What happened in May 2009?

May 31, 2009
A child chosen by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of a deceased religious leader is all grown up and wants his life back. More on our blog.

May 31, 2009 (New York Times)
George Tiller (right), a Wichita, Kansas doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions was shot to death in church. The police have a suspect.

May 30, 2009
If Sonia Sotomayor make it to the Supreme Court, the court will have six Catholics, two Jews and one lonely Protestant. More on our blog.

May 28, 2009 (New York Times)
The date links to a video interview with the Dalai Lama. He is discussing autonomy for Tibetans within China.


May 23, 2009
Liberty University, founded by the late Rev Jerry Falwell, will no longer recognize the campus Democratic club because the party's platform goes against the school's moral principles. More on our blog.



May 22, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI has his own website and it's not bad. It needs to be fleshed out a bit, but that will happen in time. It has facebook, iphone, youtube and wikicath sections. Wikicath is an interactive message center. The web address is http://pope2you.net/.

May 22, 2009 (Chicago Tribune)
Chicago joins a growing number of cities with atheist ads on city buses. The campaign was started by an Indiana atheist group. The ad (below) is a bit more in your face than some of the other campaigns, but then again it is Chicago. Link to other campaigns.


May 22, 2009
The Spanish police say they have broken up a human trafficking ring that forced Nigerian women into prostitution by threatening them with voodoo curses. More about voodoo and witchcraft on our blog.

May 22, 2009
Finally a good news story. Religious strife in Nigeria between Christian and Muslims often explodes into violence. But now the leaders of both religions are working together to fight against the spread of malaria. link to story

May 21, 2009 (LA Times)
Rolf McPherson, the leader of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, dies. The church claims to have 8.4 million members in 144 countries. His mother, Aimee Semple McPherson founded the church. She was a charismatic evangelist known for "alter calls" when the sick and infirm surged forward to ask for healing.

May 20, 2009
Irish priests and nuns have been implicated in a massive sex and physical abuse scandal. Tens of thousands of Irish children were victimized over the years. More on our blog.

May 18, 2009
The Bush team is still providing this blog with fun facts. Apparently Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's Iraq war briefs to the president came wrapped in a cover with biblical quotes. More on our blog.




May 18, 2009 Non Sequitur















May 15, 2009 (New York Times)
A 47-million year old primate fossil could be the common ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans.




May 11, 2009
Apple rejected an iphone application that allows a person to insert his or her face in the place of Jesus or other religious figures. What a bunch of fuddy-duddies! Read more on our blog.


May 6, 2009
Forget about it! No way, no how will you be seeing the sexy burqua in the Saudi Arabia beauty contest. Looks don't matter. The winner will be devoted to mom. More on our blog.



May 5, 2009
Father Cutié, known in the Hispanic community as Father Oprah because of the relationship advice he offers on Catholic radio, was photographed embracing a woman at a bar and at the beach. More on our blog.


May 4, 2009
Bibles in Afghan languages sent to a U.S. soldier at a base in Afghanistan were confiscated and destroyed to ensure that troops did not breach regulations which forbid proselytizing. Our blog has a video.

Religion, Politics and Human Development

May 25, 2009

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Thank goodness for graphics. It's about the only way you can cover religion, politics and something called the human development index in a reasonable amount of space.

What is the human development index (HDI) you ask? It's a measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living and GDP for countries or, in our case, for the states.

The map on the left is what it looks like for the U.S. The darker the green the better the state measures on such things as access to health care, education, income, etc. Yellow is awful.

The map on the right has the states that were won by Obama and McCain in 2008. The blue states were won by Obama. States with whatever that other color is (wishy-washy red? Pepto-Bismol pink?) were won by McCain.

The high HDI states, in which people generally had the better education, income, etc., etc., voted overwhelmingly for Obama. The lower HDI states voted for McCain.


















Two states (Texas and Alaska, dark green but voted Republican) were the exception. I'm guessing that the presence of oil skewed their income somewhat higher. (Any thoughts?) Florida is also an exception (light green but voted Democratic), possibly because it has a heavy Hispanic population, and 2/3 of Hispanics voted for Obama.

What exactly is this doing in a blog that deals exclusively with religion?

According to a Gallup Poll done in January, 2009, that measured how important religion is in our daily lives the most and least religious states are:

Most religious states	Least religious states
Mississippi	Vermont
Alabama	New Hampshire
South Carolina	Maine
Tennessee	Massachusetts
Louisiana	Alaska
Arkansas	Washington
Georgia	Oregon
Oklahoma	Rhode Island
Kentucky (tie)	Nevada
Texas (tie)	Connecticut

The human development index, voting patterns and religious beliefs all track very closely.

