Blog
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
We talked as he cut my hair and I discovered that he’d only been living in the U.S. for 18 months. I asked what he thought of the U.S. and without any hesitation he said, “This is the greatest country in the world.”
MEDIA & ETHICS
It’s a fantastic time to be a news junkie. I subscribe to Google Alert keywords for religion, health and mental health as well as news of the Oregon Coast where I live. For an international perspective, I track Al Jazeera , the BBC and Deutsche Welle.
ANTI-RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA
Not so many years ago I was accosted on the street by a wild-eyed man who had chosen me to vent his spleen upon. I had never seen the man before but he swore up and down (literally) that he knew me, that he knew all my misdeeds and that I should be ashamed of myself.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Each one of them has a different set of religious beliefs but they are all working together toward a common goal of healing a society that seems to be splitting apart. They all admire each other. They all respect each other. And they are all in communication.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
True torture in all its forms, certainly far worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, is designed specifically to do damage to another person, to leave a mark—an indelible impression that is all but impossible to get rid of, if the victim is fortunate enough to even survive.
ANTI-RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA
An 1838 manifesto, signed by hundreds of Missouri officials and business leaders, exposed the bitter heart of this campaign: “We believed them deluded fanatics, or weak and designing knaves...”
TOLERANCE
The answer to every problem that exists between people or groups is always, always more communication and attempts at understanding, no matter how challenging or even hopeless the odds of a true, productive dialogue seem.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Juneteenth marks the final recognition of a people as human beings, possessed of souls and free will.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
I distinctly remember the first time I set foot inside a Church of Scientology. I was immediately struck by how friendly and communicative everyone was, not just with me in particular but person to person throughout the organization.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Because of their common ancestry, the three Abrahamic religions share a deeper bond than many acknowledge. Islam’s earliest conflicts were with the idolaters. On this issue, the other monotheistic religions of the day—Judaism and Christianity—were its allies.
