pewforum.org Religion News on the Web

Religion News on the Web

Selected religion-related news from around the Web
Boston Globe: Massachusetts religious communities divided over doctor-assisted suicide measure
The state’s religious communities are divided over what is perhaps the most profound question on this year’s ballot: Should people nearing the end of terminal illnesses be allowed to obtain a prescription drug to end their lives?
NYT: 400 years later, still revered in Cuba (and Miami)
As the statue of La Virgen de la Caridad, Our Lady of Charity, completed its 30-minute journey across a stretch of the Biscayne Bay for her 400th anniversary celebration here on Saturday, a rainbow burst into view to frame her arrival.
Reuters: Euro imams, rabbis pledge zero tolerance for hate preachers
Seventy European Muslim and Jewish leaders pledged on Wednesday to show "zero tolerance" to hate preachers of any faith including their own ranks, citing what they called rising religious intolerance on the continent.
AP: Culture clash emerges in Iraq as conservative clerics battle sassy Western styles
For much of Iraq's youth, sporting blingy makeup, slicked-up hair and skintight jeans is just part of living the teenage dream. But for their elders, it's a nightmare.
NYT: In a Ban, a Measure of European Tolerance
During a recent protest in Marseille, seven people were suddenly surrounded by the police, bundled into a van and brought in for questioning.
The Times: Israel's Orthodoxy at odds with Reformers
Shlomo Amar, Israel's joint Chief Rabbi, is on the warpath. He is mobilising rabbis in what he has called a "battle for the soul of the Jewish people", warning of a threat posed by the "uprooters and destroyers of Judaism" and "haters of the Lord".
Reuters: Africa beer sales surge despite church and mosque
Beer sales in Africa are surging because of economic and population growth, a trend rubbing against the grain of another demographic factor defining the region: intense religiosity.
Miami Herald: Spiritual journeys
In troubled times, many people turn to their faith, which may explain why faith-based travel has been gaining momentum in recent years.
Korea Herald: Opening a door to traditional Korean culture
Buddhism is not just a religion in Korea. It is an integral cultural asset that has substantially contributed to the development of the country’s tradition and arts for the last 1,700 years.
Wash. Post: Circumcision, long in decline in the U.S., may get a boost from a doctors’ group
When Tamar Jacobs became pregnant, she found herself hoping for a girl, mainly because she was dreading a difficult rite of passage that often comes with the birth of a boy — circumcision.
AP: When majority fasts, social taboos force Ramadan violators underground
Alongside hundreds of millions of Muslims observing the sunrise-to-sundown fast of Ramadan, a minority in the community goes underground each year during the holy month, sneaking sandwiches and cigarettes when no one is looking.
Wash. Post: Tensions flare in France over veil ban
Though it was almost midnight, streets were full of Muslim families taking a stroll after breaking the Ramadan fast with a late dinner. As two police officers drove by a storefront recycled as the Grand Sunna Mosque, they noticed a woman wearing flowing black robes and a full-face veil.
NYT: Punk band’s Moscow trial offers platform for Orthodox protesters
With the gold domes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior glittering just across the Moscow River, members of three Russian Orthodox groups that espouse a fervent blend of nationalism and religiosity set fire on Wednesday to a poster of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot and also put a match to a poster of the pop star Madonna.
Newsday: Complaint: Eruv crosses constitutional line
A Jewish group opposing the creation of an eruv in Southampton Town has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court, seeking a judgment declaring that the use of LIPA utility poles as part of such a religious boundary is unconstitutional.
AP: China steps up campaign against Ramadan fasting for Uighurs; experts fear backlash
China is discouraging some Muslims in the far western region of Xinjiang from fasting during Ramadan.
NYT: Observance of Ramadan poses challenges to Muslim athletes
With nearly three million Muslims living in Britain, the observance of Ramadan here is not generally a notable occurrence. Shops are open, businessmen go to work at the regular times and, to outsiders, life seems ordinary enough, save for the absence of eating or drinking from dawn until sunset.
Newsweek: Women rise up in Saudi Arabia: The rebellion behind the veil
A remarkable thing happened this past May in Riyadh. Officers belonging to Saudi Arabia’s ever-zealous religious police, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, ordered an abaya-clad young woman out of a shopping mall for wearing nail polish.
USA Today: Opinion: Olympics' religious roots
When the Summer Olympics opened in London last Friday, there was a version of a religious ritual in the Olympic oath, procession of athletes and lighting of the flame.
LAT: Egypt unnerved by rising religious fervor
An engineering student is killed for walking with his fiancee by men reportedly linked to a group called the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
AP: Muslims begin Ramadan fast in Asia; holy month marred by bombings in Thailand’s south
Muslims have begun fasting for the start of the Ramadan holy month in Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere around Asia, but the somber occasion was marred in Buddhist-dominated Thailand by two bomb blasts that killed one person and injured seven.
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