Aubrey Belford Aubrey Belford
Muslims pray at a mosque to celebrate the New Year in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, atheists are increasingly using web tools such as social networking sites, mailing lists and blogs to communicate with like-minded people in a nation where declaring there is no God can turn someone into an outcast (1/24/09, AFP/File/Adek Berry).
Chain-smoking at a trendy coffee shop while studiously ignoring the mosque's evening call to prayer, Indonesian atheists Didi and Dewi have little patience for the beliefs of most of their countrymen.
The two young women are defiant unbelievers in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, but they let few people in the real world know it.
Instead, the women have joined scores of young Indonesian atheists who have found refuge on the Internet, using web tools such as social networking sites, mailing lists, blogs and wikis to communicate with like-minded people in a country where declaring there is no God can turn someone into an outcast.
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Stephen Batchelor’s secular Buddhism speaks to the mystery and vitality
of spiritual life in every form. For him secularism opens to doubt and
questioning as a radical basis for spiritual life. Above all, he
understands Buddhism without transcendent beliefs like karma or
reincarnation to become something urgent to do, not to "believe" in. Batchelor is a former Buddhist monk, teacher, and writer. His books include Buddhism Without Beliefs, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, The Faith to Doubt, and most recently, Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World.
The rootedness in tradition is central to me. And I see Buddhist tradition -- I suspect like other traditions, also -- as not something which is static and fixed and somehow preserved in formaldehyde, but it is something that is alive. 
He grew up near London and traveled to India in the early '70s, where -- he has often written -- he was immediately captured by Buddhism. He spent a decade as an ordained monk, living, studying, and writing in Tibetan Buddhist and Zen communities in Asia. I spoke with Stephen Batchelor in 2016. More + AUDIO
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Jesuit priest famous for his gang intervention programs in Los Angeles,
Father Greg Boyle makes winsome connections between service and delight,
and compassion and awe. He heads Homeboy Industries, which employs
former gang members in a constellation of businesses.
PRAGUE – Pope Benedict XVI wrap-ped up a low-key pilgrimage to the fiercely secular Czech Republic on Monday, reaching out to non-believers and calling on an increasingly diverse Europe to embrace Christian teachings. Throughout the three-day visit, the crowds were contained, and so was the pope's rhetoric. More>> 
and the lovely Raphaels, the Pope's visit to Britain is nothing to celebrate (Tanya Gold of The Guardian: Gordon Brown is "delighted," David Cameron is "delighted." I am "repelled.") Religion news
