Cyber Worship Revisited - Need to sort out your sins? There's an app for that

Herald Tribune, Thu 10 Feb 2011

Can your iPad or iPhone bring you closer to God? A new application for the devices aims to help Roman Catholics who haven't been to the confessional booth in a while keep track of their sins, one Commandment at a time. The $1.99 "Confession: A Roman Catholic App" can't grant forgiveness -- you still need to receive the sacrament from a real, live priest like always. The app's designers and some believers see it as a way to spur Catholics back into the habit of repenting. "There's a reason we designed it for these mobile devices: We want you to go to confession," said Patrick Leinen, one of the developers and a co-founder of the company Little... continue reading: Herald Tribune,

More Online Confessions, Resources here:

Here is a sample from inside the Book: Cyber Worship in Multifaith Perspectives--full of resources that will facilitate building bridges in a Multifaith society. Table of Contents / Reviews

Chapter 2. 'Cyber Worship as-is On the Web'

Resource of the Week is: Museums of World Religions (see description, reviews, etc., page 70). Order with Publisher:

My book Talk

My related posts:

Special Issue from Religious Studies Review on Religion & Internet

Cybersins and Digital Good Deeds

Christian Librarianship

Web Vastu or A Spiritual Worldview for Marketing Website

Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet

Cyber Worship in Multifaith Perspectives

Reading now: Do I Kneel or Do I Bow?

Do I Kneel or Do I Bow?: What You Need To Know When Attending Religious Occasions (Simple Guides)by Akasha Lonsdale, (Kuperard, 2010)

About the Author:
AKASHA LONSDALE is an Interfaith Minister. Her two-year seminary training in London included instruction in the major religions and sacred traditions of the world, and her vocation brings her into frequent contact with people of every faith and none.

Product Description:
In today’s multicultural society we are increasingly likely to meet and become friends with people from different religious backgrounds, and to find ourselves attending an unfamiliar ceremony. When this happens, there can be few of us who know exactly what to expect, or are confident about how to behave.

Each religious occasion is categorized in a helpful sequence. For e.g., Buddhist ceremonies (p. 298) > festivals and holy days (p. 314) > Wesak, Vesak, Vesakha (Buddha Day) What do I do? (p. 317) ... Similarly, Sikh ceremonies (p. 260) > Vaisakhi, Baisakhi (what do they do) (p. 281);

You will find description of each faith's practice, theology, what do I do, What happens, and much more...

In terms of coverage of ceremonies, Western Christianity gets the largest share: 60 pages; Orthodox Christianity: 20 pages; Jewish: 50 pages; Muslim: 25 pages; Hindu: 50 pages; Sikh: 38 pages; and Buddhist: 30 pages.

"Armed with this basic information, you will feel relaxed enough to enjoy the occasion–and perhaps inspired to discover more about the spiritual world view of another cultural tradition. "

Strength:

It is a 'how to' manual for those desiring to understand seven faiths' religious occasions.

It is easy to read, easier to follow and educating everyone.

Each faith (except Christianity) ends with a glossary ('Some Useful Words & Phrases').

It has a detailed Table of Contents, equally detailed index and a useful list of resources (Further Readings)

Weakness

The background information of each faith takes away precious space, and this factor makes the book bulky (336 pages); Just the details of 'Bow, Kneel, Prostrate and Hand Shake' would have taken only 200 pages, making it cheaper, handy and unique. In a future revision, the author / publisher may consider a more appropriate title for this book, such as, 'Bow, Kneel, Prostrate and Hand Shake: unique and common practices in major theistic religions of the world.'

This book’s wonderful detailed description of faith practices is simply short of visuals.

Missing in glossary: Sajda, singular (prostration) in Muslim practice; Eight-limbed (ashtanga pranama) and five-limbed (panchanga pranama) prostrations in Hinduism; “Bet-Resh-Kaf (Knee) The words barukh and berakhah are both derived from the Hebrew root Bet-Resh-Kaf, meaning "knee," and refer to the practice of showing respect by bending the knee and bowing.” See here more on: Did the Jews pray as Muslims do ?!

