaking exhibit that opened Friday in the German capital and is intended to show Adolf Hitler’s relationship with the German people. Read full story from cnn.com

Texas Billboard: Christians are ‘jerks’ (Source cnn.com)