Religion

We Americans preen when we lecture other nations about human rights. We are especially proud of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, as we should be. Let's hope nobody looks too closely. We're a lot better at words than we are about applying them. This is especially true when it comes to questions that cause the state the slightest discomfort. Take religion, for instance, tucked firmly into the First Amendment as a seemingly inviolable right. Once the rationalizers in robes get going, that right becomes dependent on how much power a religion has. Any religion can look absurd from the outside.

IN HIS LETTER ON the difference between cults and religions, Larry Lueder asked an interesting question: What the difference is between a cult and a religion? Speaking as an atheist, it strikes me that a fine line distinguishes religions from cults. In fact, some may argue that religions and cults are the same thing. I don't know what the difference is. But I do know that Lueder is mistaken if he thinks that only religions that call for the death of nonbelievers must be cults. If our government banned any religion that called for the death of nonbelievers, both Christianity and Judaism would be affected, based on what's in their scriptures.

It would be wrong to resurrect religious ceremonies in public school classrooms. Yet, neither should the sentiments of those who are urging a return to prayer in schools be dismissed out of hand. Even if their solution to the problem is misguided, they are right to sense that there is indeed a problem. Barely more than 30 years ago school children in Pennsylvania began their day by listening to 10 verses from the Bible and reciting together the Lord's Prayer. It was the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 ruling in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp that decisively put an end to such religious exercises in public schools here and throughout the nation.

GOD HAD NO part in the recent tsunamis. Religion is the problem with this world. Too many people believing in too many gods that don't exist. My theory about the Bible is that if the first story (Adam and Eve) is made up, why wouldn't the rest of it be phony, too? The Bible says own slaves. OK, give me one to do some house chores. One person (Jesus) was born without semen, walked on water and rose from the dead, all in 30 years? Sounds like a crock to me. If a person goes to church every Sunday for 70 years, he wastes a full 151 days of his life and thousands of dollars that will go to pay for lawsuits for perverted priests.

As if Jim Bakker's shabby demise wasn't grief enough, the politicized Christian right is getting the wind knocked out of its high-flying campaign to reshape the public school classroom. Three times fundamentalists' lawsuits have inched up the federal-court ladder, only to get knocked off - twice this week alone. That's good news for the republic. The first defeat came in June when the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional for Louisiana to require the teaching of the pseudo-science of "creationism" - basically the book of Genesis - in public classrooms.

SEVERAL months ago, in a modest courtroom at 16th and Callowhill, a young man from Lebanon was granted asylum. A Maronite Christian, he successfully convinced an immigration judge that he had suffered persecution at the hands of his native government on account of his religion and was entitled to the protection of the U.S. How fitting that his chosen refuge is a city which was itself established as a haven for those fleeing religious persecution....

There is an important distinction to be made between a religiously based vs. a spiritually based political impulse. While religion is a force that either creatively or noncreatively separates us, spirituality is a force that unites us by reminding us of our fundamental oneness. The religionization of American politics is dangerous; the spiritualization of our political consciousness is imperative. When violence erupted last week over the Israeli opening of a tunnel near the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the clear difference between religious passion and spiritual passion was obvious.

Several hundred people packed the Cherry Hill meeting house of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to listen to Eagles coach Andy Reid. The subject last night was salvation rather than football. The West Coast offense never came up. Reid and his wife, Tammy, both of whom are Mormons, were invited to speak by Channel 10 sportscaster Vai Sikahema, who is a bishop in the church's south Jersey branch. Reid spoke to the mesmerized gathering for more than 30 minutes. He told them of his conversion to the Mormon religion at Brigham Young, and the important role his religion plays in his life.

Imagine, sang John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Kashmir dispute, no Indian partition, no Israel/Palestine wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no Northern Ireland "troubles. " Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it. Imagine no persecutions of the Jews - no Jews to persecute indeed, for, without religious taboos against marrying out, the Diaspora would long ago have merged into Europe.

The controversy over the Brooklyn Museum's exhibition of "Holy Virgin Mary" (with pictures of female sex organs and animal excrement pasted on the canvas) shows us more than art. It more clearly shows the media's contempt for religious people. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has been accused of censorship. He says artistic license must be balanced against community values. The media have instead framed the issue as freedom of expression vs. "narrow-minded" conservative politics.

