My new Twitter handle is now live - check me out at @jackiewgibson!
CNN has posted a history of bias against Sikhs - more reason for people to learn about religions before they attack anyone:...
Sikh temple shooting unfolding, learn about Sikhism here: http://t.co/A0ltLLIm
Sikh temple shooting unfolding, learn about Sikhism here: http://t.co/l3KrAJZf
Hackers group Anonymous takes down Vatican website: http://t.co/B6lbGAVp
WGN-TV calls doomsday prophecies "an illusion": http://t.co/mv8Gzyw7
RT @graceishuman: Really,? Asking people JUST LEAVING the service how they felt about it? Tacky, tacky, inappropriate
Whitney Houston's funeral service really took the world to church. Love Pastor Winans' honesty, very moving.
#teacher ? Here are appropriate responses to situations with your Jehovah's Witness student: http://t.co/A6UfqcgH
#Teachers: Want to know why your Jehovah's Witness student won't say the pledge and how to respond? http://t.co/EIdlgDwW
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  | ||||||
Law & Religion
On Monday, we reported that religious authorities in Nepal are searching for the next Kumari.
Today, we bring you an update from Afp.google.com:
A Nepali tradition of locking a young virgin girl in a palace and worshipping her as a “living Goddess” has been dealt a blow with the country’s Supreme Court ruling she has the right to go to school. The court said there was no justification for the specially chosen pre-pubescent girl, known as the Kumari, to be subjected to a practice that dates back centuries.
The ruling comes barely three months after Nepali lawmakers abolished the country’s 240-year-old Hindu monarchy, who received annual blessings from the Kumari in a ceremony designed to underpin the legitimacy of the royals. The court’s verdict was prompted by a complaint from local lawyers that keeping a young girl cooped up in an ornate but decrepit palace in Kathmandu’s medieval quarter was a violation of her rights.
But it was not immediately clear whether the court’s decision would herald the end of the tradition, given that the Kumari’s aura is to a large part dependent on her total separation from the outside world.
“This is not good news. In any case, she is a Goddess so how can court rulings apply?” asserted Rajan Maharajan, the vice president of the committee that looks after the Kumari and her palace. He also said the girl’s rights were not being violated because “her teacher comes to the Kumari Palace every day, and she has three hours a day when she can meet people.” “We do not keep her prisoner,” he said of the current Kumari. “We will ask the Goddess if she wants to go outside more, and if she wants, she can go, but I don’t think she feels comfortable leaving the palace.”
Korean Buddhists are protesting what they believe to be religious discrimination (and Christian favoritism) by the South Korean government.
South Korea has about 10 million Buddhists and 13.7 million Christians. Furthermore, 4 out of the country’s 10 past presidents have been Christians. The largest denomination of Buddhism is the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism – the group leading the protest against the government.
The map that started it all
On June 24, the Jogye Order issued a statement claiming the government had intentionally left Buddhist temples off of the government transportation map. According to BuddhistChannel.tv, “in 2003, when the previous government built the online information system, the Buddhist temples were marked on the map. But a version updated on June 9 dropped them.” The map did, however, show Protestant churches.
The ministry had previously apologized (calling the error an oversight) in a press conference on June 23 and corrected the map after two top presidential aides and senior ruling party legislators visited the temple. But it was too little too late for Korean Buddhists. Buddhist monks went on to accuse the president, Lee Myung-bak, of favoring Christians for his Cabinet (10 of the 15 ministers are Protestant, 2 are Catholic). They also noted that the Protestant deputy head of presidential security had told a newspaper he had a dream “to evangelize all government ministries.”
The beef that made things worse
Then in July, a group of activists led violent anti-beef protests. The police sought them, and the activists found refuge at a Jogye temple.
Things became tense when weeks later, police searched the car of the Jogye’s head monk. Protesters claim he was treated like a criminal.
Visit BuddhistChannel.tv for more of the Jogye Order’s accusations against the government.
Taking action against the government
On August 12, the Ecumenical Youth Council in Korea, the Korean Youth Buddhist Association, and 7 other youth groups called for the enactment of a nondiscrimination law (i.e., a law against religious discrimination).
27 Buddhist sects and organizations are taking the call a step further. Next Wednesday they will hold a rally in protest of “Mr. Lee’s Christian-friendly policy” and in favor of a ban on religious discrimination and an apology from President Lee.
Learn more about the Jogye Order on their official Web site.
Religious and ethnic jokes are now on par with sexual and racial harassment in the workplace, according to a recent decision by the Supreme Court.
The decision was made after a case involving a 1999 lawsuit was filed by Jason Cutler, a Jewish police officer in New Jersey. According to JTA Jewish & Israeli News, Cutler claimed his former chief referred to him as “the Jew” and commented on his “big Jew nose” while other police officers pasted Israeli flags on his locker.
In 1999, his co-workers claimed they were only poking fun, and a court ruled it as teasing. Then in 2003, Camden County reversed the decision, in favor of Cutler.
Just last week on July 31, the Supreme Court upheld the county’s ruling, then equated ethnic and religious jokes to sexual and racial harassment.
What do you think? If someone makes a religious joke or “pokes fun” at someone’s ethnicity, should they be held accountable? Or is it just joking?
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
This is the beginning of the “Serenity Prayer,” an oft-quoted prayer that appears on everything from pillows and mugs to Alcoholics Anonymous literature. It has long been thought that the prayer was composed in the 1940s by Reinhold Niebuhr (d. 1971), a Protestant preacher and popular Christian thinker.
But Fred R. Shapiro, a Yale law librarian, seeks to change this thought. According to the New York Times News Service, Shapiro has found newspaper clippings dating back to 1936 that quote the prayer, with those who quote it saying they don’t know where it came from – a poem, perhaps?
If Shapiro is right, then the prayer was around before Reinhold Niebuhr used it in a sermon and published it widely. Maybe he just used it from memory without realizing he hadn’t written it, Shapiro suggests.
When Shapiro’s article about his findings appears in Yale Alumni Magazine next month, Niebuhr’s own daughter Elisabeth Sifton will rebut.
Sifton says if the prayer was used in the 30s, it’s because Niebuhr’s ideas were spreading quickly and reached other people who didn’t know he had written it.
For more pieces on or by Niebuhr, click here.