Recommendation:
This book is a handy resource for the following: (a) you, to understand the other and learn how best to accommodate; (b) any one interested in building bridges (or interested in comparative religion, interfaith dialog, etc.), c) a teacher who can use it as textbook to learn and teach 'what do I do' 'when invited to attend their ceremony.'

In short, all school libraries and public libraries must have a copy. This is a valuable reference source. Read other reviews, here: Simply Divine Ceremonies
On the same shelf:

Swine flu is even changing some long-held religious practices

Extract: "The Archdiocese of New York told Catholic New Yorkers they may refrain from the traditional handshaking at mass. One rabbi in Brookline, Mass., told National Public Radio that he was suggesting congregants at his temple greet each other with a “Buddhist bow” or an “Obama fist bump” during September’s High Holy Days.

Muslims celebrating Ramadan in Kuwait and Lebanon have been advised not to hug, and, if the flu outbreak worsens, mosques could consider asking people to bring their own prayer mats to services. In Spain, Roman Catholics are being asked to refrain from kissing a statue of the country’s patron saint, and Italy has banned the kissing of two vials thought to contain the blood of a saint." continue reading: It’s scarier than religion, by Editors, Health.com @ 8 Ways Swine Flu Is Changing Society

LAW OF ATTRACTION -- Faith-based Resources

PLURALISM GREETINGS

Info from: www.Foundationforpluralism.com

Pluralism Greetings Greetings, I am pleased to share the various, but not all the religious greetings in an alphabetical order. Bahai Greetings; Allah Abho, Glorious God Buddhist: Buddha Namo, in the name of Buddha, response; Buddha Namo continue reading: Ghouse Journal © MIKE GHOUSE 2001- 2008 :: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Divine inspiration: Witness the spectacle of Turkey's mystical dervish dancers

The Independent
Monday, October 01, 2007
By Frank Partridge

For years they could only perform in secret. Now that has changed. Back then, I did have an excuse for such spectacular ignorance. For much of the 20th century this brotherhood of mystic dancers had been driven more or less underground by the Turkish government, anxious to keep a lid on religious movements which might undermine the new republic. continue reading Belfast Telegraph

STRANGE TOMBSTONE - WITH 'EXPIRED' PARKING METER!

PS. Info courtesy: Prof. Amritjit Singh

"I got this from a woman online. A friend of hers died who had a great sense of humor and always used to say that when she died she wanted a parking meter on her grave that says "Expired". So her nephew got her one on ebay! She said that her grave is right by the road so everyone can see it and many people have stopped to get a chuckle." Submitted by John Hutchinson

See also:

"Time-Expired" Grave Site

Yoga instructor brings teaching to Ontario prison - Faithwise Review of the Week

Nicole Tomlinson, CTV.ca News, Aug. 25 2007
A week and a half ago, Mark Fry ventured, heart racing, into a prison common room full of inmates -- and no guards.

The Art of Living yoga instructor was greeted by the sight of 21 men sitting on the concrete floor of the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre in Brockville, Ont.

The residents were poised on bedding they carried in from their cells. Yoga mats, Fry said, are hard to come by in prison.

"The inmates washed and swept the floor, and set the whole room up," Fry said. "Then they all brought their sheets in, and were just sitting there."

Prison nurses, who Fry said laughed at the program, looked into the room through a bubbled window, wondering how the "kooky" encounter would play out. continue reading

Otherways: In search of an emerging theology

Religion of our country is Indianness: Shahrukh Khan

Make Islamic varsity a national venture: Minister, Shujaat Bukhari SRINAGAR: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has called for making the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) a national venture. He also accepted an offer to be a visiting professor at the university beginning October 1.

Cyber routes to a happy Onam
Bangalore: The Internet and e-mail have simplified the whole process of sending seasonal greetings to one’s friends and relatives — with dozens of online resources offering a choice of designs for free use.
This year, the web has added a video edge to Onam: allowing you to express your good wishes through a nostalgic video clipping, with music and movie to stir a Malayalee’s heart!

