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May 2025

May 11, 2025
Pope Leo XIII is in the news, more than a century after his reign ended. ...
May 05, 2025
Catholicism in China poses a formidable problem for the Vatican. The late Pope Francis is...

April 2025

April 14, 2025
Religion in public schools has been a hot topic in the U.S. for decades. It...

March 2025

March 31, 2025
On March 28 an earthquake struck central Myanmar and was felt in several Asian countries....
March 27, 2025
Mahabodhi Temple -- one of the world's most sacred places -- is now the site...
March 13, 2025
The Dalai Lama escaped Tibet in March 1959, 66 years ago this month. March 1959...
March 06, 2025
How Christian were the Nazis? Not as much as many assume. The relationship between Christianity...

February 2025

February 09, 2025
Most Americans might agree that religious freedom is a cornerstone of American liberty. Yet we...

January 2025

January 14, 2025
Padmasambhava was probably a real person. I understand this is according to most academic scholars...
January 07, 2025
According to the White House Historical Association, one of the first things asked of new...
January 01, 2025
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29, 2024, at the age of...

December 2024

December 22, 2024
Today, Christmas is a family holiday. It didn't used to be. Through much of the...
December 06, 2024
Here's a question for Bodhi Day. Was the Buddha a verifiable historical person? And was...
December 03, 2024
The world's many religions observe many holy days in December other than Christmas and Hanukkah....

November 2024

November 26, 2024
President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a U.S. national holiday for the first time in 1863....
November 22, 2024
The Thanksgiving myth is the Thanksgiving story that we Americans were taught in school as...
November 15, 2024
The first person in history known to have promoted religious tolerance was Ashoka the Great....
November 13, 2024
Buddhism and the California Gold Rush may be two things that don't seem to go...

October 2024

October 15, 2024
There's a common assumption that laws are based on morality and morality comes from religion....

September 2024

September 27, 2024
Who were the Aryans? The Aryans were an ancient people who spoke Sanskrit and gave...
September 16, 2024
The Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844 are also sometimes called the Philadelphia Nativist Riots.  By...
September 11, 2024
Civil religion -- sometimes calleed "civic religion" -- is a term that is defined many...

August 2024

August 21, 2024
Everyone knows that Zen and the martial arts go together, right?  Well, sorta kinda. In...
August 01, 2024
The marathon monks of Enryakuji, a historic Buddhist temple complex in Japan, are famous for...

July 2024

July 10, 2024
Religious Liberty and Josh Hawley don't mix. The Republican U.S. Senator from Missouri has made...
July 07, 2024
"Teaching the Bible" -- what does that mean? Now that the state of Oklahoma had...
July 02, 2024
The Declaration of Independence mentions God three times, in three different ways. Near the beginning...

June 2024

June 26, 2024
The Louisiana Ten Commandments bill I wrote about last month has been signed into law...
June 20, 2024
There are multiple views about "original Buddhism." The historical Buddha lived, we believe, about 26...

May 2024

May 30, 2024
The Florida Department of Education has been directing middle school and high school teachers to...
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