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

Reconciliation (Mantra): This is what the Dalai Lama has to say for 2009

Dalai Lama: "In today's highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility... It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weak members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live." quoted @ Invitation to the United Nations' International Year of Reconciliation 2009

On the Web you will find a version that states: "Dalai Lama has to say for each year..."


Information courtesy: Jay Bee. Thank You.

See also Waht The Dalai Lama has to say for year 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Interesting poll, posted Nov 2008 (now open for you to join).

Fraud in the Unexpected Discipline: Research Ethics

• The Science Creative Quarterly » RESEARCH FRAUD: TRUST AND MONEY

• Look out for fraud-Editorial-Opinion-The Times of India

• Making by Stealing of Un-cited (Recycled) Content ...

The Resume of Jesus Christ

Posted by Lana Shi Jie's

NB. For similar resources Google it

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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Vatican issues 10 Commandments for driving -- Faithwise Review of the Week

Message to motorists: watch your driving and your mouth, Nicole Winfield, Associated Press

Here are the "Drivers' Ten Commandments" as listed by the Vatican's Office for Mirgrants and Itinerant People:

1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others. source read also: Vatican issues '10 Commandments' for good motorists

New York City rewards poor with cash for good behaviour Read also: In God’s Name: Religion for Captive Audiences, With Taxpayers Footing the Bill, By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW LEHREN

Chicken served to pundit; airline fined
Kuala Lumpur: A Malaysian court has ordered the country's national carrier to pay an Indian Brahmin Rs 2 lakh in damages for serving him chicken on a flight four years ago.

Hugs and handshakes? Not in school, please see also: 'We need no bans' 19 Jun, 2007 l 0000 hrs ISTlNIKHILA PANT /TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Online exclusive: A sacred space for immigrant rights

Interfaith Leaders Meet In Chicago Around the Issue of Labor Justice and Immigration
WASHINGTON, DC - June, 19, 2007 (MASNET) The Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) held its 2007 national conference on the campus of North Park University in Chicago. This year's theme focused on welcoming, struggling, and organizing for worker's justice. It highlighted the opportunities and challenges that people of faith have in America to make a difference in the life of working people.
The conference also focused on the challenges for working people in an American climate that has become increasingly xenophobic and anti immigrant. The Muslim American Society (MAS) was represented at the conference by its executive director, Mahdi Bray, who is also a board member of IWJ. At the conference, Bray served as a workshop leader, moderator, and speaker. Visit the Website: Interfaith Worker Justice

Miracle diet pill with teeny-tiny side effect

Buddhism new obstacle between India, China21 Jun, 2007 l 0030 hrs ISTlIndrani Bagchi/TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Don't scapegoat multiculturalism, Haroon Siddiqui @ The Toronto Star, Jun 10, 2007
"Immigration and multiculturalism are linked. One serves as a lightning rod for the other. Unease with either, or both, rises in times of economic and social insecurity."
"Too often these debates have been initiated by right-wing commentators as thinly disguised strategies for attacking immigrants, particularly Muslims, often accompanied by apocalyptic predictions about how Canada's experiment in multiculturalism is on the verge of collapse."
It isn't.
On the contrary, Wilfrid Laurier's dream of Canada as a Gothic cathedral is now an entrenched reality:
"I want the marble to remain the marble, the granite to remain the granite, the oak to remain the oak – and out of all these elements I would build a nation great among the nations of the world."

Thought for the day by Asghar Ali Engineer

Dr Engineer explained that religion can be divided into 4 parts-

Ritual system

Institution system

Philosophic system

Value system

He further stated that first three parts can be different but values is common to all religion. There were in all seven important values common to all religion and they were- Truth , Justice, Equality , Love, Compassion, Wisdom , Sensitivity to human sufferings among which three were most essential i.e.,
1. Search for truth
2. Love for all
3. Give to the society more than what we have received.
Continue reading: Workshop with police- thane

@ Workshop with police- thane
May 15, 2007
Target group - Police officers of all grade levels

Speaker - Dr Asghar Ali Engineer [Date - 15th may 2007 Total no participants -79]

See also:

Diversity Resources - Accommodation, Tolerance and Coexistence

Dr Asghar Ali Engineer @ Who is Who: Multifaith Hall of Fame of the 21st century