Kerala MLA out to change luck of 13

Ramesh Babu , Hindustan Times, Thiruvananthapuram, July 23, 2007

Most people avoid the number 13 like the plague, considering it to be unlucky. But one man in Kerala is trying to change that.

Anglo-Indian legislator Simon Britto has requested the Assembly Speaker to allot him room 13 at the Legislature Hostel. Britto, a victim of campus violence and confined to a wheelchair, hasn’t had much luck in life but cannot tolerate the superstition around the number.

Interestingly, Britto was allotted room 12B at the hostel. The room should have normally been numbered 13 but was numbered 12B instead and the previous room 12A. “I am a Marxist and an atheist. I am not superstitious and scared of the number 13. It is unbecoming of a legislator to succumb to such baseless fears,” he said.

As in many other countries, buildings in India rarely have a 13th floor, hotels a room 13 or aeroplanes a 13th row. “See, someone has to take an initiative to bust this myth. Now I feel it is the lucky number,” says Britto.

The fear of 13 — called triskaidekaphobia — is not just confined to the lawmakers’ chambers. A year ago, when the new Left ministry assumed office, the housekeeping wing of the tourism department was reluctant to allot an official car bearing the board ‘Kerala State 13’. Finally, state education minister MA Baby came forward to accept it.

Even the courts have fallen victim to this fear. The Kerala High Court did not have a judge’s chamber with the number 13. The Supreme Court intervened and declared that there should be no room for superstition in the judiciary. In reaction, the judges’ chambers (24 of them) were renumbered chamber 1 A to D and so on, so the number 13 could still be avoided. Old-timers say the court once had a chamber 13 till 1990 but many occupants died in harness. It still does not have a court 13.

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Court reprieve for sacred bull

Mon Jul 16, 3:57 PM
LONDON (AFP) - A court on Monday quashed a decision to slaughter a sacred bull which tested positive for bovine tuberculosis, after protests by Hindu monks and nuns.
The ruling by the High Court in Cardiff, Wales, was immediately hailed by the Hindu Forum of Britain (HFB) as "a landmark judgment in the history of religious worship" in Britain. continue reading

Judge grants Shambo reprieve
Steven Morris
Monday July 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

God and Smoking

Today's Daily Mail had the slightly ridiculous story of UK churches being forced to display non-smoking signs ... Compulsory 'no smoking' signs in churches are 'daft', says Dean.
I'm not sure what Jesus has to say about smoking, but yesterday I found out about Mohammed and Islam's views of smoking - courtesy of this clever little leaflet they were giving out at the chemist. It was produced with the co-operation of the Muslim Council, and makes it clear that smoking is against the Koran and Muslim law.
Conitnue reading the full article

see also:

Churches incensed by 'stop smoking' signs

God and Climate Change - Global Environmental Perspective

07/07/07: A perfect date with destiny?

6 Jul, 2007 l 0026 hrs ISTlAmit Bhattacharya / TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: Remember the hype and phobia over June 6 last year as the date 6/6/06 was associated with the Devil? Well, the buzz around this coming Saturday is even bigger. For, 07/07/07 in the Western world is being associated with perfection.

See also whats up in news:

'Dog sacrifice' angers activists

"Bangalore: Animal lovers in Bangalore were up in arms after they read an invitation to a religious function at the Shaneshwara temple, which said 25 dogs would be sacrificed during the function on Friday. continue reading"

Buddhist leader connects to followers with blog

His Holiness 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje. Calgary Herald, June 11, 2007 [info courtesy: Kevin's blog]

The Buddhist leader who loves tolerance – and The Simpsons Times Online, June 11, 2007 see also: American Buddhist Net

Freddie: The link between Budweiser and Buddha? 13 June 2007, Lancashire Evening Post

Buddhism Today, The View From Here, Jun 14, 2007

God and Climate Change - Global Environmental Perspective

The Green Rule: Do unto the Earth as you would have done unto you: Kashif Shaikh @   Faith & the Common Good

GOD is Green Part 1,

"Why are the world's religions so quiet on the subject of climate change? Inquisitive Catholic Mark Dowd takes a look at green issues through a religious prism and bemoans the lack of spiritual leadership on the issue."

