Islamic Sectarian Violence Inspires Murders on Shiite Holiday

BAGHDAD — As Shiite pilgrims waving black mourning flags poured through the sunny streets of the Iraqi capital on Saturday, a roadside bomb exploded in the eastern part of the city, adding to the drumbeat of sectarian violence that has been on the rise during the 10-day religious observance of Ashura.
Hundreds of thousands of marchers reached the holy city of Karbala on Saturday, with more expected to arrive Sunday, the last day of Ashura, amid heightened security measures and a scattering of deadly attacks.
The bomb in eastern Baghdad exploded near a tent that served food to marchers, killing two people and wounding eight, according to the Interior Ministry.
In further attacks on worshipers, a roadside bomb in southeast Baghdad killed one person and wounded nine, and a grenade thrown into a crowd wounded five people in the city’s center.
The day of Ashura commemorates the death of the Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and his followers formed the Shiite sect.

NYTIMES

Religious

Prominent Evangelical Rick Warren Advocates Absolute Devotion to Church

YouTube

This is a video of Rick Warren in which advocates for a particularly vehement form of religious allegiance to his church worth looking at. He compares the need for members of the congregation to serve the church in the same way that Nazi soldiers committed themselves to Hitler(his words not mine). It's chilling to hear someone pleading for such complete devotion to a particular faith. He was recently tied to the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality bill, and pressured to distance himself from the issue.
He is an incredibly powerful evangelical preacher and author who plays a huge role in shaping both global policy and public opinion. I'm sure we'll be hearing more from him in the future.

Barack Obama Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

President Obama remarks about the current global situation of efforts towards world peace. I thought my readers might want to examine this particular passage in his speech, with particular note taken towards his understanding of the influence of faith and religion upon Peace efforts. Pretty interesting stuff

...And yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalization, the cultural leveling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities -- their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we're moving backwards. We see it in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines.

And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint -- no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it's incompatible with the very purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

NYTimes Transcript

Vigilante Sharia Court Issues Death Sentance to Woman for Adultery

Men sought 'to kill woman for adultery'
Spanish police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said on Sunday.
The men were arrested on November 14 and seven have been held in jail, a police spokesman said.
According to police, the woman had been taken in March and held in an isolated house in Valls in northeastern Catalonia.
Authorities say the men set up a court there to judge her for adultery.
"These men had formed a kind of court to apply (Islamic) sharia law," the spokesman said, adding the woman told authorities she was tried and sentenced to death.
She was later able to escape and report what happened to police.

Herald Sun

The existence of this dual court system is an injustice which cannot be ignored. While at-will 3rd party arbitration can be a solution for many civil cases,
Vigilante law can't be allowed to be levied against individuals in a way that deprives them of their basic human rights.

Threats of Eternal Damnation Against Homosexuals from the Vatican

VATICAN CITY — Homosexuals and transsexuals "will never enter the kingdom of heaven", a leading Roman Catholic cardinal said on Wednesday.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said that while the Church regarded homosexuality as an "insult to God", this did not justify discrimination against gay and transsexual people.

"Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the kingdom of heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul," the cardinal said, in comments reported by the Ansa news agency.

"People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual, for different reasons: education issues or because they did not develop their own identity during adolescence. It may not be their fault, but acting against nature and the dignity of the human body is an insult to God," he said.

Barragan, the retired head of the Vatican's Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, quoted a passage from Paul's epistle to the Romans which speaks of "men committing indecent acts with other men".

"Homosexuality is therefore a sin, but this does not justify any form of discrimination. God alone has the right to judge," the cardinal said.

"We on earth cannot condemn, and as human beings we all have the same rights."