In Japan there is concern that the temple - traditional place of worship for Buddhists across the country - is under threat, particularly in rural areas where the population is aging and the younger generation are leaving for big cities, as Chris Hogg discovered

Shinkyo Toyoma has three sons and they are all mad keen on judo.

The eldest is 18, a big lad, and he is grimacing at me. No teenager likes to be shown off to guests.

Mr Toyoma takes no notice. He is proud of his three boys. But he is also worried about them.

One day one of them is going to have to take over the family business and none of them is keen.

He tells me that, when he was 18, he did not want to inherit the family firm either.

He rebelled at first but then, as now, there was a lot of expectation in the small community where they live that he would follow his father''s example.

NEW DELHI — The remote, destitute state of Orissa, marred for years by Hindu-versus-Christian violence, erupted in a retaliatory killing on Monday after the murder of a Hindu leader led a mob to burn small Christian churches, prayer halls and an orphanage that had housed 21 children.

The police said a woman’s body, charred beyond recognition, was found inside the church orphanage. The church’s pastor, whom the police did not identify and who was injured in the fire, told the authorities that the body was that of a nun working there. No children were injured.

The attack on the orphanage on Monday, in an isolated district called Bargarh, came after the killing Saturday of a Hindu leader who had been associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, and who was leading a drive to wean local villagers from Christianity. Radical Hindu groups like the council are vehemently opposed to conversions to Christianity, which in India tend to focus on traditionally downtrodden lower-caste and indigenous groups, and have lately taken to conducting mass ceremonies to convert them back to Hinduism.

The Hindu leader who was killed, Laxmanananda Saraswati, was among five people slain by unidentified armed men who stormed a Hindu school in the nearby district of Kandhamal. The police blamed Maoist insurgents who prevail in the area. Mr. Saraswati’s followers, however, blamed Christians, and called for a statewide strike on Monday. The state government ordered all schools closed.

A city council has blocked its staff from looking at websites about atheism.
Lawyers at the National Secular Society said the move by Birmingham City Council was "discriminatory" and they would consider legal action.
The rules also ban sites that promote witchcraft, the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity.
The city council declined to comment on the possible legal action, but said the new system helped make it easier for managers to monitor staff web access.
''Very strong case''
The authority''s Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with "witchcraft or Satanism" and "occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism".
Under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, it is unlawful to discriminate against workers because of their religion or belief, which includes atheism.
National Secular Society president Terry Sanderson said the city council''s rules also discriminated against people who practise witchcraft, which is also classed as a legitimate belief.
He said the society would initially contact the council and ask for the policy to be changed, and otherwise pursue legal action.

    Church set up as a haven for smokers

    Dutch smokers are flocking to a religious movement known as “The Only and Universal Smokers Church of God” following a ban on tobacco smoking indoors.

    Michiel Eijsbouts, founder and “Smokelighter” of the church he founded in 2001, has insisted that the Dutch smoking ban in place does not apply to members of his church under national and European human rights legislation.

    “We think we have all the marks of a religion,” he said.

    “We will have to find out what the secular powers-that-be think. For us the constitution and European rules say we have the right to express our religion and we express our religion through smoking.”

    Church members receive a card, for a fee of £3, to prove their religious denomination as a “Holy Smoker” to the authorities.

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Courtesy: Religious News Blog

LONDON — Europeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.
The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy''s interior minister vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.

Some analysts call the mosque conflicts the manifestation of a growing fear that Muslims aren''t assimilating, don''t accept Western values and pose a threat to security. "It''s a visible symbol of anti-Muslim feelings in Europe," says Danièle Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in England. "It''s part of an Islamophobia. Europeans feel threatened."

NANJING, CHINA -- The factory looks like it could be any plant in this export-driven nation. Hundreds of Chinese workers huddle over loud machines churning out large orders for customers at home and abroad.

But what they''re making might surprise you: Bibles.

As Tibetan monks grab headlines protesting the lack of religious freedom under Chinese rule, a booming Bible industry is on its way to turning the world''s biggest atheist nation into the world''s largest producer of the Good Book.

Chairman Mao might have said, "Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people," but here at Nanjing Amity Printing Co., China''s only state-sanctioned Bible printer, little time is wasted pondering the contradictions of a metaphysical mismatch.

"We are printers," said Li Chunnong, the general manager of the plant, which has about 500 employees. "As long as somebody legitimate sends us an order, we will print them."

PARIS: Forty years after the sexual revolution in France, the country is confronted with a question it thought it would never have to ask again: Can a husband annul a marriage because his new wife is not a virgin?

The discovery last week that a court in the northern city of Lille had annulled the union of two Muslims because the husband said his wife was not the virgin she had claimed to be has set off a highly charged and highly politicized debate in a country where religion is not supposed to interfere with public life.

It has also sharpened the focus on much broader questions that all of Europe is grappling with: How much should European countries adapt their moral and legal codes to their growing Muslim communities, and how much should those communities be expected to conform to Western norms?

A 38-year old American tourist diagnosed as suffering from ‘Jerusalem Syndrome‘ jumped off a 13-feet walkway on Friday night at the Poria Hospital in Tiberias. He broke several ribs, one of which punctured a lung, and also smashed a vertebra in his back. The man was placed in the intensive care unit.

The tourist was evacuated to the hospital along with his wife by the physician accompanying their tourist group. The couple told the medical staff they were devout Christians who had arrived in Israel 10 days earlier to tour various holy sites. Over the past few days the husband began feeling anxious and suffered from insomnia. He roamed the hills surrounding the guest house he was staying at, muttering about Jesus.

Dr. Taufik Abu Nasser, a senior psychiatrist at Poria, said the man underwent a series of tests in the emergency room, including a psychiatric examination and blood tests to determine whether he had used hallucinogenic drugs.

“Then at some point, after he’d calmed down, he suddenly got up and left the ward,” recalled Dr. Abu Nasser. “There’s a walkway connecting the emergency room to the other wards, and he just climbed the wall next to it and jumped from a height of over 13 feet to the ground level.”

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Courtesy Religion News Blog

    GENOA, Italy, May 18 (Reuters) - The pro-abortion mayor of this large northwestern port city suggested to Pope Benedict in a public address on Sunday that the Church could not impose its views on the personal choices of citizens in a lay state.
    Speaking during a visit by the pope to a children''s hospital, Mayor Marta Vincenzi told him a democratic state had to "work for the common good so that citizens can orient their lifestyles without impositions or inappropriate limitations".
    Earlier in the week, the Pope had condemned Italy''s abortion law, while Vincenzi, a leftist, had attended a pro-abortion rights demonstration in Genoa, one of Italy''s biggest cities.
    The election of the new right-wing government led by Silvio Berlusconi has brought abortion, legalised in Italy 30 years ago, to the forefront again.

Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests.

The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers’ pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die.

In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.