Tag: religion

Military pilot on no-fly list after probe into faith conversations ends without charges, lawyer says

A Catholic Air Force pilot remains on the military branch’s no-fly list, despite an official probe having failed to substantiate allegations he talked about his faith in an inappropriate way with fellow airmen, his lawyer says.

The pilot, Capt. Forrest Doss, of the 6th Airlift Squadron, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, has served in the Air Force since 2018 and is now an instructor pilot and aircraft commander.

Despite no violations having apparently been found, Doss received an official letter admonishing him for comments that created a “hostile work environment” and that also directed him to get counseling to avoid future problems.

According to the Air Force’s June 17 Letter of Counseling, Doss, in late June 2024 and early January 2025, at various locations around the world, “made inappropriate and unprofessional comments towards members of the 6th Airlift Squadron during the critical phases of aircraft operation.”

LOC – Capt Doss_Redacted.pdf

“It is your responsibility to act in a professional manner and create a safe environment to successfully execute the mission,” the letter states. “This includes refraining from discussing potentially charged topics.

“Intentionally or not, your conduct created a hostile work environment for members of your crew. Moving forward, I expect you to deliberately consider your comments and refrain from discussion that could be uncomfortable for your teammates. Your conduct is unacceptable and further deviation may result in more severe action.”

The letter doesn’t state what Doss said that was found to be “inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and the Air Force didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The LOC turns it into an equivalent of a [Uniform Code of Military Justice] violation for answering questions truthfully about what his church teaches,” R. Davis Younts, Doss’ lawyer, told Just the News last Monday.

Keep reading

UN urges accountability over Syrian government ‘atrocities’ in Druze city of Suwayda

The head of the UN Human Rights Office called on 18 July for Syria’s interim government to ensure accountability and justice for killings and rights violations in the southern city of Suwayda, home to members of the Druze religious minority.

Armed Bedouin fighters and soldiers from Syria’s army and internal security forces invaded the Suwayda earlier this week. Local Druze militias defended the city, while Israel launched airstrikes against Syrian government forces before a ceasefire was declared.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it had received credible reports of human rights violations, including summary executions, kidnappings, and destruction of private property by security forces and individuals linked to the Syrian government, including Bedouin militiamen. Druze militiamen reportedly carried out some summary executions of Bedouin civilians in response.

“This bloodshed and the violence must stop, and the protection of all people must be the utmost priority, in line with international human rights law,” OHCHR High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement.

In one incident recorded on video from 15 July, at least 13 Druze were executed at a family gathering by gunmen linked to the Syrian government, led by interim President and former ISIS commander Ahmad al-Sharaa. Another six men were summarily executed near their homes the same day, the OHCHR said.

“My Office has received accounts of distressed Syrians who are living in fear for their lives and those of their loved ones,” Turk said.

Residents speaking with Reuters “described friends and neighbors being shot at close range in their homes or in the streets. They said the killings were carried out by Syrian troops, identified by their fatigues and the insignia on them.”

“The violence worsened sharply after the arrival of government forces,” Reuters reported, citing Suwayda residents, two reporters on the ground, and a monitoring group.

“I can’t keep up with the calls coming in now about the dead,” said Kenan Azzam, a dentist from Suwayda who spoke to the British newspaper by phone.

He said his friend, an agricultural engineer named Anis Nasser, had been taken from his home and executed, adding, “Today, they found his dead body in a pile of bodies in Suwayda city.”

Syrian journalist Wael Essam reported that, according to his sources, a massacre at the National Hospital in Suwayda was carried out by members of Ansar al-Tawhid (Division 82) against wounded Druze militants and accompanying civilians.

Keep reading

UNHOLY WAR: Christians and Druze being massacred in Syria under new terrorist government

In recent weeks, both Christians and Druze in southern Syria have come under siege by ISIS and forces sympathetic to the Syrian government. They are being massacred and their homes burned down.

Just yesterday, a horrific massacre occurred in a hospital in Suwayda, where bodies were seen stacked on top of each other as video cameras caught the aftermath of the deadly attack. I’m not going to post the video here.

