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The power of sex, with its obvious link to fertility and the instinctive connections to love, exaltation and submission, is understood by every religion. It's exploited by some, isolated -- and perhaps feared -- by others.
In 1860, the great British explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton traveled to New York and Washington, D.C., then made his way across the continent to Utah. The book he wrote about his journey, “City of the Saints,” is a rambling collection of observations and interviews by a man who had explored unknown corners of Africa and the Orient, studying languages, customs and faiths wherever he traveled. Now he wanted to know what Mormons and Mormonism were all about.
The United States is unique -- not sick, not healthy, just different from about every other country in the world -- and the recent Pew survey about religion in America helps to explain why.
Ours is a society of choice, founded and built continuously by people who opted to come to the United States to create a future and, by and large, to forget the past. The American dream is all about choosing who you are and who you want to become. Think about it. We Americans describe our identity as a collection of things we acquire. I “have” a family. I have a spouse and I have a child just as I "have" a job, I have an education, I have an income, I have a house, I have a car and, yes, I have a faith. Naturally I want to choose the one that seems the best fit.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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