Religion

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

The Rev. Hamel Hartford Brookins, an influential bishop and former pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles who became a political power broker, civil rights leader and mentor to former Mayor Tom Bradley, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and many others, has died. He was 86. The son of Mississippi sharecroppers, Brookins rose to prominence in the 1960s and '70s as an articulate, self-assured champion of black political empowerment. He died Tuesday at a Los Angeles retirement center where he had been receiving hospice care, a church spokesman said.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner dismissed as "nonsense" a proposed GOP campaign attack on President Obama's past association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., as well as a Democratic fundraising effort that followed.   "This kind of nonsense shouldn't happen," said Boehner on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. " "The election is going to be about the economy and getting Americans back to work. And I think Gov. Romney's prescriptions are much better. "   The role of the harsh attack ads -- this one over the delicate topic of religion -- reared this week after the New York Times disclosed a proposal from conservative strategists to wage an ad blitz against Obama, linking him to the controversial remarks from Wright, his former pastor in Chicago.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner dismissed as "nonsense" a proposed GOP campaign attack on President Obama's past association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., as well as a Democratic fundraising effort that followed.   "This kind of nonsense shouldn't happen," said Boehner on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. " "The election is going to be about the economy and getting Americans back to work. And I think Gov. Romney's prescriptions are much better. "   The role of the harsh attack ads -- this one over the delicate topic of religion -- reared this week after the New York Times disclosed a proposal from conservative strategists to wage an ad blitz against Obama, linking him to the controversial remarks from Wright, his former pastor in Chicago.

There are years that are remembered for changing the course of human history:1492. 1776. 1945. Then there are years that were predicted to change the course of history. 1844, when Judgment Day didn't materialize. 1910, when Halley's Comet didn't wipe out humanity. And remember Y2K? But rarely does a year arrive with such a mixture of anticipation and dread as 2012. We speak not of the presidential campaign but of the Maya calendar, and the projection that it — or, more accurately, a cycle within it — will end on Dec. 21, 2012.

A small wooden cabinet went up for auction on EBay. Inside were two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, allegedly, one "dibbuk," a kind of spirit popular in Yiddish folklore. The seller, a Missouri college student named Iosif Nietzke, described the container as a "haunted Jewish wine cabinet box" that had plagued several owners with rotten luck and a spate of bizarre paranormal stunts.

Jihad Turk -- clean-shaven and youthful -- is telling an interfaith audience that the prophet Muhammad traces his lineage to Abraham, the biblical patriarch. Turk explains to the crowd of mostly Christians and Jews that Muslims also revere Jesus and Moses as prophets, and that Islam cherishes life. But some in the Pepperdine University audience are skeptical. One man wants to know why so many Muslims are "willing with perfect ease to kill," as he puts it, drawing brief applause.

On the surface, "To Save a Life" doesn't sound that different from a host of indie films -- a drama involving a teen coping with the aftermath of a student's suicide who finds solace in a group of outsiders. The film, which opens Friday, deals with myriad real-life issues facing teens such as drugs, sex and social acceptance. The plot focuses on star athlete Jake Taylor, who seemingly has it all; he has a basketball scholarship, good looks, a cheerleader girlfriend and hangs with the in-crowd.

One of Roman Catholicism's most tantalizing secrets came to an anticlimactic end Monday as the Vatican unveiled a 62-line handwritten account by Lucia de Jesus dos Santos of what she saw as a 10-year-old shepherd in a pasture near Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917. The text describes a radiant Virgin Mary, a flaming sword and a "Bishop dressed in White," presumed to be a pope, who leads a sad procession of priests and nuns up a mountain through a half-ruined city strewn with corpses.

Today, a century and a half after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," the overwhelming majority of scientists in the United States accept Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding how life on Earth developed. But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community. According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%)

The mother of a mentally ill homeless man who died after he was beaten by Fullerton police has reached a settlement with the city that will pay her $1 million, officials announced Tuesday evening. The agreement unanimously approved by the Fullerton City Council resolves Cathy Thomas' legal claims against the city involving the death of Kelly Thomas, 37. He died July 10, five days after his violent confrontation with Fullerton Police Department officers. Thomas reached the settlement after voluntary mediation with her attorney, city officials said.