One of the men who was captured said he was sent there by Syria’s Ministry of Defense to exterminate the Druze.

Another report says that 38 homes belonging to Christian families were torched to the ground, also in Suwayda.

A series of Christian communities in Syria have come under violent attack, according to fresh reports received by a leading Catholic charity.

Several local sources told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that yesterday (15th July) the faithful were targeted in the village of Al-Soura Al-Kabira, in the Suwayda Governorate of southern Syria.

According to the reports, 38 homes belonging to Christian families were destroyed by fire, leaving them homeless. Around 70 people took refuge in the church hall in Shahba.

One source told ACN: “This community has lost everything. They had very little to begin with – they were already among the poorest in the region – and now they have nothing left.”

St Michael’s Melkite Greek-Catholic Church was also attacked and torched by unknown assailants.

The full extent of the damage has not yet been confirmed, as access to the area is currently impossible. But images on social media seem to confirm the attack.

There are also reports that the neighboring village of Al-Mazraa came under fire, although details remain unclear.

The attackers have not been identified, but the violence is believed to be linked to sectarian tensions and extremist activity.

Just last month, 25 were killed when a Greek-Orthodox church was bombed in Damascus.

Keep reading

Thai Woman Arrested for Having Sex With Monks and Blackmailing Them, in Scandal Rocking Buddhist Clergy

Thailand’s society and its Buddhist clergy are reeling from a sex scandal in which a woman seduced monks and proceeded to extract money from them via blackmail.

Sky News reported:

“At least nine abbots and senior monks have been disrobed and cast out of the monkhood, the Royal Thai Police Central Investigation Bureau said.

Wilawan Emsawat, in her mid-30s, is accused of enticing senior monks into having sex with her and then pressuring them into making large payments to cover it up.”

Thai monks from the Theravada sect are celibate and can’t even touch a woman.

“Several monks transferred large amounts of money after Wilawan initiated romantic relationships with them, police said -her bank accounts received around 385 million baht (£8.8m) in the past three years, with most of that spent on gambling websites.”

Wilawan was arrested on charges of extortion, money laundering and receiving stolen goods.

Keep reading

Netanyahu ‘Regrets’ Deadly Attack On Gaza Church After Terse Trump Call

Thursday witnessed another Israeli strike on a church in Gaza, which killed three people and injured at least six others. Among the wounded was the parish priest.

Hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering at Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City when the church roof was hit around 10:10am local time, church officials describe. Shrapnel and debris came down through the roof and went flying, killing and wounding Christians inside.

While most circulating reports say an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank directly fired on the church, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem initially said it was unclear whether the munition was launched from an airplane or a tank. The neighborhood and area were coming under heavy Israeli gunfire at the time.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who oversees the church, clarified in a statement to Vatican News, “What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin Church.”

He indicated that more victims might succumb to their injuries: “There are four people seriously wounded, among these four, two are in very dramatic conditions and their lives are in serious danger,” Pizzaballa said.

Pope Leo XIV has called for “an immediate cease-fire” in Gaza in a statement. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was known to have personally phoned Holy Family Catholic Church on a nightly basis to see how the community was faring, even when he was in the hospital.

Keep reading

Academic Center Within Georgetown’s Prestigious School of Foreign Service Has Long History of Terror-Supporting Leaders

An academic center at Georgetown University that sits within its prestigious School of Foreign Service has a history of fostering support for Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist groups, a Washington Free Beacon review found.

Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), founded in 1993, has hosted scholars sympathetic to Islamism since its inception. John Esposito, the center’s founder and a professor of religion and international affairs and of Islamic studies at Georgetown, has long defended terrorist groups and collaborated with jihadist figures.

As the Free Beacon reported in June, approximately 25 percent of all graduates from the ACMCU—which operates within the School of Foreign Service—enter government positions around the world after receiving their degrees. The ACMCU’s history appears likely to draw congressional scrutiny during a Tuesday morning House Education and Workforce Committee hearing featuring Georgetown interim president Robert Groves, as does the funding it has received from the Muslim Brotherhood-linked International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT).