See also:

God and Climate Change Watch the CBC TV Show

An Update on Renewing the Sacred Balance, Faith & the Common Good, Toronto

Revitalizing the Environmental Ethics in Islam Canadian Islamic Environmental Activism, Toronto.

What's wrong with praying in a library?

posted by Blake on 08:55 AM March 16th, 2007, from the serpent-handling dept.

In The Bakersfield Californian Marylee Shrider asks What's wrong with
praying in a library?.
"Freedom of religious expression and equal access is a constitutional right of every American. So, unless the congregants of Hopkins' Faith Center Church are of a serpent-handling sect, have the volume turned up on their tambourines or are attempting to proselytize book-reading bystanders, it's not the business of Contra Costa County or even the 9th District Court of Appeals to determine when their "speech" crosses that invisible frontier into "service." [source: Librarian and Information Science News]

US trying to patent Yoga aasnas

India protests US patent on yoga Press Trust Of India, New Delhi, May 30, 2007

• Yoga does not belong to an individual


• Yoga may lose Indian essence
  

Information Seeking Behavior of the Believers

The information-seeking behavior of pastoral clergy : A study of the interaction of their work worlds and work roles, WICKS D. A, Library & information science research 1999, vol. 21, no2, pp. 205-226 (4 p.)

The role of the research phase in information seeking behaviour of Jewish studies scholars: a modification of Ellis's behavioural characteristics, by J. Bronstein Information Research, Vol. 12 No. 3, April 2007,

[pdf] INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA LAW FACULTY MEMBERS, by Shaheen Majid1 and Gava Mugeraa Kassim, Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, Vol.5, no.2, December 2000: 1-17

Information seeking behaviour of the Catholic religious in Ibadan, Nigeria, Airenobeuan Edale Adetimirin, Information Research, Vol. 10 No. 1, 2004,

 Investigating the Seeking Behavior for Religious Information in Social Media: International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change (IJISSC) 7(4) ... Volume 7: 4 Issues (2016).

Information-Seeking Behavior of Clergy: The Research, the Results, and the Future Jacob Dankasa

Neelameghan, A. (1999). Lateral relations and links in multicultural, multimedia databases in the spiritual and religious domains: Some observations. Knowledge Organization, 26 (2), 74-79.

Dervin, Brenda (1992). From the mind’s eye of the user: The sense-making qualitative-quantitative methodology. In Jack D. Glazier & Ronald R. Powell (Eds.) Qualitative research in information management. (pp. 61-84). Englewood: Libraries Unlimited.

[pdf] Web Searching in the Context of Information Seeking in Everyday Life: The Cases of Civic and Spiritual Action A Research Proposal, Jarkko Kari and Reijo Savolainen,

Information-Seeking Behavior of the Humanists, by Li-min Cheng Journal of Educational Media and Library Sciences, Volume 29 No. 4, pp. 388-410 (June 1992)

AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFORMATION SOURCES AND CREATIVITY IN SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS, by CONRAD J. Human Communication Research Volume 4 Issue 2 Page 113 - January 1978

Ferahian, Salwa, "Analysis of the reference questions at the Islamic Studies Library" Middle Eastern Library Association Notes 37, 1986 pp. 9-17.