People who are more religious and live in states with low life expectancies, literacy rates, education and standard of living tend to vote Republican.

People who are less religious and live in states with higher life expectancies, literacy rates, education levels and standard of living tend to vote Democratic.

State by state importance of religion
States won by Obama and McCain
Human Development Index in the U.S.

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

witchcraft and voodoo in Africa

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

May 22, 2009

Link to New York Times story.

This voodoo and witchcraft nonsense is out of control in Africa. Thousands of Africans are getting killed or hurt.

Here is a video about witchcraft in the Congo involving children.



And here is link to a NY Times story from a previous blog about albinos in Tanzania being killed by witch doctors for their body parts.

The horrible thing about all this is there isn't any easy fix.

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Liberty University

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

June 23, 2009 New York Times Update! Update! Update!
The student Democratic club can continue as a campus group at Liberty University — unofficially. The new policy also changed the College Republicans from an officially recognized campus group to an unofficial one. The political organizations will not receive university financing but may use the Liberty name and meet in university facilities.


May 23, 2009

Washington Post article


Good grief! Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia will no longer recognize the school's Democratic club because the Democratic party goes against the school's moral principals. It looks like the majority of Americans must be morally corrupt since most Americans are Democrats.

Liberty's founder, Reverend Jerry Falwell, provided this blog with some very entertaining entries before he died in 2007. Here's a sample:

Feb 15, 1999
The Reverend Jerry Falwell, a former spokesman for America's Moral Majority, denounced the children's show, Teletubbies. He said it does not provide a good role model for children because Tinky Winky is gay.

May 17, 1977
“Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.” Reverend Jerry Falwell on Crossfire.

Sept 13, 2001
Rev. Jerry Falwell (with Rev Pat Robertson) blames pagans, abortionist, feminists and gays & lesbians for the 911 attacks.

It looks like his son, Liberty's chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., has his dad's knack for making headlines. I suppose banning the Democratic club shouldn't be surprising. The biology department teaches creationism along with evolution and intelligent design. (link).

Here is a segment about the ban on the Rachel Maddow show.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

May 30, 2009
Here's a link to National Public Radio spot about a Brown University student who spent a semester at Liberty University.

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Witches in the Congo

May 22, 2009

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7658899

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/05/child-witches-h.html

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Early Primate Fossil

May 15, 2009
Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Link to May 15, 2009 Wall Street Journal story
Link to May 16, 2009 New York Times story
Link to Scientific article in PLoS.


OK, so they aren't sure if it's a great, great, great (etc) grandmother of man or a great, great, great (etc) aunt of man. But it looks like it is one or the other. The discovery also seems to point to the adapidae group as being the ancestor of apes and man. Lemurs (left) are adapids.


May 15, 2009
Here's another evolution story. This probably won't change any minds, but hopefully it may cause people who don't believe in evolution to take another look. Our blog links to an NPR story about how man changed dogs as firearms technology evolved. If we can change dogs, why can't mother nature do the same and over time develop new species?

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

U.S troops urged to share faith in Afghanistan

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

May 5, 2009

Abuse in Irish Catholic Church-Run Reformatories

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/world/europe/21ireland.html?ref=global-home

The Magdalene Sisters, according to its Wikipedia page, is a movie "about teenage girls who were sent to Magdalene Asylums, otherwise known as the 'Magdalen Laundries': homes for women who were labeled as "fallen" by their families or society ... The homes were maintained by individual religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. (Director) Peter Mullan has remarked that the film was initially made because victims of Magdalene Asylums had received no closure in the form of recognition, compensation, or apology, and many remained lifelong devout Catholics. Former Magdalen inmate Mary-Jo McDonagh told Mullan that the reality of the Magdalene Asylums was much worse than depicted in the film."

Here is the full movie:

Magdalene Sisters Part 1
(Could not be embedded, but you can click on the hypertext)

Magdalene Sisters Part 2


Magdalene Sisters Part 3


Magdalene Sisters Part 4


Magdalene Sisters Part 5


Magdalene Sisters Part 6


Magdalene Sisters Part 7


Magdalene Sisters Part 8


Magdalene Sisters Part 9


Magdalene Sisters Part 10


Magdalene Sisters Part 11


Magdalene Sisters Part 12
(Could not be embedded, but you can click on the hypertext)

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Irish Catholic abuse

May 20, 2009

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

New York Times' story.

Once again, the Catholic Church in Ireland has been caught up in a horrible sex scandal. Tens of thousands of Irish children were sexually and physically abused by priests and nuns in various institutions according to a just-released report.

No names of the abusers were released thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Christian brothers.

From the New York Times article today.

Some leaders of the religious orders have dismissed the report as a collection of lies and exaggerations. But victims’ advocates say it finally places the blame squarely where it belongs.

