Tag: religion
Egypt's presidential elections are set for this week. The candidates all seem to be lining up to claim the mantle of preserver of the revolution and champion of Islam. But who will capture the populace and excite them enough to be elected remains to be seen....
The Vatican reprimanded the largest group of Catholic nuns in the United States two weeks ago for promoting "radical feminist themes." The reprimand was issued after a two-year investigation. The church has appointed an archbishop to oversee reform of the group, but many Catholics have come out in support of the American nun group....
A new law in Tennessee will allow public school teachers to discuss alternatives to such scientific topics as evolution and climate change. The bill, known as the "academic freedom" law by its supporters and the "monkey bill," by its detractors, went into effect Friday....
Ron Folman got a tattoo 15 years ago. That's not all that unusual. But the Israeli's man tattoo is a bit shocking. It's an identical replica of the tattoo his father received at the German concentration camp Auschwitz during the Holocaust....
American literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt won the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in nonfiction for his book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. Greenblatt's book unfolds the story of the ancient Roman poet Lucretius and how Lucretius' poems helped catalyze Renaissance thinking....
Rüstem Altinküpe, a practicing Muslim in Germany, has operated a butcher shop in Germany since 1988. He practiced halal slaughter, the form of animal slaughter required by observant Muslims. Germany banned halal slaughter in 1995, but Altinküpe challenged the ban and won in 2002. Still, his butcher shop is idled as Germany bureaucracy throws up more barriers....
The Haggadah, the Jewish religious text read at Passover, is 3,000 years old. Novelists Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander have recently published the New American Haggadah, a distinctly modern Jewish-American version of the text....
Passover, the festival honoring the Jewish emancipation from slavery in Egypt, begins Friday night at sundown. The Passover story has been told through numerous mediums, now including silhouette choreography....
In Turkey, the civil strife in Syria has meant refugees streaming across the border. In mostly-Muslim Turkey, most Turks are staunchly on the side of the Sunni Muslims trying to overthrow Assad rule. But in Hatay province, a former Syrian province and one of the most diverse provinces in the country, more people support Assad, perhaps than anywhere outside of Syria....
In Swaziland, the strained relationship between religious leaders and public health officials is improving, if slightly. The two groups are trying to work together more as the country battles an HIV infection rate among adults that may be as high as 25 percent....