Some think I have a cushy job. After all, what could be easier than teaching the founding religion at a faith-based institution? Actually, it's more complicated than that. Because I am an academic, my task is more rigorous than merely reviewing the ideals of our religion, and because I embrace the Christian virtues of truth, accuracy, and fairness, I must engage my students with the complete story of our faith. This includes Christianity's glorious chapters when it has made positive contributions to humanity, but also the darker episodes when our religion is linked to some of history's most violent and barbaric events.

Again and again the grainy FBI videos flickered across TV screens Thursday, and the whole nation leaned in to study two nameless young men in backpacks. But their faces and clothing revealed nothing as they strolled toward the site of the Boston Marathon bombings. The alleged killers looked like two ordinary Americans in baseball caps. Then, overnight, came their names, news of a high-speed police chase, a fatal gun battle, and clues to their identities. They were immigrants.

I KNOW that people are always searching for truth and often try to find it in a trendy, cool, new religion. The central tenet of this hot new religion in Pennsylvania appears to be that the PSSA and other standardized tests are the Devil's work. Does this bold new claim come from Pope Francis, seeking a return to Catholic orthodoxy? Does it come from any of the Protestant sects that broke with the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation? Maybe Jews or Muslims have discovered this in a sacred text?

Sister Mary Florian Heck, 90, an educator and administrator at schools in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and other locations, died Wednesday, March 27, at McAuley Convent in Merion Station. Sister Mary, the former Anna Sophia Heck, was born Oct. 24, 1922, in Philadelphia, one of three children of John and Eva Heck. She attended grade school and graduated from high school at the Academy of the Sisters of Mercy at Broad Street and Columbia Avenue in 1941. That year, she entered the Sisters of Mercy.

One day in 2003, Mike "Slo-Mo" Brenner walked into a music store in Cambridge, Mass., and happened upon a VHS tape offering to teach him "How to Play Hindustani Slide Guitar. " "It had a picture of an Indian gentleman playing this way-out-looking thing," says the Philadelphia guitarist and bandleader, who was then on tour with the roots-rock band Marah. "I asked the guys in the store, 'What is this?' They had no idea. " When he got home and popped it in his VCR, Brenner recalled over lunch at a University City Indian restaurant this week, he heard "the most amazing sound.

By Jason P. Gosselin More than 40 lawsuits have been filed throughout the country regarding the Affordable Care Act's "contraception mandate," which requires employers to provide health insurance covering all methods of contraception and sterilization approved by the Food and Drug Administration. One of those lawsuits is Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius . Finding that the mandate was a burden but not a substantial burden on the exercise of religion, a federal court in Philadelphia recently rejected the employer's claim.

At a time when increasing numbers of people say they are unaffiliated with any religion, a group with perhaps every reason to question God is talking about rocklike faith. Jacob Story says his faith gets hard core when the teasing gets relentless. "I feel like I'm being bullied because they know more stuff than [me]," Story, 21, of Quakertown, said. That's when he focuses on the Biblical passage about being humble and humility leading to good things. Story is sitting in a circle of 15 at a meeting of Faith and Light, a combination fellowship gathering and worship service.

Another reminder of barbarism The savage murders of the U.S. embassy staff in Libya, on the anniversary of 9/11, are yet one more reminder of the barbarism inherent in Islamic fundamentalism ("Outrage, questions follow Libya attack," Thursday). Only months after Americans supported the Libyan people in deposing their despotic dictator, this is their response. We are often reminded that Islamophobia is irrational. But if we must fear for our lives when this religion is criticized, those concerns are not only rational, but necessary.

BOSTON - A new study on the generosity of Americans suggests that states with the least religious residents are also the stingiest about giving money to charity. The study, released Monday by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, found that residents in states where religious participation is higher than the rest of the nation, particularly in the South, gave the greatest percentage of their discretionary income to charity. The Northeast, with lower religious participation, was the least generous to charities, with the six New England states filling the last six slots among the 50 states.

COMEDIAN W. Kamau Bell says that a presidential race featuring "a Mormon vs. a black guy" is to most Americans "like Alien vs. Predator. " It's a funny line. And Bell, who hosts his own TV comedy show, FX's "Totally Biased," is a funny guy. But the line got me thinking about religion and race in the current election. And as the campaign continues to wallow in small-minded (often surrogate) sludge, the prospect of religion and race becoming overt increases. Better for all if that doesn't happen; at the moment, there's good news and bad news.