Here are the latest updates for blogworldreligion@gmail.com
- How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays
- Chinese jeans bearing name of God anger Iranians
- Sex cult leader promised followers bumper banana crop; splits when police arrives
- Freemasons hail Dan Brown's latest novel as "good fun"
- Utah Supreme Court to hear Warren Jeffs appeal arguments
- Search Religion News Blog
Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.
"It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed.
Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi's group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone.
So reports The Guardian.
Question is: what reputation does Abu Hamizi think Islam has build up over the centuries? Surely he and the fellow members of his hate group must at some point realize that while Islam claims to be a 'religion of peace' his actions represent the kind of barbarism that gave Islam the nickname 'religion of the sword.'
Islamism has no place in modern, civilized society.
A Chinese clothing manufacturer probably thought it was on to a winner by exporting jeans bearing the Islamic expression "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful" to Iran.
But an otherwise sound marketing ploy was undone by one embarrassing flaw: the phrase (Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim in Arabic), which graces each of the Qur'an's 114 chapters, was prominently displayed on the pockets of the jeans' backsides, something likely to be seen as disrespectful by devout Muslims.
Incidentally, Buddhists have been similarly unamused at the use of their religion by merchants. So have Hindus.
A sex cult – whose members were promised a bumper banana crop if they engage in public sex – has surfaced in Papua New Guinea province, local newspaper The Post Courier reports.
The man and his followers fled naked into the wilderness when police tried to arrest them over the weekend.
While the fictional story lines about conspiracy and the Catholic Church in "The Da Vinci Code" caused an uproar among some Catholics and drew censure from the Vatican, a senior representative of the Freemasons in Australia called "The Lost Symbol" the work of a "terrific novelist."
"We are very pleased, there is nothing in this book that will offend my organization. It does give us the opportunity to open it up a bit," said Greg Levenston, Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory for the Freemasons.
The Utah Supreme Court has set a date to hear arguments in an appeal of the 2007 criminal conviction of polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs, AP reports.
Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), was convicted on two counts of being an accomplice to rape.
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