JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday canceled legislation exempting Jewish religious seminary students from military service, angering ultra-Orthodox lawmakers who could destabilize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
A panel of nine justices ruled that parts of the conscription law that exempt seminary students from service were “unreasonable and unconstitutional”. It gave the government a year to resolve the matter.

source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/israel-supreme-court-rules-ultra-orthodox-shouldnt-be-exempt-from-military-service_us_59b93694e4b0edff97183b5f?section=us_religion

On Monday, The Satanic Temple delivered oral arguments in front of the Missouri State Court Western Appellate District in an effort to challenge the state’s abortion law.
The organization, which views Satan as a symbol of personal autonomy and promotes compassion and “rational inquiry,” is arguing that Missouri’s abortion restrictions — including its informed consent law and mandatory 72-hour waiting period before procedures — violated the religious beliefs of one of its members

source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/satanic-temple-missouri-abortion-law_us_59bacd6de4b02da0e1403c82?section=us_religion

A new poll in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, finds that while Americans widely say they oppose racism and white nationalism, many still appear to hold far-right, white supremacist views.The Ipsos poll, for Thomson Reuters and the University of Virginia Center for Politics, was conducted online from Aug. 21 to Sept. 5 ― in the weeks following the deadly white supremacist rally on the University of Virginia campus. It sampled around 5,360 American adults, asking questions about race that respondents could agree or disagree with to varying degrees.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/reuters-poll-white-supremacist-views_us_59bc155fe4b02da0e141b3c8?section=us_religion

1966, just over 50 years ago, the distinguished Canadian-born anthropologist Anthony Wallace confidently predicted the global demise of religion at the hands of an advancing science: "Belief in supernatural powers is doomed to die out, all over the world, as a result of the increasing adequacy and diffusion of scientific knowledge." Wallace's vision was not exceptional. On the contrary, the modern social sciences, which took shape in 19th-century western Europe, took their own recent historical experience of secularization as a universal model. An assumption lay at the core of the social sciences, either presuming or sometimes predicting that all cultures would eventually converge on something roughly approximating secular, Western, liberal democracy. Then something closer to the opposite happened.

source:http://theweek.com/articles/723456/sorry-scientists-religion-here-stay

Mohammad Amin is one of the many people to afford a reception to the Rohingya refugees at Shah Porir Dwip. Instead of a red carpet and garlands, they all come bearing cucumbers, water, biscuits and small sums of cash.
“We are here to help. These people have suffered a lot and we are welcoming them to our country,” Amin, a member of Tablighi Jamaat, said.
He informed that they have had members from their group here since the very first day of the ongoing Rohingya influx from Myanmar. Many of them hail from Chittagong and Cox's Bazar. People in their neighbourhoods gave them whatever they could to help.

source:http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/mayanmar-rohingya-refugee-crisis-blurring-the-religious-divide-humanity-1462891

The story of religious freedom, a core concept of human rights and internationally recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, continues to be eliminated in Russia. The faith of 170,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses was declared illegal on April 20 by Russia’s Supreme Court. The group was labeled a “sect” and “extremist organization” as the justification for a complete ban.

source:http://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/stunning-destruction-religious-rights-russia

t’s easy to capture a kid’s attention with cartoons about Noah and the Ark, Joshua’s laps around the walls of Jericho and other colorful stories from scripture.Phil Vischer ought to know. For millions of Americans under the age of 25, he is best known as Bob the Tomato and the brain behind the original VeggieTales videos. But over time, he realized that he faced a bigger challenge as a storyteller, one symbolized by the sign on his 1990s office wall that proclaimed: “We will not portray Jesus as a vegetable.”

source: https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/faith/on-religion-passing-on-a-faith-that-s-bigger-than/article_4062f46c-606b-5d39-8061-c6707b243138.html

A set of politicians supporting the call for a separate religion for Lingayats has alleged intervention from the RSS in coercing Siddhaganga Mutt seer Shivakumara Swami to withdraw support for the cause.

They also stood firm on the statement made on September 10 by Water Resources Minister MB Patil, which said the mutt also supported their claim of Lingayats and Veerashaivas not being the same, following a meeting between the seer and the minister. However, MB Patil’s version was rejected by the mutt which issued a statement saying that the Swami had asked both the groups to unite.

source:http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/siddhaganga-seer-retracts-demand-separate-religion-lingayats-did-rss-have-hand-68473

s an evangelical leader, one of the few times I had direct access to the previous Secretary of State, John Kerry, was in a meeting put together by Special Advisor Shaun Casey, then head of an independent State Department office called Religion and Global Affairs, or RGA. Casey brought a group of mostly Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religious leaders to a lunch gathering at Georgetown University. We shared a meal, listened to a briefing from the secretary, and spent more than an hour discussing foreign policy issues related to peace in the Middle East.

source:http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/september/secretary-tillerson-dont-downsize-religion-foreign-affairs.html

A Muncie cleric confronted me with this claim: “Our first freedom is a gift from God.” Not so! He made three mistakes at the outset.
The first freedom in the Bill of Rights is freedom from religion, not freedom of religion as Mike Pence has been arguing for years, aka a secular government.

source:http://www.news-sentinel.com/opinion/your-voice/guest_column_government_and_religion_are_meant_to_leave_each_other_alone_20170915