Free Republic

The map is a representation of the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, an annual list drawn up by Transparency International. [snip] The remarkable fact is the clean line dividing Protestant nations and Catholic ones. The Protestants are all on top of the list. [snip] Catholic nations across the world tend to be more corrupt than Protestant nations. [snip] Every other Catholic nation is more corrupt than its Protestant neighbour. How can we explain this difference between two streams of Christianity? [snip] The sociologist Max Weber (died 1920) noticed the difference in prosperity levels between Protestant states (the US, UK and Germany)...

ELCA Presiding Bishop Addresses Coptic Church Bombing In Egypt 11-002-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), assured the bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles of the ELCA's "heartfelt desire" to stand in solidarity with Coptic Christians in the United States and the world in the wake of the New Year's Day bombing in a Coptic congregation in Egypt. At least 22 people were killed and 79 injured as a result of the car bombing that occurred as worshipers were leaving a Mass at the Church...

Official announcement follows day of unrest in Alexandria neighbourhood where car-bomb attack claimed 21 lives Sunday's announcement came as congregants were back praying in al-Qiddissine [The Saints] church, targeted the day before by a car bomb that also wounded 97 people. Dozens of worshippers attended Sunday Mass at the church, located in the Sidi Bechr district of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, while riot police backed by armoured vehicles were deployed outside. The service was marked by the grief and anger felt by a congregation devastated by the attack, which took place on Saturday outside the church's door about...

A few months ago, I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting in which I discussed how studying other religious faiths and their scriptures had enriched my life. When the meeting was over, a couple approached me and said they wanted a copy of the talk to give their daughter because she described herself as a “Buddhist Mormon.” The couple said their daughter couldn’t decide whether to be a Buddhist or a Mormon, so she was trying to be both.I responded that in a certain sense I considered myself a “Buddhist Mormon” as well, and that the beauty of true Mormonism...

Sri Daya Mata, who for more than five decades was the leader of one of the most influential Hindu groups in the United States and an ardent advocate of the healing power of meditation, died on Tuesday at the group’s retreat for nuns in Los Angeles. She was 96. The society, whose monks and nuns adopt Indian names, teaches that there is a unifying truth behind all religious experience, and the group encourages its members to honor their roots in other faiths. Most members follow a vegetarian diet, practice yoga, chant and meditate Sri Daya Mata, who was born Faye...

Buddhism and Islam came off as the two “faith communities” to whom other Americans feel least warm, according to a Faith Matters survey of 2007. Robert Putnam and David Campbell ponder this in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, which Sightings has visited twice before. Mormons come in third as a stimulator of “least warm” feelings among others. The authors comment that negative media attention hurts Mormons and Muslims, but “Buddhists do not get the same negative media attention” as do those two. So something else must account for the negative ratings of Buddhism. Reach for your search...

Hindus have blamed Vatican for mere greed in claiming animated television family "The Simpsons" as Catholics. Why would Vatican need to enroll a dysfunctional cartoon family into its flock when Roman Catholic numbers were already about 1.17 billion (or about 17.4 percent of world population), eminent Hindu statesman Rajan Zed wondered in a statement in Nevada (USA) today. A recent edition of "L'Osservatore Romano", 149 years old daily Italian newspaper of the Holy See, declared Homer J. Simpson and his son Bart of the animated cartoon family of American sitcom series "The Simpsons" as Catholics. But Simpsons' executive producer Al...

The Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch is the new Official heading the Vatican Office for Ecumenism. A discussion about Christian in the Holy Land, Minarets in Europe and the current Islam-Debate. Rome (kath.net/DieWelt) As the successor of the Curial Cardinal, Walter Kasper, the former Basel Archbishop Kurt Koch will become the next President for the Papal Adviser for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians -- a kind of "ecumenical minister" of the Vatican. Koch was born in 1950 in Emmenbrucke in the Canton of Luzern. As his first challenge was a two week Synod in the Vatican on the situation...

The American Sikh community has said that President Barack Obama is not visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar because he harbours fears of negative image fallout with him being partially Muslim by birth. Refusing to buy the White House explanation that India is a huge country and that it would not be possible for the president to take on too many events during his four-day visit from November 6 to 9, American Sikhs said they could not accept such a view. "I'm not really buying it. I think the administration has been struggling with the false accusation that the president...

Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler says yoga is not a Christian practice. In an online essay, Dr. Mohler wrote that he's surprised at the number of Christians who embrace it and is asking Christians to avoid it. He says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions is not a Christian pathway to God. Mohler said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine." "That's just not Christianity," Mohler told The Associated Press. CBN News spoke with psychologist and author Dr. Linda Mintle about yoga and whether its emphasis...

My Spirit IS The Fruit ! Let Me Flow ~ ~ ~ Do you see my children I have come to bring you my love ; In Correction , Guidance , Promises , Blessings and more but in all these things I bring , as I look down upon some I see a talent hidden or buried not bearing fruit ?! So let My spirit as your eternal gift move and flow Freely for it is The Fruit I Bear through you my children ~ ~ ~ So Do My will and do not fear the enemy for I AM...

Wednesday August 25, 2010 Archbishop Chaput: "Systematic Discrimination Against Church Now Seems Inevitable" SPISSKE, PODHRADIE, Slovakia, August 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - MUST READ Excerpts from Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput's address to the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday:Today's secularizers have learned from the past.  They are more adroit in their bigotry; more elegant in their public relations; more intelligent in their work to exclude the Church and individual believers from influencing the moral life of society. Over the next several decades, Christianity will become a faith that can speak in the public square less...

I had always been taught to believe in the homogeneity of the pious. But a year after September 11, as I snuck into a Thursday afternoon zikr at the Masjid al-Farah twelve blocks from the still smoldering Ground Zero, I was not so sure. It was Ramadan and the tradition of breaking of the fast, the iftar was going to happen after the zikr, or Sufi chanting. Looking around, I felt this was hippie for the Muslims. It was like the Muslim Woodstock or Burning Man. Clearly the congregants would prefer granola bars to kebabs. They wore all manner of...

Last week, the media, White House and nation were in a hullabaloo over a Pew Research Center poll which revealed that one in five Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim. The poll received so much attention and response that the White House released a rebuttal reiterating that Obama is "a committed Christian." The fact is, Americans are more baffled now by Obama's personal religion than they were when he first came into office. John Green, University of Akron politics professor and senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, concluded, "I haven't seen any example, and...

I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama. I know it's odd to say this. At first, I thought I was the only Muslim engaging in this folly, and I am reluctant to express it lest right-wing zealots try to use "Muslim"...

The New York City community board endorsed the Cordoba House, a community center and mosque planned for construction near Ground Zero. Significant opposition has emerged against the project. Sarah Palin even weighed in this weekend, tweeting, "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing." Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero? Building a mosque near the hallowed land of Ground Zero is not illegal. There are no zoning ordinances to preclude construction of any house of worship in that area. The New York City community board endorsed...

The Dalai Lama has sent a message of support for Armed Forces Day, which is next Saturday. In it, he writes of his admiration for the military. That is perhaps not so surprising. As he explains, there are many parallels between being a monk and being a soldier – the need for discipline, companionship, and inner strength. But his support will take some of his western admirers by surprise, not least when it comes to his thoughts on non-violence. Attitudes towards violence in Buddhism are enormously complex. There are some traditions that argue aggression, and killing in particular, is always...

KIRPAN (THE SIKH SWORD) Author : Unknown The sword has a special place in the history of various religious, cultures and nations. For a Sikh, "Kirpan" is an article of faith. For an initiated Sikh, wearing of a Kirpan is obligatory. An initiated Sikh, not wearing a Kirpan, would be in breach of his faith. Although its form has undergone several changes, sword has been part of the history of the world since pre-historic periods. References pertaining to sword can be found in the history of the Jews, the Christians, the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Japanese, and other national and...

Great video by an independent theist, who has researched Christianity for many years. From the video desciption: "Christians insist that Jesus was nailed to a cross and that after his resurrection, that he showed his disciples the wounds on his hands and his feet. There is not one verse in the Bible that says Jesus was nailed to a cross or that says he showed his wounded hands and feet to anyone. The Bible does say that he was hung on a tree or from a timber. These four verses claim that the two thieves received the same punishment that...

DHARMSALA, India (AP) — The question looms over this raggedy hillside town, a place where ancient mysticism constantly brushes against the realities of modern geopolitics. The monks who fled across the Himalayas ask it quietly, as do the exile politicians. Even the angry young activists are careful how they raise the issue. But as the man at the center of the Tibetan exile movement approaches his 75th birthday, the question has become impossible to escape: What happens after the Dalai Lama dies?