religion news

American-turned-Sikh to restore ancient gurudwaras http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/12/sikh-art_n_1761653.html#slide=1357063 Smriti Malaviya, Hindustan Times An American-turned-Sikh has vowed to restore all the Sikh shrines in India and Nepal visited by Guru Nanak Dev Saheb to...

As a Sikh-American, I am absolutely heart-broken. As soon as news broke about the massacre in Wisconsin, my parents called me to make sure I was safe. Our conversation was eerily similar to the moments immediately after 9/11. After making sure I was safe, they asked me to be careful walking...

The mass shooting of a gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Wisconsin on Sunday is merely the latest chapter in a history of violence. In the months following the attacks of 9/11, more than 300 incidences of hate crimes against Sikhs were reported, according to the Sikh Coalition (PDF). Though their...

-- Ever since they arrived in the U.S. as farmers and lumber mill workers in the late 19th century, Sikhs have struggled with how little Americans knew about the faith. In 1907, a mob in Bellingham, Wash., who called Sikhs "the Hindus," ran them out of town. (Bellingham officials apologized...

The following is an excerpt from the Dalai Lama's latest book, "My Spiritual Journey," a collection of personal memories, anecdotes and reflections on his boyhood in Tibet, his early life as a monk and his experiences as a world leader living in exile: I am a professional laugher I have...

A recent article by preeminent Jewish historian Dr. Jonathan Sarna demonstrates how, contrary to predictions, rifts between American Jewish denominations have failed to tear our community asunder -- even between Orthodox and the more liberal streams -- and in fact, there's considerably more...

Oppression is in the eye of the beholder, you know. Having spent my undergrad years up to my elbows in literature on marriage and families, this is a topic that's graced my intellect on more than one occasion. With the dawn of the feminism age in the mid-1900s, droves of women proclaimed...

See if this sounds familiar: Several thousand years ago a man who would become a god was born on a land that would become holy, because of him. Several thousand years later, people are still dying because of disputes surrounding this god's birthplace. It's not what you think. It's about...

Many people look to Siddhartha Gautama as an example of someone who attained nirvana, a Buddha. Every other week in this column we look at what it might be like if Siddhartha were on his spiritual journey today. How would he combine Buddhism and dating? How would he handle stress in the...

The most trivial part of the relationship between science and religion, and yet one that generates lots of debate, is the simple question of compatibility: Can they co-exist? I have written a bit about this, but I have to confess that this question is boring. Establishing that two things can...

Many people look to Siddhartha Gautama as an example of someone who attained nirvana, a buddha. Every other week in this column we look at what it might be like if Siddhartha was on his spiritual journey today. How would he combine Buddhism and dating? How would he handle stress in the...

Human thought in the twenty-first century needs to work towards a new model that immerses the human being within a vibrant energetic universe. However, this need not demand that we throw away what we already have; rather, we can expand upon the tools that have brought us to our present position...