Heinström, Jannica, 1970- Fast surfers, broad scanners, and deep divers : personality and information-seeking behaviour / Jannica Heinström, Åbo [Finland] : Åbo Akademis förlag : Åbo Akademi University Press, 2002. Thesis (doctoral)

[ppt] Joseph Owen - Presentation: Children and Religious Information




See also previous posts:

Vertical and tacit: Multifaith and Knowledge Management in Perspective

Save the Time of the Godly: Information Mediators Role in Promoting Spiritual & Religious Accommodation

Multifaith Stacks: A New Book for the Information Professionals

KM, IM, DM - Survival of the Fittest

Multifaith Stacks: Reading Between the Shelves

Online church to feature on BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship -- Faithwise Review of the Week

Let us pray ... at St Pixels, the virtual church with bar and bouncy castle Martin Wainwright, Thursday April 12, 2007, The Guardian. Special reports, Religious Affairs

From another source: Online church St Pixels enters an exciting phase this Easter with the launch of a new church environment and a ground-breaking service for BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship.
Although not yet in full 3D, St Pixels, a project supported by the Methodist Church, now has many features of the final version. Full story @ Inspire Magazine

Online Worshipers: Church is the People, Not the Pixels, By Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter, Apr. 02 2007

Web surfers flock to Godcast, Sophie Finnemore, March 26, 2007
You've heard of iPod - now welcome to iGod. High-tech vicar Reverend Clay Nelson is taking his sermons virtual.

Muslim reunited with his Sikh family The Hindu, Staff Reporter, Apr 13, 2007
A joyous reunion after 60 years: "We may belong to different religions but we are brothers"
MIRANSAHIB: A Muslim brother was reunited with his Sikh family after 60 years on Thursday.

Sheikh Aziz, a resident of Rawalakot town in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, was finally given permission to meet his Sikh family living in Miransahib, a border town on the periphery of Jammu city.

'Let women be bishops' - Archbishop Barry Morgan, BBC News, 11 April 2007,
The leader of the Anglican church in Wales has called for his church to allow women priests to become bishops. Full story

Meaningful meaningless meditation, Church of the Churchless
More and more, I'm trying to make my meditation time as meaningless as possible. That's a change.
I've been meditating, daily, for more than thirty-seven years. After being initiated in 1971 by an Indian guru, Charan Singh, I dutifully followed the meditative practice enjoined by Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Full article

Persecution strengthens our faith, says archbishop of Hyderabadby Nirmala Carvalho AsiaNews,INDIA, 04/12/2007

Widespread and persistent suspicion surrounds Christians in Andhra Pradesh. Hindu extremists threaten and sometimes act out violently against them. Mgr Joii talks about the situation stressing how persecution strengthens believers’ faith and unity among themselves and with the Church.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – In Andhra Pradesh Christians are mistrusted and held under suspicion, frequently targeted for violence, charged with trying to convert Hindus. Speaking to AsiaNews, Mgr Marampudi Joji, archbishop of Hyderabad, talks about the difficult situation which leaves so many people in uncertainty and yet strengthens their understanding of the meaning of Easter.
Full article

Hindu Outrage At Elizabeth Hurley, @ mikeghouse.sulekha.com

Coca-Cola protests Jesus scene in film, TV3 News, New Zealand - 8 Apr 2007

Winning their Hearts and Minds @ Sacred and Profane

See also:

Cyber Worship Revisited - Balaji, a Hindu priest offering prayers

ESSAY FOR GOOD FRIDAY - Religion in a secular society

Punchline: While the discussions / debates go on (left, right and above, and all-over media), Toronto Star (below) analyses the issues / concerns that face the Canadian multiculturalism.

Toronto Star, Apr 06, 2007, Michael Smith
Religious people should be free to propose public policy alternatives based on the ethics of their faith, provided that their position is rationally defensible, writes Michael Smith

What is a secular society and what is the place of religion in it? In Canada, now among the most multicultural and diverse nations on earth, that question is becoming more and more relevant each day.

The expression "secular society" has more than one meaning. But, also, our society is one in which more than one meaning is being put forward as a paradigm of what constitutes a life well lived. continue reading

Previous posts on this subject:

Corporate America swears by the Gita - Faithwise Review of the Week

Secularism, Laicism, Diversity, Pluralism: What's In A Name?