Indigenous religions is one of the first units in my World Religion class. Here’s an article about the Yoruba, an indigenous West African religion. It’s older than Christianity and Islam. Now it’s gaining followers in America. According to the NPR story, it’s gaining followers because “it offers a spiritual path and a deep sense of cultural belonging.”  It’s also popular to African Americans because it “offers them an ancient spiritual heritage, one that pre-dates slavery in the United States.” You... Read more

Studying the Ottoman Empire?  Here’s a great essay about the impact of the breakup of that empire and the rise of Islamic law from the magazine section of the BBC News Magazine. Roger Scruton, a writer and philosopher, argues that while Ataturk, father of modern Turkey, created a secular country in which loyalty to the new country was first and loyalty to religion was second, other parts of the former empire in North Africa and the Middle East, did the... Read more

Some American Latinos are leaving the Catholic Church for Islam. No one knows the exact number, but estimates vary between 100,000 and 200,000. Why?  Watch the clip. It’s only two minutes. Read more

The Quebec government plans to introduce in September a “Charter of Quebec Values” that would essentially ban all religious symbols in many public places.  According to this article in the Vancouver Sun and this one from the Huffington Post, the legislation would prevent “employees in public institutions like schools and hospitals from wearing religious symbols such as turbans, niqabs, kippas, hijabs and highly visible crucifixes.” The proposed legislation has created an uproar and is another example of the attempt of some... Read more

Student interns for the PBS news site, Religion and Ethics, ask George Washington University religious studies and international affairs professor Eyal Aviv to explain Buddhist extremism in Burma and the role of their leader, Wirathu. The name of the nationalist movement he leads is the 969 Movement. According to the New York Times, “its agenda agenda now includes boycotts of Muslim-made goods.” The movement has included lynch mobs responsible for killing more than 200 Muslims and forced more than 150,000... Read more

Karma is an essential Hindu belief, based on the idea that our actions and deeds affect the future. Bad karma will bind your soul to the cycle of rebirth, while good karma could lead to a better rebirth in the next life. How does karma explain the terrible disasters that plagued India this year like the mass pesticide poisoning of school lunches in July, or the floods in the state of Assam that dislodged dislodged five million people in the... Read more

BBC Religion and Ethics has an excellent slideshow about illuminated manuscripts. And the British Library also has an excellent interactive site in which you can actually open and turn pages using your mouse and shockwave.  Both sites are excellent resources for the Middle Ages and even for a religion class. Read more

It seems that elements of religion permeate every aspect of our lives. Here, the Seattle Seahawks turn to the Buddhist and Hindu practice of meditation  to better focus their players’ minds.Seattle Seahawks coach, Pete Carroll, asks his players not only to work out their bodies, but also their minds. With sports psychologist Mike Gervais, Carroll begins many workout sessions with six minutes of meditation. While not required, Gervais says about 20 players usually show up.  According to the story in... Read more

This is an animated cartoon, created by a Pakistani pop singer, as a kind of protest against the Taliban. The heroine wears a burka, not as a symbol of subservience, but as a way to hide her identity as she fights against evil and for female education. But, according to the Daily Beast, it created a backlash when an Indian news show asked whether the show was “cool” or “conformist.”  It seems that anything to do with burkas can create... Read more

On Saturday, a pregnant Muslim woman wearing a hijab was assaulted. Her hijab was torn off. Ever since that attack, Swedish women rallied in support by donning hijabs themselves. And they posted pictures of themselves all over Twitter. You can see some of the pictures here at “the Huffington Postwhere I got the video clip above. You can also find hundreds of other posts in support of the hijab. I copied from Twitter the entertaining picture below — a conversation... Read more