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
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Is this a case of mental illness or was it a genuine kidnapping plot? See what you think…
Don LaRose claims to have been born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1940. He claims to have been abducted by a Satanic cult in 1975, in Maine, New York, and that his captors erased his memory and let him off in Minneapolis. He became a Baptist pastor in 1978, overseeing a congregation in Hammond, Indiana.
According to the Northwest Indiana Times, “The day before he disappeared, he was speaking to a group in the church, and in the middle of his sermon he stopped talking and looked at the back of the room. No one who turned around saw anything, but LaRose later claimed he had seen one of the Satanists through a window.” The Satanists, LaRose says, are an “underworld crime group.” Threatening his family, the group apparently forced LaRose out of town, and he fled the area on a bicycle – without notifying his family or his church.
Who found him? It turns out LaRose has been under the guise of one Bruce Kent Williams, a man who was killed in 1958. He remarried, moved to the Bentonville, Arkansas, area, and won three elections – including that of the mayor. The Benton County Daily Record pieced together his story, and now the mayor is stepping down from his office. He says he now fears he and his family will again be in danger from the cult.
I have to ask – if you’re running from a Satanic cult, so much so that you are willing to change your name, why would you run for such a visible public office? And if you think the Satanic cult would threaten your first family, why remarry and place that burden on another family? One has to question whether the mayor is really a pastor threatened for blaspheming against Satan or whether this is just another case of schizophrenia. Seeing dark shadowy figures that tell you to do things – and no one else sees them? Feeling threatened and paranoid? Withdrawing from his family and friends? Sounds like schizophrenia. Look it up.
I guess how you judge this case depends on whether you believe in science, whether you believe in cult plots, and whether you think this man’s character is, well, sincere. But I think before we start spending tax dollars to protect this guy, we better get him checked out.
On August 20, BBC News reported that China was going to try to pick the next Dalai Lama – or at least choose one by deciding whether the one chosen is valid. This week, BBC News is reporting that the Dalai Lama will try to choose his own successor, now realizing the Chinese government will try to interfere with the typical process. So what’s the problem? Let’s take a step back.
In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is kind of the equivalent of the pope in Catholicism; he is a successor in the line of the Buddha, as the pope is a successor in the line of Christ and his disciples, except that he is also considered a reincarnation of the Buddha himself. He is a spiritual head – but everyone knows he holds some political influence and has held much political power in the past. And like the group of cardinals who deliberate in Catholicism, a group of monks typically chooses a successor in Tibetan Buddhism. This group uses dreams and signs to guide them. (In a well-known story about the current Dalai Lama, he was identified as the reincarnated, living Buddha as a young child because he was able to recognize items that had once belonged to the former Dalai Lama.)
The problem begins when we look at the political environment in China and Tibet. China, of course, exiled the Dalai Lama to Tibet and has been trying to gain control of the Tibetan leader and religion ever since. Clearly, they don’t want the Dalai Lama to influence Tibetan Buddhists in a quest for independence from China. And while Tibetan Buddhists may keep their religion, China always has the final say. So what was their first step? Disregarding the Dalai Lama’s selection of his second-in-line, the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama chose a 6-year-old Chinese boy in 1995, but the boy has had to remain in seclusion in Tibet, more than likely to escape persecution from the Chinese government. Once the boy was quietly settled in Tibet, China chose its own Panchen Lama, one they could undoubtedly control.
Step two? Well if you’ve already tried to overstep the selection process and choose your own vice-lama, might as well move right onto the Dalai Lama himself. So, to keep China from attempting to pick its own Dalai Lama and disregard the monks, the Dalai Lama may decide to pick his own successor! That’s like the pope choosing the next pope! It would be a complete change from the typical system and would likely set the standard for future selection processes. Plus, does anyone think it’s weird that the Dalai Lama would be able to determine who he will be reincarnated as?
Want to delve deeper? Check out what the Dalai Lama has to say about his own recognition as the Buddha and what he sees for the future.
Today marks the birth of Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Bahá’í faith. Baha’u’llah was a 19th-century Persian nobleman from Tehran (in present-day Iran) who, according to Bahai.org, “left a life of princely comfort and security and, in the face of intense persecution and deprivation, brought to humanity a stirring new message of peace and unity.”
