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June 29th, 2014
08:19 PM ET
Hobby Lobby: the Bible verses behind the battleBy Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor [twitter-follow screen_name='BurkeCNN'] Washington (CNN) – For the Greens, the Christian family behind the Hobby Lobby chain of stores, their battle with the Obama administration was never really about contraception. It was about abortion. After all, the evangelical Greens don't object to 16 of the 20 contraceptive measures mandated for employer coverage by the Affordable Care Act. That puts the family squarely in line with other evangelicals, who largely support the use of birth control by married couples. Like other evangelicals, however, the Greens believe that four forms of contraception mandated under the ACA - Plan B, Ella and two intrauterine devices - in fact cause abortions by preventing a fertilized embryo from implanting in the womb. (The Obama administration and several major medical groups disagree that such treatments are abortions .) “We won’t pay for any abortive products," Steve Green, Hobby Lobby's president, told Religion News Service. "We believe life begins at conception.”
June 12th, 2014
08:42 PM ET
How Judaism predicted the first humanoid robotOpinion by Mark Goldfeder, special to CNN (CNN) - To the team of researchers, Eugene Goostman seemed like a nice Jewish boy from Odessa, Ukraine. In fact, he was a computer. In convincing some of the researchers that Goostman was real, the computer program became the first to pass the Turing Test for artificial intelligence. The Turing Test, named for British mathematician Alan Turing, is often thought of as the benchmark test for true machine intelligence. Since 1950, thousands of scientific teams have tried to create something capable of passing, but none has succeeded. That is, until Saturday – and, appropriately for the Goostman advance, our brave new world can learn a bit from Jewish history.
January 21st, 2014
02:24 PM ET
Six surprising changes to the anti-abortion March for LifeBy Daniel Burke, Belief Blog Co-editor (CNN) - For decades, the March for Life has followed a familiar formula: Bus in thousands of abortion opponents. Protest in front of the Supreme Court. Go home. But this year, in addition to braving snow and bone-chilling wind, the March will move in a different direction, says Jeanne Monahan, president of the anti-abortion group. Long-winded political speeches? See ya. An exclusive focus on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that lifted restrictions on abortion? Gone. A hipster Catholic musician, evangelical leaders and March for Life app? Welcome to the protest. And those changes just skim the surface. The March for Life, billed as the world’s largest anti-abortion event, is remaking itself in deeper ways as well, says Monahan.
August 29th, 2013
01:24 PM ET
Former staffer: Measles church counseled faith, not shotsBy Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) When Amy Arden joined Eagle Mountain International Church in 1997, her 11monthold daughter had received all the recommended vaccinations. But in the six years the young, single mother worked and worshipped at the evangelical megachurch, Arden didn’t take her child to get a single shot. “There was a belief permeating throughout the church that there is only faith and fear,” Arden said. “If you were afraid of the illness enough to get vaccinated, it showed a lack of faith that God would protect and heal you.” Members of Eagle Mountain International Church also believed that childhood vaccinations could lead to autism, said Arden, who is 35. Arden said she was taught by a supervisor at the church's nursery how to opt out of a Texas law that requires most children to be immunized. She now regrets passing the same lesson on to other parents. “I didn’t know a single mother who was vaccinating her children,” she said.  South African National Military Veterans Association members pray outside the hospital where Nelson Mandela is being treated.
July 1st, 2013
12:26 PM ET
Prayers for Mandela: Healing or a`peaceful end'?By Jeffrey Weiss, special to CNN (CNN) - Nelson Mandela belongs to the ages whether he lives another hour, day or decade. But in what may well be his final days, he’s focusing attention on a modern and yet very old question: When medical treatment can extend life interminably, what's the right thing to ask of doctors - or of the Almighty? Few outside Mandela’s inner circle know the South African icon’s exact condition and treatment. Family members said last week that he had stopped speaking but was responding to voices. Officials have said he’s battling a lung infection, but they haven’t released much information beyond that. What we do know is how Mandela’s countrymen have responded to what could be his last illness. More often than not, that response has included public prayer, vigils and hymns.
May 22nd, 2010
08:40 PM ET
Vatican on synthetic cell creation: 'interesting'
In an article Saturday, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano called it "important research" and "the work of high-quality genetic engineering." But it said the scientists who created the cell - led by Craig Venter, pictured - had not created life, just "replaced one of its motors." The response may appear to mark a turn for the Vatican, but in fact the church does not officially oppose genetic engineering as long as the science avoids embryonic stem cells, cloning or anything else that fiddles too much with the re-creation of human life. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Rome, Italy (CNN) - The Vatican had praise Saturday for this week's announcement that scientists had created 