LYNCHBURG, Va. - When it came to evangelicals in this year's primaries, Mitt Romney was most often the rejected suitor - struggling to overcome suspicions about his authenticity as a conservative and his Mormon faith. On Saturday at the evangelical university founded by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Romney tried to tackle those lingering misgivings as the presumed Republican nominee - by delivering a speech that delved deep into his faith and by urging about 30,000 in the audience at Liberty University to look beyond their differences with his religion.

CAIRO — Egyptians gathered in living rooms and cafes Thursday night to mark another first in their troubled political odyssey toward a new democracy: a televised presidential debate that was as captivating as it was surreal. The two leading candidates, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Islamist favorite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, clashed in an exchange that would have been fiction during the 30-year rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The spectacle was a rare moment in a region enthralled by Arab uprisings but largely dominated by autocrats and political uncertainty.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - The stage along the sea was a politically crafted advertisement for Egypt's diversity: An unveiled woman chatted with a bearded Islamist and a retired soccer star shared the spotlight with a young hero from last year's revolution. A roar erupted from a crowd, mostly students, when a white-haired man in a linen blazer raised his arms. As fireworks flashed in the night sky, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh called for national unity to end military rule and unrest that have soured the euphoria since Hosni Mubarak was forced from power.

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane - for skeptics and true believers alike. The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, indicates that belief may be a more malleable feature of the human psyche than those of strong faith may think. The cognitive origins of belief - and disbelief - traditionally haven't been explored with academic rigor, said lead author Will Gervais, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Airing on Easter and Passover, the Sunday morning news talk shows used the occasion to explore the religious questions and controversies that could emerge in the presidential election. On “Face the Nation,” Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan said he hoped that if Mitt Romney were to become the Republican nominee for president, that his Mormon faith would not prove a liability. “There may be reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney as president of the United States,” Dolan told host Bob Schieffer.

Organizers of the annual Rainbow Festival were prepared for trouble. The Q Crew, a local "queer/straight alliance," distributed cards telling people what to do if approached by hostile demonstrators. Sympathetic local church groups formed a protective buffer along the festival ground's cyclone fence. Mounted police were on patrol. Jerry Sloan manned a table for Stand Up for Sacramento, a recently formed gay self-defense organization. "So far, so good," he said. "No Russians."

Christina Blouvan-Cervantes had been battling aggressive leukemia when her blood count plummeted and she landed in the emergency room in Fresno. Her doctors told her a blood transfusion was her only hope. But her faith wouldn't allow her to receive one. So she turned to one of the only doctors who could possibly keep her alive: a committed atheist who views her belief system as wholly irrational. Dr. Michael Lill, head of the blood and marrow transplant program at Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, is a last recourse for Jehovah's Witnesses with advanced leukemia.

Free Will Sam Harris Free Press: 85 pp., $9.99 paper Religion for Atheists Alain de Botton Pantheon: 320 pp., $26.95 Once upon a time I took a degree in philosophy at the University of Cambridge. One of my tutors was Don Cupitt, a philosopher and radical theologian who challenged the doctrine that Jesus was God incarnate; Cupitt, though a priest himself, questioned the entire theistic notion of God. If God isn't God, one might think, then what's the point of him?

In his mind's eye, Rob Adler Peckerar is sitting with his students on a doorstep in the bustling heart of Eastern Europe. They are in a town, perhaps in Lithuania, perhaps Ukraine. It is summer, and a warm breeze rustles the trees. The students listen, spellbound, to a story written on this very spot a century or more ago in a language that is foreign and yet strangely familiar. And before them, the pre-Holocaust world of Eastern European Jews flickers for a moment to life - rich, lusty, funny, sad and achingly poignant.