Like Muhammad, Baha’u’llah claimed to be the newest messenger sent by God (the latest in the line of Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad). He authored several texts, including the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book), the Kitáb-i-Íqán (The Book of Certitude), the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys. In his manuscripts, he taught that there is only one God. Along these thoughts of unity, he also taught that mankind should be united as one people, one human race, one country. That sense of unity underlies the processes of the community itself – no sects or divisions have broken off from the Bahá’í faith. According to followers, it remains united. Here are some other interesting tidbits about the faith founded by Baha’u’llah:
Followers: The Bahá’í faith claims more than six million members, residing in more than 2,100 different ethnic communities and groups in 200 countries across the world. Members are governed by freely elected councils. They focus on social justice, cultural diversity, environmental conservation, and so forth; as a result, they have started a large number of grass-roots movements throughout the world.
The goal: To know and love God and to bring about peace in a global community.
Connection to other religions: Since Baha’u’llah claimed to be a messenger like Jesus and Buddha, he thereby validated all other religious faiths and of their founders and messengers. Though the Bahá’í faith is its own religion, it draws on Shia Islam (just as Christianity was established on top of Jewish beliefs).
Social connection: Baha’u’llah’s sense of unity was rooted in the idea of globalization and a global community. He felt the world was evolving and becoming more and more unified and globalized. The idea seems rather relevant to today’s culture, in which the Internet and a more global economic system have given way to increased awareness of the other. Baha’u’llah wanted to take it a step further, eliminating prejudice and bringing about a harmonious universal civilization with a universal religion. As such, members of the faith have been heavily involved in government and, in 2000, their Bahá’í International Community was the only non-governmental speaker invited to the United Nations’ Millennium Forum.
To learn more about Baha’u’llah, visit www.bahaullah.org.
Here’s an interesting story.
A divorced man with custody of his child wants to get that child circumcised. His ex-wife disagrees with the surgery. Here are the details:
1. The father is a recent convert to Judaism.
2. The father scheduled the circumcision in 2004.
3. The boy is now 12 years old.
4. While the father claims the son now wants to be circumcised as a rite of passage in his conversion to Judaism, the mother claims the son told her he’s afraid to defy his father.
5. Did I mention that if the father wins, the boy will be circumcised at the age of 12? Just checking.
This case brings up all sorts of questions of legal and religious rights and freedoms and has the potential to have great consequences and implications. Here are a few questions to consider:
1. Should a parent, indeed, have the right to raise a child in a certain religion? The general consensus is yes. But at what age should the child get to make his own choices in religion? At what age should he begin learning about other religions? At what age should he get to choose whether he wants to have surgery that isn’t medically necessary but may be necessary for his religion?
2. Let’s look into that one more in depth: Should a parent have the right to force a child to have a surgery that isn’t medically necessary? Many are comparing this kind of surgery to cosmetic surgery. So, should a parent have the right to force his child to have a nose job at the age of 12? Seems a little unnecessary, but what if that nose job is necessary for that child to become a member of a religion? I know, nose jobs and circumcisions are quite different. I’m just playing the devil’s advocate. Stick with me.
3. When it comes to a child making a choice (like willingly having surgery), what age should that child be in order for adults to confirm that the choice was really the child’s and not the child’s as solely influenced by adults? In other words, when is a child really making a decision on his own and when is he just trying to please daddy? And how do we know? Aren’t we always influenced by something when we make decisions, even as adults? Let’s take an extreme example. What if the choice is to be a part of religious snake-biting rituals? Should the child be able to choose whether he gets bit by a snake, or can Dad decide that for him?
4. Doesn’t mother know best anyway? And at what point does the mother get a say? If the father has legal custody and wants to raise the child as a Jew, but the mother is a Muslim and wants the child to learn about Islam — should the law prohibit that child from learning about Islam from the mother simply because she doesn’t have legal custody? If it doesn’t prohibit it, should the father allow the mother to also ask the child to perform Islamic rites? What if the child says he wants to be a part of both religions and is conscious of that choice?
5. Is it necessary to change laws over this? The law currently says the custodial parent has the right to make religious decisions for the child. Is this law out of date? Is the prevalence of divorce and custodial matters a good enough reason for updating the law? If we change the law to allow the non-custodial parent to make decisions, will more unfit parents have the right to make decisions for their children? Won’t that also affect other custodial laws?
It’s all a lot to think about. If anything, one has to sympathize with the boy who has been thinking about his impending circumcision since 2004. For some interesting (and sometimes funny) comments, check out this site or this forum.