The IIIT, the Free Beacon reported, had a relationship with the now-defunct SAAR Foundation, which ceased operations after the FBI raided its offices on suspicion of terrorism financing. Georgetown acknowledged that the IIIT “contributed $1 million or more to Georgetown” in 2017 when the university invited the organization’s leadership to its 1789 Society for large donors.

Esposito’s scholarly and professional history includes many instances of either the defense of or support for terror groups and figures. When asked whether Hamas was a terrorist organization during a 2000 interview with the Middle East Affairs Journal, for instance, Esposito hedged.

“One can’t make a clear statement about Hamas,” he said. “One has to distinguish between Hamas in general and the action of its military wing, and then one has also to talk about specific actions. Some actions by the military wing of Hamas can be seen as acts of resistance, but other actions are acts of retaliation, particularly when they target civilians.”

Esposito had more charitable words for Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a late Islamic scholar and intellectual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood whom the Clinton administration banned from entering the United States.

“If you look at Qaradawi’s work—I actually just finished working on him for a new book that I have—he goes out of his way to say that he is not anti-Jewish but he is anti-Israeli, anti-Israeli occupation of Palestine, and that is what he is talking about,” Esposito said. “So, he will talk about Jews again as ‘People of the Book,’ et cetera, but when it comes to Palestine, he defines that situation politically.”

Al-Qaradawi’s work, which Esposito referenced, included praise for Adolf Hitler.

Keep reading

Guess Which Crazy Place Just Criminalized WALKING THE DOG

The ruling elites of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not known worldwide for their friendly, sunny dispositions; in fact, they have a long and ever-growing list of pet hates, including America, Israel, women (at least if their heads are uncovered and they’re out in public), and man’s other best friend, dogs. The ruling Iranian mullahs have now extended a ban that was already in effect in over twenty Iranian cities to the entire country: it is now against the law to walk the dog. That means, of course, that while private ownership of dogs as pets is ostensibly permitted in Iran, it has for all intents and purposes been outlawed.

Wamiz, a French-language site devoted to news of our four-legged friends, reported on Tuesday that anyone walking a dog “on the streets of Iran now risks more than just a fine – and it’s all down to deeply religious reasons.” Walking a dog has been illegal for years in Tehran and many other cities, and now there is nowhere in the entire Islamic Republic that you can take your dog for a walk and not risk running afoul of the nation’s feared morality police. 

The ban is designed, according to Iranian authorities, to “maintain public order, ensure security and protect public health.” Wamiz, however, notes that “critics suspect a cultural-political message behind the crackdown.” This because for many Islamic hardliners in Iran, having a dog as a pet is not just unclean, but also shows that the dog owner has succumbed to the Satanic lure of the Western lifestyle. There are few things one can do to arouse more suspicion among Iranian authorities.

Owning a dog is such a bad thing to do in the Islamic Republic of Iran that the Ayatollah Khamenei himself has emphasized that “keeping dogs for reasons other than herding, hunting, and guard dogs is to be considered reprehensible.” He explained that “walking dogs damages Islamic culture as well as hygiene and the peace of others.”

Why would walking a dog damage Islamic culture? Quite simply, because Islam hates dogs. This goes for Shi’ite Islam, the dominant religion of Islam, as well as Sunni Islam, to which the overwhelming majority of Muslims worldwide adhere. Shi’ite collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds attribute quotes to him including “It is detestable for a Muslim to allow a dog to live in his house” (Al-Kafi H 12735, ch. 12, h 1); “Whoever keeps a dog, every day one qirat (a certain unit of measurement) is reduced from the (good) deeds of his owner” (Al-Kafi H 12736, ch. 12, h 2); and “There is nothing good in dogs except hunting dogs or that which guards cattle.” (Al-Kafi 12738, Ch. 12, h 4)

And so, Wamiz says, while “officially, keeping dogs isn’t banned in Iran, but anyone who has a four-legged friend lives an increasingly dangerous life.” The Iranian authorities are notorious, and feared and hated, worldwide for killing a woman they had arrested, Mahsa Amini, for not wearing her headscarf properly. In light of that and so many other incidents like it, it is no small matter for ordinary citizens even to consider flouting the rules of the regime. And those rules appear to be forever multiplying: “Authorities have repeatedly issued bans in recent years that prohibit taking dogs in cars or to parks or public spaces.”

