Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

Beliefnet News

(RNS) Bruce Sheiman doesn’t believe in God, but he does believe in religion. Setting aside the question of whether God exists, it’s clear that the benefits of faith far outweigh its costs, he argues in his new book, “An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion than Without It.” “I don’t know…

(RNS) The issue of Playboy magazine that will start hitting newsstands Friday (Oct. 16) bears an image of a semi-nude Marge Simpson, the cartoon matriarch of “The Simpsons.” The ploy is in part a tribute to the Fox Broadcasting Company show, which at 20 years is one of the longest-running television shows in history. No…

(RNS) The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural history will open a new permanent exhibit on to the “discovery and understanding of human origins” next March and convene a panel of experts to bridge the gap between religion and science. With input from more than 50 scientific and educational organizations and 70 distinguished scientists and educators,…

(RNS) The nation’s Catholic bishops have threatened to pull their support for health care reform unless their concerns about abortion and access for immigrants are addressed by lawmakers. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which supports universal access to health care as a “basic human right,” had been supportive of efforts to reform the health…

(RNS) The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court decision that awarded property rights to nine conservative congregations that broke from the Episcopal Church in 2006. A circuit court judge in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County sided with the secessionist parishes last year, ruling that a Civil War-era state law allows churches to…

LOS ANGELES – The self-help expert who led a spiritual retreat in Arizona where two people died after being overcome in a sweat lodge said the tragedy last week has left him “frustrated and confused.” At a seminar outside Los Angeles, James Arthur Ray broke down in tears as he addressed the deaths of Kirby…

African cardinals denounced the “cultural imperialism” of wealthy countries in their aid, trade and health care policies for Africa, saying Wednesday that the West’s promotion of abortion rights and condoms is destroying the continent’s moral fabric. African prelates attending the three-week meeting on the role of the Catholic Church in Africa said their countries needed…

(RNS) First there was Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy torn between two nations. Then there was Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman torn between two families. Now comes Rifqa Bary, the teenage runaway torn between two faiths. If you’re involved in a high-stakes custody fight, Florida, it seems, is the place to be. Could Rifqa’s father…

(RNS) California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed as “unnecessary” a bill that would require law enforcement officials to learn about Sikhs, specifically a ceremonial dagger called a kirpan considered a central article of faith. “The veto message makes no sense to us,” said Neha Singh, Western regional director of the Sikh Coalition. “The community is…

(RNS) Cohabitation, divorce, contraception and same-sex unions are undermining the traditional meaning and purposes of marriage, the nation’s Catholic bishops warn in an upcoming statement. “We are troubled by the fact that far too many people do not understand what it means to say that marriage — both as a natural institution and a Christian…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners