A cool breeze sweeps through the Dhamma Sakyamuni Monastery. Sitting cross-legged on the polished stone floor, monks meditate silently under the gaze of a Buddha painted gold. Above them, stalactites hang from the rough limestone ceiling. This is one of the last remaining limestone cave temples in Malaysia. It sits nestled into the foot of Mount Kanthan, one of… Read More Malaysia: Buddhist monks fight to protect mountain home
Ross Douthat ponders why his brothers and sisters in the educated elite are averse to religious affiliation. The answer seems simple to me: because religion is a lie. Douthat is “puzzled” that secular-minded people think the rationality of religion has been disproven. We are puzzled that anyone as intelligent as Douthat (my favorite of the… Read More William Deresiewicz: Disenchantment and Dogma
काशी विश्वनाथ मंदिर के महंत ने मोदी, योगी पर लगाया बड़ा आरोप, सुनकर रह जाएंगे हैरान! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29cV_cz7RIk पंकज श्रीवास्तव से टकराई रिपोर्टर, फिर जो हुआ वो खुद देख लीजिए हमसे ऐसे जुड़ें – FORUM4: http://forum4.co.in/ यूट्यूब लिंक: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN5y… इंस्टाग्राम: https://www.instagram.com/forum4_news/ ट्विटर: https://twitter.com/Forum413?s=09 और फेसबुक: https://www.facebook.com/forum4.news/ (लगातार खबरों के अपडेट पाने व मनोरंजन के लिए और… Read More काशी विश्वनाथ मंदिर के महंत ने मोदी, योगी पर लगाया बड़ा आरोप, सुनकर रह जाएंगे हैरान!
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Here’s a Christmas entry. The Mughal dynasty, originating in what is now Uzbekistan, ruled India from 1526 until the 18th century, though the dynasty continued under British rule until 1857. Some of the members of the royal family were remarkably open-minded about religion, being a Muslim minority in a sea… Read More Juan Cole: Jesus and Mary in Paintings of the Mughal Court
Festive celebrations were disrupted, Jesus statues were smashed and effigies of Santa Claus were burned in a spate of attacks on India’s Christian community over Christmas.Amid growing intolerance and violence against India’s Christian minority, who make up about 2% of India’s population, several Christmas events were targeted by Hindu right wing groups, who alleged Christians… Read More Hannah Ellis-Petersen: Statue smashed in spate of attacks on India’s Christian community / Sunita Viswanath: How do we break the cycle of religious violence in South Asia? / Mukul Kesavan – Magic and mayhem: The death cult at Haridwar
“Jesus, if he lived in contemporary society, would be undocumented, because he was not a Roman citizen; he lived without rights, under Roman occupation,” adds the ScheerPost columnist. “Jesus was a person of color; the Romans were white. The Romans nailed Jesus and other people of color to crosses the same way we finish them… Read More Jesus sermon from the Rev. Chris Hedges
During the months that the Covid virus ensured that just about every Indian lost someone they knew, many religious institutions across the country stepped in to help: they organised hospital beds and vaccine camps, distributed food, clothes and masks, and on a rare occasion, offered to look after the educational needs of children orphaned by… Read More Chandan Gowda: Seeking a dharma for these times
NB: This is a thoughtful article. The author reminds us that good and evil, better and worse, cruelty and kindness, decency and barbarity co-exist in all cultures, and all communities, religious or otherwise. In brief, these qualities are part of what it means to be human; and they cut across the boundaries of time, place… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The limits of the Hindu vs Hindutvavadi debate
The bhajan had a very familiar tune but the words and the off-key singing made it difficult to recognise at first. Then it came like a flash — the tune was that of “Allah, yeh ada kaisi hai in haseenon mein, roothe pal men na mane mahinon men,” a song from the forgettable 1968 Dharmendra-Sharmila… Read More Shobhit Mahajan: The ties that bind religion, popular culture
New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honesty and it embraced scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public platforms willing to stand up for what’s right and true — to… Read More PHIL TORRES: How the New Atheists merged with the far right
After the truth-shower 