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5 votes
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As the Taliban starts restricting men, too, some regret not speaking up sooner (gifted link)
47 votes -
How the Islamic State weaponizes imitation in its propaganda
4 votes -
India is home to six visa temples where many NRIs got visa boons to live American Dream or work in other countries
2 votes -
The last of the Zoroastrians. A funeral, a family, and a journey into a disappearing religion. (2020)
17 votes -
Women’s lives under Islamic State in Niger’s Tillabery
7 votes -
Sweden's immigrant hip-hop stars are redefining Swedishness – Muslim rappers are dominating the charts with music sharing the Swedish Muslim experience
7 votes -
Traditionally in the Swedish church the bride and groom walk down the aisle together – but the patriarchal handover is catching on, and now Lutherans want to stop it
24 votes -
Israeli cabinet trades insults over ‘Jewish terrorism’ warning. Far-right security minister accused by defence minister and intelligence chief of endangering nation.
9 votes -
Atheists of Tildes, what alive religions do you find fascinating, excluding Abrahamic ones and Buddhism?
Fellow atheists, what alive religions (still practiced to a significant degree) do you find fascinating, not including Abrahamic ones and Hinduism? Are the reasons ethical, aesthetic, or something...
Fellow atheists, what alive religions (still practiced to a significant degree) do you find fascinating, not including Abrahamic ones and Hinduism? Are the reasons ethical, aesthetic, or something different? I'm excluding these two categories, because they are the answers of most people in English-speaking online spaces.
My reason for asking this to atheists and not all nonbelievers is because I wonder what religions pique the interest of people who don't believe in anything supernatural.
Edit: I was tired when I created the post, and accidentally wrote Hinduism. I meant Buddhism.
31 votes -
Vegetarians only: Dietary surveillance prevents Muslim citizens in India from finding secure homes
30 votes -
Inside Ziklag, the secret organization of wealthy Christians trying to sway the US election and change the country
22 votes -
Rio de Janeiro’s ‘narco-pentecostal’ gangs accused of ordering Catholic churches to close
11 votes -
A trans priest wants to help men through the masculinity crisis
9 votes -
Iranian-born Norwegian man found guilty of terrorism in a 2022 attack on an LGBTQ+ festival in Oslo and sentenced to thirty years in prison
15 votes -
Book review: Dominion
15 votes -
In blow to Benjamin Netanyahu's government, Israel's top court rules state must draft ultra-Orthodox into IDF
54 votes -
Why did Muslim-majority Tajikistan ban the hijab?
18 votes -
More than 550 hajj pilgrims die in Mecca as temperatures exceed 50C
44 votes -
The Ten Commandments must be displayed in all public Louisiana classrooms under requirement signed into law
68 votes -
Did you know the LDS (aka Mormons) used to have Socialists among their leaders?
6 votes -
Evangelical pastor discusses the link between Barabbas and MAGA Christian nationalism
14 votes -
The Christian right is coming for no-fault divorce
44 votes -
The great deterioration of local community was a major driver of the loss of the play-based childhood
26 votes -
In the 1600s Sweden was a great military power – why did they decline?
11 votes -
Divine Hiddenness argument against God’s existence
23 votes -
Jesse Eisenberg applies for Polish citizenship
16 votes -
Why were Ancient Egyptians obsessed with cats?
11 votes -
‘Mitzvah night is cancelled’. Inside the sex strike that has infuriated husbands and shaken the ultra-Orthodox world.
55 votes -
China’s vanishing Muslims: Undercover in the most dystopian place in the world
16 votes -
The ancient Greeks who converted to Buddhism
9 votes -
Meta AI is obsessed with turbans when generating images of Indian men
15 votes -
The 2,000 year-old city of mosaics
2 votes -
How (and why) the right stole Christianity
22 votes -
Sominsai: The end of a 1200-year-old festival
7 votes -
Germany’s robotic stores must rest on Sundays, too
22 votes -
The judgment of Magneto
13 votes -
Towers of silence
17 votes -
Eleanor Johnson on how medieval christian writers accepted ecological collapse in contrast to evangelicals today
11 votes -
Indiana now has a religious right to abortion
28 votes -
How the 18th-century gay bar survived and thrived in a deadly environment
13 votes -
Personal reflections on Quaker retreat, community, and worship
Friends believe in peace, kindness, simplicity, listening, non-violence, emotional understanding, activism, continuous learning and revelation, silence, togetherness, the inner light within all...
