- By Serin Quinn
A lot of Easter traditions – including hot cross buns and lamb on Sunday – stem from medieval Christian or even earlier pagan beliefs. The chocolate Easter egg, however, is a more modern twist on tradition.
For many Muslims breaking fast in mosques around the world this Ramadan, something will be missing: plastics.
- By Miri Rubin
On April 5, 2023, Jewish families and their friends will be celebrating the first night of the week of Passover, with the most convivial gathering of the year: the Seder meal.
From Wagner to William Morris in the late 19th century, via Tolkien’s dwarves and CS Lewis’s The Last Battle, through to last year’s controversial film The Northman, Scandinavian gods and heroes have been central to the stories we tell ourselves.
- By Hugh McLeod
“Jesus Christ was a sportsman.” Or so claimed a preacher at one of the regular sporting services that were held throughout the first half of the 20th century in Protestant churches all over Britain.
It isn’t just artists and teachers who are losing sleep over advances in automation and artificial intelligence. Robots are being brought into Hinduism’s holiest rituals – and not all worshippers are happy about it.
At a certain point, "readers of the Old French version of Genesis understood the statement 'Adam and Eve ate a pom' to mean 'Adam and Eve ate an apple,'" explains Azzan Yadin-Israel.
- By Gerald West
What does the Bible say about homosexuality? For starters, Jesus wasn’t a homophobe
According to the latest census, an unlikely “religion” is growing in popularity across England and Wales: shamanism. This makes shamanism the countries’ fastest-growing religion. So what exactly is it?
The virgin birth may seem strange to a modern audience – and not just because it runs counter to the science of reproduction. Even in the Bible itself, the idea is rarely mentioned.
- By Jane Lavery
Known in Spanish as Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead is commonly celebrated every year on November 1 and 2.
- By Kayla Harris
Devotion to the rosary already had a centuries-old history, and the Marian apparition at Fatima only deepened it. So what is a rosary, and why is it so important to many Catholics?
- By Tok Thompson
Scholars have often noted how these modern-day celebrations of Halloween have origins in Samhain, a festival celebrated by ancient Celtic cultures. In contemporary Irish Gaelic, Halloween is still known as Oíche Shamhna, or Eve of Samhain
This year Diwali, a popular festival for Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs, will be celebrated on Oct. 24, the Amavasya, or new moon day, of the month of Kartik in the traditional Indian lunar calendar.
- By Lynne Renoir
I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. My father was a preacher who was particularly attracted to the words of Solomon that he must not "spare the rod" in disciplining his child.
“Bodhisattva” is a key idea in Buddhism. The word is constructed from the Sanskrit root bodhi, meaning “awakening” or “enlightenment,” and sattva, meaning “being.” The core meaning of the word is “a being who is on the way to becoming enlightened.”
Abortions were known and practiced in biblical times, although the methods differed significantly from modern ones.
Perhaps you have seen an angel and didn't know it. Some people actually see angels, complete with wings. Other people experience angels as an apparition of a deceased loved one.
The festival of Shavuot, marked this year on June 5 and 6, celebrates the biblical story of God revealing Torah – Jewish scriptures and teachings – to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.
Christians who are spiritual or religious are less likely to purchase self-improvement products when they are thinking about God, research finds.
It would be quite appropriate for a college professor to assume students know that a tree is alive and a rock is not. Or would it?
Every year, Christians from around the world gather for worship on Easter Sunday. Also known as Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, Easter is the final day of a weeklong commemoration of the story of Jesus’ final days in the city of Jerusalem leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection.
The Easter Bunny is a much celebrated character in American Easter celebrations. On Easter Sunday, children look for hidden special treats, often chocolate Easter eggs, that the Easter Bunny might have left behind.