Multifaith Issues From Other Blogs - Update No. 2

Note: While it is an old fashion to manually search and compile updates, I feel the spidering technology is not yet so sophisticated to look in all directions (viz., horrizontal, vertical, spiral, etc.), for multifaith literature which encompasses faiths, spiritualities, cults, cultures, races, regions, signs, symbols, actions, activities, as well as, transendental meditation. Hence, this indexer will continue to search and update this Multifaith blogsphere. I will be happy if any one can find a tool that automatically searches and compiles updates. And until such time keep reading manually compiled Updates.

Multi-faith Education: Is education the same thing as schooling? No it obviously isn't. Schooling is the responsibility of national and local government and therefore freely available to every family in the country. Schools have offered religious Education as part of the curriculum since 1944. In a multicultural world Religious Education takes on a different meaning. More...

Multifaith Schools: was reading the Daily Express earlier, there's a new government plan to force all faith schools to teach the basics of other religious paths. It's backed by all the major faiths in the UK.
I think it's a great idea. It's a great idea for people of one faith to be able to see the point of view of another faith, this should breed tolerance and understanding which is sorely needed these days. Only understanding one faith is a surefire way to breed closed minds, which can only further split our society along ethnic and faith based divides. More...

Religious Leaders Sign National Declaration to Address Violence Against Women:The FaithTrust Institute, an international, multifaith organization working to end sexual and domestic violence, has announced that forty-two national religious leaders have signed their National Declaration by Religious Leaders to Address Violence Against Women. United Church of Christ General Minister and President the Rev. John Thomas is among the signers. The Institute invites others to sign the Declaration at their web site. More...

Single Faith Prison Initiatives: The Fed plans to seperate cell blocks and allocate lots of money for single-faith prison initiatives. Source. This is truly bizarre to me for a number of reasons. First, evidence is lacking on whether faith-based prison programs are effective. See Kleiman’s bit for details. Second, evidence is lacking on whether secular programs are comparatively more effective. To be sure, there are secular prison programs, usually dealing with finding a house or job, securing mental help, and fighting drug addiction. At one point, I was part of a secular group that worked with prisoners on self-esteem and non-violent communication. These secular groups just don’t receive funds allocated for faith based prison programs, which brings me to my third point. Given the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, it’s rather suspect for government to fund religious programs of any kind, more suspect when it prohibits those funds from going toward similar secular programs, and even more suspect when they go toward only a few (or one) religion, either intentionally or merely effectually. And that’s exactly what this new fed plan calls for. It’s not clear to me from the article why it’d be desirable to limit each cell block to a single program. Again, where’s the evidence that a single-faith program would be preferable to a multifaith program or to several programs of different faiths? More...

Blogs on Multifaith Issues & Concerns - Update No. 1