Friends believe in peace, kindness, simplicity, listening, non-violence, emotional understanding, activism, continuous learning and revelation, silence, togetherness, the inner light within all people, silent togetherness, friendship, love, respect for life. You may know Friends as Quakers. Some of your children may attend Friends schools. Friends gather at Meeting for Worship. Meeting (unprogrammed) is quiet and contemplative; individual; punctuated by the voice of spirit (you and I); an opportunity to be heard, and not be judged, and to hear, and to not judge; to connect. It is thoughtful, and beautiful, and somber, and joyous. And unlike anything else in my life.
I attend meeting in a very old house. It is beautiful and smells of ancient wood, with benches far beyond the years of the bricks around them. History runs deep in such spaces. Death, too: it is a burial ground many generations over, but these days we find it to be a garden both literally and otherwise. For a time, this place had dwindled (so I am told), but now it seems fresh and full of life. We come and we sit and we stand and we speak and we sing. The little ones do their best to keep still, but we know they're moved to run about, for that is the way of things. I don't mind. They are our future.
I was grateful to have been invited by Friends to a retreat out in the country. The residence was rustic and the setting was scenic, calm, and I had been there once for another purpose. I could tell that it was full of meaning. There was space to adventure. I did so. My cohort, which you might broadly call young adult, does not often have space to reveal ourselves. After so many years of repression, we instinctively put up barriers and we forget what it means to really laugh and feel. The goal of the retreat was to provide an open forum for emotional communion, especially getting in touch with who we were (have been), are, and will be. It was not prescriptive. As time passed, our leaders invited two elders to share in and expand our thought with teachings, music, video, movement, objects. Some examples of tone:
- "Welcome."
- "Friend speaks my mind."
- "That of the spirit is within you and I."
- "You were once very small; smaller than this seed."
- "Spirit moves me to vocal ministry."
- "You are among Friends."
- "What do you think?"
- "We love you."
A few specific words stand out to me from the retreat: "BREATHE" "DELIGHT" "LISTEN" "MUSIC" "VISION" "SMALL" "GROW" "THANK YOU" "HELPING" "FRIEND" "FRIENDS" "WORSHIP" "MUSTARD" "LAUGHTER" "JOY" "COMMUNITY" "REVEALING" "HEART" "SING" "SPACE" "CLEAN" "LIGHT" "STARS" "PEACEFUL" "PASTORAL" "WOODPECKER" "SUPPORT" "GREEN" "IDYLLIC" "DOG" "SOCIAL" "WHOLE" "MELANCHOLY" "INTIMATE" "CRY" "HOLD" "BELIEVE" "SEE" "RENEW" "SHARE" "APPRECIATE."
It is not very often that you meet a group of strangers and in just a few days leave each other with such bright smiles and quite a few hugs. And it is quite a bit rarer for those hugs to be deep, meaningful embraces. To be realistic, you can only get to know fifteen people so well in a weekend, but the grace in which these Friends held each other eased my reservations more than I expected. I am learning to see the light within other people (and within myself) more clearly. I find this highly instructive as well as reassuring.
There's talk in our society about the absence of community, especially for young people. Economy, government, technology, culture itself seem to disconnect us. Children are pushed too hard and yet they are left behind. I had opportunity in retreat to think about what it means to be a child and what it means to be an adult. I think everyone in our group had a different and personal takeaway on that matter. I also had opportunity to spend time with people who I would verily call role models. They were (are) kind and considerate and it was a gift to be with them, and to be called Friend (and friend).
I take great comfort in knowing that I have a path of forward support here. I can see myself continue to nurture my emotional maturity among this community, something I think I've neglected until relatively recently. I am grateful that this is not the final time I will see my new friends. We have our entire lives to live. It can be together. Suddenly, I start to see a fullness in the world that I was missing before.
That's what I wanted to share. Forgive my esoteric sentences: it's challenging to express the feeling of emotional/internal dialogue in conventional language. I'm more than happy to expand on anything I wrote here. I also welcome your reactions and your own experiences with faith of any kind.
37 votes