“While horrific, widespread reports of abuse and coverup are sadly quite common, the significance here is that a government panel is conclusively saying that the finger-pointing and blame-shifting and excuse-making of the church hierarchy is bogus,” said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group based in St. Louis, MO.

The last of these institutions closed in the 1990s. Many of the victims are now between the ages of 50 and 80. It will be interesting to see if the Irish government has the chops to prosecute and imprison members of the clergy and possibly give the victims a little satisfaction. But I doubt that will happen. The Irish government is just as guilty as the church. They should have known what was going on, but it was easier and cheaper to let the church handle these kids and look the other way.

Here is link to a very powerful testimony by a man who was repeatedly raped and beaten.



The Magdalen Asylums, notorious institutions for Irish girls, were previously mentioned in September in our history section. Here is a link to a movie, "The Magdalene Sisters" (2002), about one of the institutions.

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Donald Rumsfeld

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

May 18, 2009 And I thought GQ was a fashion magazine for gay guys. Apparently it's a lot more than that. The GQ article about former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, putting biblical quotes on the cover of his intelligence reports to President George Bush is very creepy.

Rummy was clearly exploiting Bush's religious beliefs.

Here's the link to the GQ story. They have a slide show of the various covers.

Here's a link to a Boston Globe commentary.

Here's a piece on Hard Ball about the briefing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Dogs and Evolution

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

May 15, 2009

Link to NPR's Science Friday's report on dogs and man. A good chuck of the story deals with how man has changed dogs as firearm technology evolved.

I know it's not about religion, but evolution is such a hot-button topic among some religious people I though this might fit. It proves that the mechanism for evolution exist.

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Christmas Time for the Jews

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

I love this one.



Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Me So Holy

May 11, 2009

All companies are out to make a buck so they aren't going to risk offending religious people, at least not in the United States. So Apple's rejection of the Me So Holy application for the iphone is not that surprising.

The app, which allows you to insert your face in the place of Jesus and other religious figures would have drawn some criticism.

However, I doubt that including the application in Apple's inventory of thousand and thousands of applications would have drawn as mush attention as rejecting it. Apple's management looks like a bunch of old geezers. And that's not good for a cutting edge tech company appealing to a younger demographic.

Here is the creator's website.

Here is a CNN report.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Father Alberto Cutié caught with cutie

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

June 20, 2009 (Washington Post) Update again, Update again, Update again
Father Cutie made an honest woman of Ms Canellis this week, according to a record posted on Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts Web site. They will have a proper Episcopal ceremony sometime in the future.
Hopefully this is the last entry about Father Cutie. This story is beginning to sound like one of those Mexican soap operas on Telemundo.


May 28,2009 (New York Times) Update, Update Update!
Father Cutie will become an Episcopal priest and marry his paramour, Ruhama Buni Canellis. I can't say I blame him. That's Ms Canellis standing to the far right in the photo.



May 5, 2009
Father Cutié, an internationally known Catholic priest thanks to his radio show, gets caught fondling a woman. It will be interesting to see what happens to him. If he wants to remain a priest, I'm willing to bet that the church won't throw him under a bus. He has a couple of things in his favor. He is very popular priest with an important Catholic demographic group, the "gropee" was a woman (for a change), and she appears to be of age. At least in the eyes of the law, no crime was committed.

Washington Post story (May 5, 2009)
Photos of Father Cutie
MSNBC story (with video) (May 11, 2009)

CNN report

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

the most pointless beauty contest ever

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

link to story (May 6, 2009)



First the the Arab world ditched Barbie for Fulla, a more modest Muslim doll with a little pink prayer mat (see link) and now Saudi Arabia is messing with beauty contest.

I have never been a fan of beauty contest, but this one is particularly strange. The winner of the "Miss Beautiful Morals" contestant is the woman who shows the most devotion and respect for her parents. Looks don't matter. You can also forget about wanting world peace, working with children or any of that other stuff. If you want to win this one, you have to respect mom and dad, especially mom. I suppose Saudi Arabia's lack of experience with beauty contest might explain the odd criteria for winning.

From the story linked at the top of the page.

There are few beauty pageants in the largely conservative Arab world. The most dazzling is in Lebanon, the region's most liberal country, where contestants appear on TV in one-piece swimsuits and glamorous evening gowns and answer questions that test their confidence and general knowledge.

There are no such displays in ultra-strict Saudi Arabia, where until Miss Beautiful Morals was inaugurated last year, the only pageants were for goats, sheep, camels and other animals, aimed at encouraging livestock breeding.

Go back to Todayinreligion.com

Klansman at the Pearly Gates

Go back to Todayinreligion.com