amistad

“Shroud of Turin still surrounded with mystery and passion”

“Real or fake: Debate continues to rage over the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin despite scientific tests that claim it dates to the Middle Ages.

(CNN) — When she was 24, Emanuela Marinelli was walking near the Vatican in Rome when she caught a glimpse of a "beautiful face of Christ" printed on a souvenir in the window of a shop run by nuns.

The image, she said, stood out among the other items for sale -- a kitschy array of ashtrays with the face of the Pope and plastic representations of Jesus on the cross, with eyes that opened and closed.

"It was black and white with his eyes closed, suffering but serene," she said.

Transfixed, she entered the shop and asked a nun who had painted the original version, only to be told there was no artist, it was a photograph of the Shroud of Turin.

"I was surprised and disconcerted," says Marinelli. "The idea that [this photo was of] the funeral sheet of Christ with his image printed on it seemed... ridiculous. I left the shop skeptical, and didn't think any more of it."

That was back in 1975.

Today, Marinelli is one of the world's most prominent "shroudies" -- people who believe that the 14'5'' x 3'7'' linen cloth, which bears an image of what appears to be the body of a man, is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.(...)”

(Lido em: CNN 2020-04-18)

milagre?

“Há duas formas de viver a vida:

Uma é acreditar que não existe milagre.

A outra é acreditar que todas as coisas são um milagre.”

FERNANDO PESSOA

Ou no desquecimento se sim ou se não.

“(...) Don [Don Jones] lembrou-me de um sermão clássico do teólogo Paul Tillich. “Você é aceite”, que, certa vez, ele leu para o nosso grupo de jovens em Park Ridge. Sua premissa é que pecado e graça existem ao longo da vida constantemente se influenciando reciprocamente: um não é possível sem o outro. O mistério da graça é que você não pode procurar por ela. “A graça nos alcança quando estamos em grande sofrimento e inquietação”, escreveu Tillich. “Ela acontece, ou não acontece.”

A graça acontece. Até ela acontecer, a minha missão principal foi colocar um pé diante do outro e percorrer mais um dia.” HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vivendo a História, Editora Globo, São Paulo, 2008 (2003))

“Tomorrow’s Gods: What is the future of religion?”

Throughout history, people’s faith and their attachments to religious institutions have transformed, argues Sumit Paul-Choudhury. So what’s next ?

“By Sumit Paul-Choudhury”

“Before Mohammed, before Jesus, before Buddha, there was Zoroaster. Some 3,500 years ago, in Bronze Age Iran, he had a vision of the one supreme God. A thousand years later, Zoroastrianism, the world’s first great monotheistic religion, was the official faith of the mighty Persian Empire, its fire temples attended by millions of adherents. A thousand years after that, the empire collapsed, and the followers of Zoroaster were persecuted and converted to the new faith of their conquerors, Islam.

Another 1,500 years later – today – Zoroastrianism is a dying faith, its sacred flames tended by ever fewer worshippers.

We take it for granted that religions are born, grow and die – but we are also oddly blind to that reality

We take it for granted that religions are born, grow and die – but we are also oddly blind to that reality. When someone tries to start a new religion, it is often dismissed as a cult. When we recognise a faith, we treat its teachings and traditions as timeless and sacrosanct. And when a religion dies, it becomes a myth, and its claim to sacred truth expires. Tales of the Egyptian, Greek and Norse pantheons are now considered legends, not holy writ.

Even today’s dominant religions have continually evolved throughout history. Early Christianity, for example, was a truly broad church: ancient documents include yarns about Jesus’ family life and testaments to the nobility of Judas. It took three centuries for the Christian church to consolidate around a canon of scriptures – and then in 1054 it split into the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches. Since then, Christianity has continued both to grow and to splinter into ever more disparate groups, from silent Quakers to snake-handling Pentecostalists.(...)”           (Lido em: BBCNews 2019-08-04)

“Do humans have a ‘religion instinct’?”

“Are spiritual beliefs an inevitable consequence of evolution? In the second article in a two-part series, Brandon Ambrosino examines the ways that spiritual beliefs emerge from ancient psychological tendencies. (...)” (Lido em: BBCNews 2019-05-31)

"Nascemos para manifestar
a glória do Universo que está dentro de nós.
Não está apenas em um de nós: está em todos nós.
E conforme deixamos nossa própria luz brilhar,
inconscientemente damos às outras pessoas
permissão para fazer o mesmo.
E conforme nos libertamos do nosso medo,
nossa presença, automaticamente, libera os outros."

NELSON MANDELA

PAUL VERHOEVEN: “Jesus was een soort Che Guevara"    (Lido em: Vrij Nederland, 17 de Setembro de 2008)

[Tradução ad hoc: 'Jesus foi uma espécie de Che Guevara']

"Angels: A Visible and Invisible History by Peter Stanford review – thought-provoking and wise”

“They feature in western culture from John Milton to Robbie Williams, but what is their role in our secular times? (...)” (Lido em: The Guardian, 2019-04-28)

“Algumas coisas são explicadas pela ciência, outras pela fé. A Páscoa ou Pessach é mais do que uma data, é mais do que ciência, é mais que fé, Páscoa é amor.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN

“Jezus was anders dan de masculine held zoals vaak door politici omschreven – zachtheid was zijn kracht (...)” (Lido em: De Volkskrant 2019-04-17)