What is Apostasy? Why Important?

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:34 pm By George G. Coe

What is apostasy and where is it practiced? According to this excellent article in the online news organization, The Daily Mirror, “apostasy is the legal name for religious conversion or a complete desertion of an individual’s religion, principles, political party of cause. The name derives from the latin apostasia which means ‘to revolt’.” Who punishes it? According to the Pew Research Center, the countries above all have apostasy laws. Many countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Sudan... Read more

Meditation: What You Need to Know

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:35 pm By George G. Coe

What is meditation? What is the difference between prayer and meditation? These are the questions that this excellent BBC Religion & Ethics guide attempts to answer with video clips and great graphics like the one below. And below the graphic is a short clip in which Bettany Hughes reviews how the Buddha gained enlightenment and why his example is important to meditation. Read more

Religion Documentaries Online

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:35 pm By George G. Coe

Top Documentary Films has has an awesome library of films and documentaries about religion. Many of the documentaries are available to stream online, like the one above, Malcolm X, Make it Plain. You can also search the library for specific titles in which you are interested. My thanks to Emma Le Neve Foster (@RS_teacher) for tweeting the link. Read more

10 Misconceptions about Buddhism

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:35 pm By George G. Coe

Buddhist scholars Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr. review these common misconceptions for Tricycle Magazine. Here are the first three. All Buddhists meditate. No! The majority of Buddhists do not meditate. Meditation has been a monastic practice for most of history. Buddhists are pacifists. Wrong again! Buddhists have fought against each other at different times in history and against others. For example, Tibetan Buddhist continue to fight against China and fundamental Buddhists are fighting against Muslims today in... Read more

Stunning Sacred Sites

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:35 pm By George G. Coe

Here are two amazing sacred sites, the Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar and the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá in Colombia. The Shwedagon Pagoda is a Buddhist temple over 2,500 years old. It has over 2000 diamonds and over 2500 rubies attached to its golden dome. And the Salt Cathedral, as the National Geographic clip below notes, is a Roman Catholic cathedral underground and carved from the mineral deposits of an old salt mine. Both sites are featured in an excellent photographic... Read more

Varanasi: City of Light: Video Clip

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:36 pm By George G. Coe

Studying Hinduism? Here’s a great five minute clip about the holy Hindu city, Varanasi. The host explains how the city got its name and its significance to Hindus. Read more

Ancient Chinese Buddha Statues: Choked by Soot

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:36 pm By George G. Coe

The Yungang Grottoes in northern China, which contain thousands of Buddhist statues from the 5th and 6th centuries, are suffering today from pollution. But according to this fascinating story in the New York Times, Chinese officials and preservationists have started to work on restoring them and their efforts “could become a model for saving antiquities at other sites.” They have done two things–restored the statues and shut down nearby coal mines. The Times says that restoration efforts began in the... Read more

Boku Haram & Nigeria

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:36 pm By George G. Coe

A 15 year old survivor of the Boku Haram kidnapping relates her horrifying story in this discussion produced by the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. It was recorded by C-Span and you can see it here. The young girls’s father and brother were murdered by the terrorist group. The father would not renounce his faith. You can read more about Boku Haram from the sources below: Vox has an excellent review of the organization called “The crisis in Nigeria, in 11... Read more

Reza Aslan: Jesus No Pacifist

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 9:27 pm By George G. Coe

Here’s an interesting clip in which Reza Aslan discusses Jesus and notes that he was not a pacifist like Martin Luther King or Gandhi because no one could upset a major empire like Rome with a sit-in. Aslan, the author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus, says that Jesus was probably more like Malcolm X. I saw this on Fusion, which also has a good summary of the interview by Jessica Roy. Read more

Muslims in the United States: A People’s History

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:37 pm By George G. Coe

Muslims have a rich history in the United States, especially among enslaved Africans, according to this excellent essay by Alison Kysia called “A Peoples History of Muslims in the Untied States.” Kysia wrote the story for the Zinn Education Project’s “If We Knew Our History” series which “features articles by teachers, journalists, and scholars that highlight inadequacies in the history textbooks.” That rich history includes, for example, Mohamed Ali b. Said. He fought in the Civil War, eventually became a... Read more