God

According to a survey conducted by the Bertelsmann Religion Foundation Monitor, the United States is the most religious nation in the industrialized world. The Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that 88% of the Americans it surveyed are fairly or absolutely certain that God exists, and that more than half of them say religion is "very important" in their lives. Personally, I've always had a tenuous relationship with organized religion, especially Christianity. As it was for most African Americans of my generation, the church was a powerful force in my childhood.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of April 7 -13, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies       SUNDAY Yee-haw and amen! Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan host "The 48th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards" and Steve Harvey is master of ceremonies for "Celebration of Gospel 2013. " 8 p.m. CBS; 8 p.m. BET The ad men of "Mad Men" are back for a sixth season, but the bad men of "Shameless," "House of Lies" and "Californication" sign off for now with those series' respective season finales.

Fans of the 2011 artsploitation hit “Drive” have been on tenterhooks waiting for more footage from “Only God Forgives,” the Thai Western that director Nicolas Refn had been talking about for months, then went ahead and cast his “Drive” star Ryan Gosling in. They can rest a little easier - or feel their blood pressure climb further--at the first sign of extensive footage from the 2013 release.  The red-band trailer for the new phantasma...

A 25-year-old man, sounding disjointed and rambling, appeared in an Ohio court on Monday on charges that shot his father to death outside a church on Easter, officials said. Wearing prison garb, Reshad Riddle, appeared Monday afternoon in Ashtabula Municipal Court where he was charged with shooting his father, Richard Riddle, 52, with a single shot from a handgun on Sunday afternoon after worshipers fled the Hiawatha Church of God in Christ. Riddle was ordered held on a $1 million bail, the court bailiff, Donald Rossetti, told the Los Angeles Times by telephone.

BUENOS AIRES -- The award for cleverest new-pope headline probably goes to Britain's Daily Mirror tabloid, which featured a front-page photograph Thursday of Pope Francis raising his right hand from the Vatican balcony. The headline: “The New Hand of God.” Non-British readers might find the wording uninspiring, possibly a tad impudent. But Britons and Argentines, and dedicated soccer fans, should get the point. A groan from London, a grin from Buenos Aires. A link to the Daily Mirror's front page made the rounds on Twitter feeds in the Argentine capital.

CAIRO - The brother of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri is an unflinching man with a graying beard whose aim, as a Salafi, is to impose Islamic law on the divided country that has emerged since the overthrow of secular autocrat Hosni Mubarak two years ago. Seated at a rooftop cafe as dusk draped the Nile, traffic screeching and lights flickering in the ancient city below, he wagged a finger in the air and spoke of an "epic battle" to scour Egypt...

Randy Blythe, frontman for the Virginia heavy metal band Lamb of God, has been acquitted of manslaughter in the death of a 19-hear-old fan at a 2010 Prague concert. PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners A Prague municipal court acquitted Blythe, who was charged in December  with causing bodily harm to another person with lethal consequences. Blythe was accused of pushing the young man from the stage during the concert; the fan later died of head injuries. Blythe, 42, had pleaded not guilty to the charge, which could have resulted in a five-year prison sentence if he'd been convicted.

They packed St. Peter's Square when he was named the new pope, and they came again by the thousands to see him off. On the eve of his retirement as head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the joy and burden of leadership Wednesday at a final general audience on which cheering devotees and a late-winter sun both smiled warmly. The eight years of his papacy, Benedict told the crowd, had been a grand journey, sometimes smooth, sometimes turbulent, but always steered by God. "The Lord did not let us founder....

MEXICO CITY -- Did the rulers of the ancient city of Teotihuacan dedicate their largest pyramid to the god of fire, the so-called old god with a signature beard and fire atop his head? Mexican archaeologists announced this week that a figure of the god, called Huehueteotl, was found in a covered pit at the apex of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, a popular archaeological site north of Mexico City. Excavations are ongoing, but the discovery suggests that a long-disappeared temple at the top of the pyramid was used to perform ritual offerings to the fire god, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, said in a statement Monday.

In his recent Calendar article on religiously tinged films ["Faith Makes a Hollywood Comeback," Dec. 30], critic Stephen Farber singles out Ang Lee's "Life of Pi," based on the like-named novel by Yann Martel, from a quartet that includes "Les Misérables," "The Sessions" and "Flight. " Although Farber rightfully zeros in on "Pi" as "the most intriguing of these current movies," from a religious standpoint, I believe he misses the mark on its most intriguing aspect. This, for Farber, consists of looking "beyond Christianity to encompass a broader view of religious commitment.