If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
We can only bring each other closer with love, wisdom, and compassion. There is no room to alienate others based upon their theological understandings, communal commitments, or ritual practices. In the new paradigm, we evolve beyond mere tolerance into deeper respect, learning, and collaboration.
The political establishment of Israel may finally be waking up from its deep sleep regarding this disturbing phenomenon of hate crimes which has been going on for the past two years in Israel. But we must ask: are they serious? Or are they just giving lip service to this?
Like all important works of art, Greer's play leads with story, aspires to beauty, and avoids didactic lessons. This is a work about history and faith, about how maddeningly long it takes for religious traditions to change, and about how inspiring it is that they do so at all.
The issue that I address is particularly to my fellow Christians, but it is also relevant to people of all religions, ideologies and persuasions. How can we live together in peace and harmony when we hold such fundamentally different viewpoints?
Although our nation remains intensely divided, we can all look up to Superman as what we can, and perhaps should be. Superman's greatness lies in his humility.
A country known for political and religious strife that polarizes large groups of people, is simultaneously bringing divergent sects together.
The recent international Interfaith Conference in Peja made clear that Kosovo, the country once known as a place of religious unrest, could in time become a center for interfaith collaboration.
To religious fundamentalists, this is yoga's most dangerous, un-Christian, sacrilegious teaching of all: That you are not innately broken, or flawed, or sinful. That there really is no god to worship but the one already present in you, waiting to be expanded.
Up to the 19th century, to consider that there could be other types of geometries beside that of Euclid was almost heretic. Does this sound at all like religion?
Pub Theology sessions create a space for people of faith or no faith to gather and learn from each other, while enjoying a good, (preferably local) craft brew. And as we sit down from someone of a different perspective or religious tradition what we often discover is that many of our stereotypes simply aren't true.
As a Native New York Jew who grew up in the counter-culture of New Mexico and spent my 20s in northern California, the American South is as foreign to me as Mongolia. So visiting the Bible Belt is a perfect opportunity for me to walk my talk and reject the impulse to "otherize."
Looking back at history, one may come to the conclusion that people with differing conceptions of God may never live peacefully among one another. However, I believe that this is not only possible but that it could become a reality in my lifetime.
Atheists are already in the minority in most parts of the country, constituting a small fraction of the religiously unaffiliated in the U.S., but it seemed I was to be an especially odd one out at this event. Or, as my mother once said: "It's kind of hip to be a gay atheist [in Cambridge]. Not so much most everywhere else."
On the eve of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, a lunch conversation foreshadowed a feast of sensual experience, wonder at new ideas and underlying challenges in the very different lenses through which different people view the same world.
We are population of about 18,000 souls and a veritable United Nations of ethnic backgrounds and religions. And in between all of the sermons, we kayak on our town's lake and eat ice cream from the local dairy.
For someone who has never been exposed to meditation or Buddhist tenets, it can seem very weird and foreign. Whether you are talking with your religiously conservative family or a long-time friend, you can apply basic Buddhist principles to help them understand what it is you do.
