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It was not your ordinary dinner. Whirling dervishes twirled while waiters offered candied dates as appetizers. And there, sitting together were Turkey’s Chief Jewish Rabbi İsak Haleva, Greek Orthodox Church Patriarch Bartholomeos and Istanbul’s Muslim Mufti Mustafa Çağrıcı. The event was Tuesday night’s iftar dinner hosted by Istanbul’s Galata Mevlevihanesi Museum. At sunset daily during the month…

Religious and social leaders say Dayton, Ohio, needs prayer to move forward as a community. “The move is in response to the uproar stemming from the death of Kylen English,” reports Mark Bruce for WHIO-TV. ” The Dayton man died when jumped out of a police cruiser and off the Salem Avenue bridge.” “This is a time when…

Wheaton College  in Chicago’s west suburbs has been ranked for the second time in three years as the least “LGBT-friendly college” in America, according to the Princeton Review. LGBT means “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual.”  Wheaton also made the publication’s list of America’s “Best Colleges.” The homosexuality advocacy site ChicagoPride.com reports that the Princeton Review bases its…

Stephen Hawking says God had nothing to do with creating the universe and that the “laws of science” explain how the universe created itself from nothing. He says he has no problem with the idea that the universe just popped into being from nothingness. In the premiere episode of the Discovery Channel’s new science series…

A state court in Frankfurt, Germany, awarded damages of more than 3,000 euros (about $4,250) to convicted child murderer Magnus Gäfgen Thursday morning. The court made the award on the grounds that Gäfgen’s “human dignity” has been impinged upon during an interrogation by police — who were frantic to find a kidnapped child they thought…

“Earlier this week the Air Force announced the course called ‘Christian Just War Theory’ had been indefinitely suspended,” writes Michael Stone for the Humanist Examiner.  “The course had been part of the curriculum for future nuclear launch officers for more than 20 years.” “Taught by chaplains at Vandenberg Air Force Base, the course used scripture from both…

“Polly, Mandana, Franziska and Adrian, all between the ages of seven and nine, are supposed to be lying still on their mats – a tall order after having just been chasing each other around the school halls, playing to their hearts’ content with their classmates,” writes Oliver Cech, writing on the website of the German broadcaster Deutsch…

American and Swiss scientists say they may have detected “hints” that the hypothetical sub-atomic “Higgs boson,” which has the nickname “the God particle,” actually exists. What is the “God particle?” There’s a lot more inside the atom than protons, electrons and neutrons. For decades, researchers have been proving the existence of quarks, leptons, neutrinos, muons, bosons, hadrons,…

  Speaking on C-SPAN, Southern Baptist leader Dr. Richard Land chided presidential candidate Herman Cain for disregarding the constitutional rights of U.S. Muslims. Dr. Land reminded Cain that as a Christian and an African-American, Cain should have a special interest in the enforcement of the constitution in all communities, not just approving ones.      …

“If you want to see another blatant example of social activism at the expense of traditional marriage,” writes retired lawman Paul A. Ibbetson, “go no further than The Learning Channel. “Part of TLC’s knowledge-enhancing program lineup is the show featuring polygamist Kody Brown and his ever-growing, Utah-based harem of ‘Sister Wives,'” writes Ibbetson, who is host…

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