Stories about Religion from November, 2008
Poland: Racist Flyers Given to Children in a Catholic Church
One of the Catholic churches in Poznań, Poland's fifth largest city, generated a lot of online buzz yesterday, when the media published articles about a religious flyer printed by a Catholic weekly Mały Gość Niedzielny and distributed to children. On the flyer's cover, there is a quote from the Bible - “A lamp without oil is dark, a human without a prayer, too.” Right above it is a drawing of a black child, who is saying: “What a pity that the prayer does not brighten the skin.” Sylwia Presley reviews the buzz.
India: Book of Ram
Jabberwock reviews ‘The Book of Ram’ by mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, who shows: “how the Ram story has been adapted and retold over the centuries to suit the needs and perspectives...
Egypt: Lawsuit calling for the devalidation of 25,000 Muslim Hadiths
Marwa Rakha translates for us today a post about an unusual lawsuit against Al Azhar University in Egypt calling for devalidation of 25,000 Muslim Hadiths. "Does Al Azhar have the right to “delete” these hadiths? Did they invent them and now they decided to negate them? So what will they do now with those 25,000 Hadiths? Burn them? Burn the books they are in? Do they have that right?"
Anguilla, Trinidad & Tobago: Memories of The Abbey
Anguillian Don Mitchell takes a trip to his Alma Mater at Mount St. Benedict in Trinidad.
Haiti: Dire Situation
Konbit Pou Ayiti says that “although most of the world has moved on from the tragic stories of the four powerful storms that thrashed Haiti in August and September, Haitians...
Nepal: Is Buddha Boy Real?
The Himalayan Beacon reports that thousands of pilgrims in southeast Nepal are rushing in to see a 17-year-old boy whom some believe to be a reincarnation of the Buddha. The...
Haiti: Visiting the Victims
Blesh Family in Haiti makes a visit to the General Hospital where some of the victims of the Petionville school collapse were taken: “We are glad we went & it...
Central & Eastern Europe: A Travel Roundup
Olive harvesting in Albania, John Paul II monuments in Poland, a Soviet military hardware cemetery in Moscow and more: Central and Eastern Europe-based bloggers share their recent travel stories and photos.
Jerusalem: Unholy Behavior
Yerevan Journal says that despite reported momentum in the peace process to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the number one talking point on the streets of the Armenian capital is...
Puerto Rico, U.S.A.: Gay Marriage
“When I found out California and Florida were state's #29 and #30 in the banning of same-sex marriage, I was aghast”: Puerto Rican blogger Liza says that “the problem with...
Philippines: Reproductive Health debate
Should the Philippine Congress approve the Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008? The Catholic Church opposes the measure. Many scholars and cause oriented groups are supporting it. What are the views of Filipino bloggers?
Jerusalem: Armenian, Greek Monks Brawl
Friction between various religious denominations is not new, but an incident that occurred between Armenian and Greek monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has drawn the attention of many bloggers to such rivalry.
Armenia: Obama Endorsement
Bekaisa [AM/EN/RU] posted a photograph of a sign outside an Armenian church in the U.S. on the eve of last week's presidential election. It reads “vote for the black. The...
Laos: Tourism and almsgiving
The impact of tourism in Laos on bindabaat – the practice of collecting alms from laypeople by monks and novices in Theravada Buddhist countries.
International Pressure Mounts to Free Jailed Egyptian Blogger
A series of demonstrations were held outside Egyptian embassies around the world today to protest the continued imprisonment of Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabil Sulaiman, jailed two years ago for insulting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Islam on his blog.
Brunei: Old Mosques
The Daily Brunei Resources writes about old mosques in Brunei.
Poland, Romania, U.S.: Fear of Obama
The beatroot and Csíkszereda musings report on how the possibility of Obama becoming the next U.S. president is feeding the fears of the apocalyptically-minded individuals – and how Poland and...
Morocco: French Weekly Banned
A Moro in America reports that L'Express International, a popular French weekly magazine, has been banned in Morocco following alleged “blasphemy against Islam's prophet.”
Trinidad & Tobago: All Souls Day
“Lapeyrouse Cemetery has fallen into disrepair over the last half a century; a severe indictment on a society that allows its dead to languish in squalour. But on this afternoon...
India: Are bomb blasts normal?
India's northeastern state of Assam was rocked by a series of bomb blasts last Thursday which killed at least 76 people and injured hundreds. Even as the country is a...
