Here are the latest updates for blogworldreligion@gmail.com
- Judge Rejects Religious Defense for Marijuana Use
- Religion News Blog tweaks format
- Baba Ramdev plans to set up yoga retreat on remote Scottish Island
- Islam vs. Archeology
- Catholic investment agency said to invest in companies that profit from pornography
- Press freedom groups greet secret release of Afghan journalist
- Bikram Yoga's New Twists
- Disgraced minister Ted Haggard delivers apology, not details
- Evangelical pastor vows to rid Israel of swine flu
- Scientology drugs message after Irish murder
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A man isn't entitled to use Arizona's religious-freedom law to overturn his conviction for possessing marijuana while driving, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The unanimous ruling rejected Danny Ray Hardesty's argument that he was entitled to use the same defense allowed for peyote use in Native American sacramental rites.
Hardesty said he belonged to a church whose main religious sacrament is allowing individual families to establish their own modes of worship.
"Hardesty's mode was to smoke and eat marijuana without limit as to time or place," the court opinion noted.
In an effort to better serve its readers Religion News Blog has introduced a new format.
The site's front page now is a 'news stream' with links to religion-related articles not just inside Religion News Blog, but also at other websites.
The new format was adopted in large part due to positive reader feedback to the RNB Roundup posts -- which included collections of links to a wide variety of religion-related news items and research resources.
One of India's most controversial television lifestyle gurus, Swami "Baba" Ramdev, who claims homosexuality can be "cured" by yoga, plans to transform a remote Scottish Island, Little Cumbrae, into a yoga and traditional teaching centre.
His claims that yoga can treat cancer and HIV have been blasted as "quackery of the highest order" and he has been slammed for giving "false hope to ill people".
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Much of the world knows Petra, the ancient ruin in modern-day Jordan that is celebrated in poetry as "the rose-red city, 'half as old as time,'" and which provided the climactic backdrop for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."
But far fewer know Madain Saleh, a similarly spectacular treasure built by the same civilization, the Nabateans.
That's because it's in Saudi Arabia, where conservatives are deeply hostile to pagan, Jewish and Christian sites that predate the founding of Islam in the 7th century.
But now, in a quiet but notable change of course, the kingdom has opened up an archaeology boom by allowing Saudi and foreign archaeologists to explore cities and trade routes long lost in the desert.
BBC Northern Ireland presenter William Crawley has a blog post about "Hardcore Profits, a BBC documentary about the pornography industry, has been looking into those organisations who have investments, directly or indirectly, with in the adult entertainment business."
Crawley says following a change in ethical policy guidelines the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops in 2003, Christian Brothers Investment Services now have investments of tens of millions of dollars in companies that make sizeable profits from commercial pornography. The Bishops' guidelines permit these investments because the new rules allow the church to do business with a company as long as income from pornography does not represent "a significant portion of its revenues".
Excellent news about the release of Parwiz (aka Perwiz or Pervez) Kambakhsh, the young Afghan student journalist sentenced to 20 years for downloading and distributing material from the internet about the rights of women under Islam. Initially, Kambakhsh had been sentenced to death.
Predictably, conservative and religious groups in Afghanistan have reacted with fury at President Hamid Karzai's secret pardon for the 24-year-old, who was arrested in October 2007 and quietly freed from jail some weeks ago.
See also Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh is freed and goes abroad, a related article by Reporters Without Borders.
Bikram Choudhury's sweaty techniques are a hit with yoga studios. Now he wants his cut, writes Forbes.
Yoga is big business, racking up $5.7 billion in sales last year, and Choudhury has built a cultlike following.
Recent training costs: $10,500 per session, including $3,000 for room and board in Palm Desert, Calif. At two sessions a year, each of which draw about 325 trainees, that's $4.9 million in annual revenue. To that add 15 speaking engagements, generating about $20,000 each in ticket sales, plus another few bucks from books and dvds. "I'm a yogi, not a businessman," Choudhury demurs.
Now he wants another revenue stream: franchising fees paid by studios that use his name.
Ted Haggard came to Irving, Texas on Sunday to apologize for the scandal that ended his evangelical ministry in Colorado almost three years ago, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Since March, Haggard and his wife have appeared at dozens of churches around the country talking in general terms about his "sin" and her decision to forgive him.
"I can't go into a lot of detail here," Gayle Haggard said Sunday. She is writing a book about her ordeal titled Why I Stayed, which will be released in January.
South Korean pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee, speaking in Hebrew, promised to perform signs and wonders, bring blessings upon Israel, heal its sick, and even eradicate the swine flu virus from the nation.
"You will see that the swine flu will go away from Israel when I pray tonight and tomorrow," said Lee.
Scientology 'vultures' have latched onto another tragedy. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights -- a Scientology front group that runs on ongoing hate campaign against psychiatry and psychiatrists -- free DVDs about anti-depressant drugs in the area where killer Shane Clancy lived.
Reports have indicated that gardai are investigating whether Shane, who murdered Seb Creane (22) before killing himself, may have misused anti-depressants that had been prescribed for him a week before the tragic night.
Here's another look at Scientology's ambulance chasers.
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