Word: religion
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...easier. It is the most balanced, finely nuanced examination of the sectarian divide I have ever read in the mainstream media. Unlike many other non-Muslim commentators, Bobby Ghosh correctly realizes that the root of the fighting in Iraq (and in other parts of the Islamic world) is not religion but politics. The warring parties cloak themselves in religious garb and quote suras from the Koran to suit their agendas, but at the end of the day their objective is not religious legitimacy but political supremacy. It is amazing how many Western writers miss that point-and all the more...
...sectarian war between Sunnis and Shi'ites would be comparable to a civil war in the U.S. between Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics. If Iraqis cannot tolerate slight differences in practice of the same religion, how can they embrace democracy? One of the foundations of our democracy is the acceptance of different ideologies, including religion. It's time for Sunnis and Shi'ites to get over their mutual 1,300-year-old grudge. If Americans can accept a multitude of religious creeds among their compatriots, then surely the Iraqis can accept differences in the same religion. Ronn Ohl, Raleigh, North...
...pervades Western culture, it says, that it's hard to call anyone educated who hasn't at least given thought to its key passages. Finally, it claims that the current civic climate makes it a "now more than ever" proposition. Says Stephen Prothero, chair of the Boston University religion department, whose new book, Religious Literacy (Harper SanFrancisco), presents a compelling argument for Bible-literacy courses: "In the late '70s, [students] knew nothing about religion, and it didn't matter. But then religion rushed into the public square. What purpose could it possibly serve for citizens to be ignorant...
TOWARD THE BEGINNING OF THE COURT'S string of school-secularization cases, the most eloquent language preserving the neutral study of religion was probably Justice Robert Jackson's concurring opinion in the 1948 case McCollum v. Board of Education: "One can hardly respect the system of education that would leave the student wholly ignorant of the currents of religious thought that move the world society for ... which he is being prepared," Jackson wrote, and warned that putting all references to God off limits would leave public education "in shreds." In the 1963 Schempp decision, the exemption for secular study...
Cricket is often likened to a religion in South Asia, and just as people sometimes die - or are killed - for religion, the noblest of sports now seems to have claimed a victim of its own. Last Sunday, Pakistan's coach, the 58-year-old Englishman Bob Woolmer, was found dead in his Jamaica hotel room hours after his highly ranked team had been eliminated from cricket's World Cup by rank outsiders Ireland...