Religion
It’s a Miracle!
ABC News reports that the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 79% of Americans believe in miracles, such as divine intervention. Read the numerous comments in response to the (very short) article for an insight into people’s beliefs.
The Uncensored Bible
The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book by John Kaltner, Steven McKenzie and Joel Kilpatrick is a rather rude interpretation of the good book (and one that might make for more interesting reading in hotel bedrooms than the real thing). The authors, two Bible scholars and a journalist ask, and [...]
Last Supper Portions
A Cornell University professor and his brother, a religious studies professor, studied paintings of the Last Supper and discovered that artist’s through the centuries have gradually been increasing the amount of food being eaten by Jesus and his disciples, which they say mirrors socio-cultural changes through the ages. Read the full article on Reuters.
Book Fair Clothing Controversy
Who knew book fairs could be so controversial? Iran’s clerics are urging the country’s cultural secretary to hand over the running of the Tehran book fair to them as they have been heartbroken on seeing that some women did not strictly observe the hijab, turning the event into ‘fashion salons’. Read more in the Literary [...]
Hip Hop Monk
ITN News reports that a Japanese Buddhist monk has become MC Happiness in an attempt to engage young people in religion via rapping. Watch him in action (via Three Billion):
Gay is the New Black
Dangerous Breed is home to political T-Shirts that make you think: the slogan that is provoking most comment at the moment is “Gay is the New Black”, which refers to the denial of gay marriage rights in the USA. Others include “Ski Iraq” (as seen on Six Feet Under), “Gaza Strip Club” and “Petrosexual”. Get [...]
Genesis Illustrated
Satirical cartoonist R. Crumb has turned his talents to the bible in The Book of Genesis Illustrated, which is essentially a graphic novel (“with nothing left out”). Read more in the Washington Post.
Three Die at Self-Help Retreat
The Huffington Post reports that two people (now three) people died when they took part in a sweat lodge at the end of a self-help retreat in Arizona run by spiritual guru James Ray. Sixty people had paid $10,000 to attend the retreat and were confined to a tent for several hours, as the temperature [...]
Jewish Elevators
Orthodox Jews in NYC are trying to work out whether they can use special Shabbos elevators that automatically stop at every floor on the Sabbath so its passengers don’t have to perform an action forbidden by the Torah (work, which includes using electrical devices is banned on the Sabbath). Many observant Jews have rejected the [...]
Wanted: What the Specialist Factual Commissioners Want in the UK
At the Intelligent Factual conference a couple of weeks ago, specialist factual channel execs talked about which programmes have recently worked well for them and what they are looking for in the future. Click through to see what BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, Ch4, BIO, History UK and Crime & Investigation want in their science, history, art, religion and natural history slots. (Photo by plagel under CC BY-SA 2.0)