Keep reading

Pam Bondi’s Ties to Scientology Explained

Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General Pam Bondi has held ties to the Church of Scientology at various points throughout her career.

Bondi made history in 2010 when she was elected as Florida’s first female attorney general, a job she held until 2019.

During her tenure she accepted campaign contributions from Scientologists and attended multiple fundraisers organized by prominent members of the church.

A fundraiser for Bondi’s reelection campaign in 2014 in Clearwater, Florida, was organized by six prominent Scientologists, the Tampa Bay Times reported at the time. Christina Johnson, Bondi’s campaign spokeswoman, told the newspaper that Bondi was aware that Scientologists were staging the event.

Johnson said that Bondi first connected with Scientologists in 2010 when she and other elected officials toured some of the church’s facilities in Clearwater. She added that Bondi had spoken to a group of Scientologists about human trafficking and antidrug initiatives.

Ahead of the fundraiser in 2014, Johnson said: “It’s like-minded folks sharing the same goals: Protecting children against drug overdoses and human trafficking.”

Bondi’s office also cited the importance of speaking about the same issues before she addressed a group with ties to Scientology in 2016.

“Considering the seriousness of this issue, the Attorney General is open to talking to any organization about what our office is doing to combat this awful crime and educate them on what they can do to help,” Bondi’s spokeswoman Kylie Mason told the Tampa Bay Times.

Newsweek has contacted Bondi for comment outside of normal working hours.

A Trump spokesperson and The Church of Scientology have also been contacted for comment.

Keep reading

Crackdown on the Church ‘Beginning of the End’ for Armenia’s Pashinyan: Academic

The Armenian government’s clampdown on the Church and opposition is growing wider, targeting an archbishop, deacons and scores of opposition activists in a wave of mass arrests this week. Sputnik asked a local academic to help get to the bottom of just what’s taking place in Armenia.

“This person [Pashinyan, ed.] does not understand the psychology of the people. He only knows that they can be intimidated. But he doesn’t understand that this can be done once, twice, [and only to] part of the people,” Aikazun Alvrtsyan, director of the Center for the Study of Armenian Issues in Western Armenia, said, commenting on the wave of repression.

“When you go against the Church, against everything holy that the Armenian people have,” it cannot end well. “This is the beginning of the end for this government,” Alvrtsyan stressed, commenting on the events, which began with the detention of Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, and has now escalated to arrests of leading Church figures.

“The Church plays a special role in our lives. This prime minister has declared himself prime minister only in the Republic of Armenia, and is afraid of the authority of the Church and the Catholicos” and priests in general, whose authority among the people is “very great,” Alvrtsyan explained.

Keep reading

The psychological and neurological parallels between sports fandom and religious devotion

An in-depth exploration of the psychology of sports fandom has revealed striking similarities between the neurological and psychological patterns of devoted sports fans and religious dedication.

These similarities are explored in a new book, “The Psychology of Sports Fans,” which demonstrates how, for nearly 5 billion people globally, sport fulfills fundamental psychological needs for belonging, identity, and meaning.

The comprehensive analysis shows that sports fandom stems from evolutionarily ingrained tendencies which enhance social unity and therefore survival.

Professor Aaron C. T. Smith explains, “Our minds possess an incredible ability to believe; an ability that has been crucial for survival throughout human history. Now, like a muscle that’s been trained to the extreme, we can’t resist flexing our beliefs. Investing in certain beliefs, particularly those associated sports and players, brings us significant personal and social rewards.”

From Japanese baseball to New Zealand rugby, the psychological phenomenon is not unique to any one culture or nation, Smith argues, but creates powerful emotional connections that bind communities together globally.

Keep reading