Issue 36 (October - December 2001)

Technology is transforming Marshall McLuhan’s global village from theory into reality. Increased access to information, thanks to the Internet and the Web, shatters barriers erected by those who would monopolize it. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as transnational corpor…

Our first and foremost duty is to discover ourselves and then turn toward God through the illuminated prism of our nature. People who remain unaware of their true nature, and who therefore cannot establish any contact with their Creator, spend their lives like coolies who are ignorant of the treasu…

Biological warfare used to be the stuff of movies (The Andromeda Strain [1971], Outbreak [1995], 12 Monkeys [1996], Mission Impossible 2 [2000]) and books (The Coming Plague [1995], The Hot Zone [1995], The Cobra Event [1998], Rainbow Six [1999]). But during the Gulf War (1990-91), the U.S. conside…

The post-communist phenomenon of economic globalization tends to enlarge the economic gap between haves and have-nots. This economic gap assumes a geographical dimension in the form of the First World and the Third World, and threatens the new and vulnerable democracies. Even if economic considerat…

Third matter Nationalism or ethnic differences have been unleashed in this [twentieth] century, particularly by European officials following the well-known principle of divide and rule. The target of this insidious assault is the Muslim world. Nationalism gives some satisfaction but encourages se…

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” - Mark Twain Time is illusive, for it is hard to define, capture, or imagine. Just like the weather, we talk about it but cannot comprehend it or affect its passage. We complain about how quickly time passes, how modern li…

America emerged from the Second World War as the world’s leading economic and industrial power. When it decided to reject its isolationist past in order to rebuild former enemies and embark upon the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the seeds were laid for the current phase of globalization. Other d…

And We have made the heavens as a canopy well guarded: yet do they turn away from the Signs which these things (point to)! (Qur’an 21:32) We are often awed by how fine-tuned our planet is for the existence and continuation of life. One factor that makes this possible is its atmosphere, which i…

After some 10 years of daily commitment to interreligious dialogue and its organizations, as well as participation in most of the international dialogue meetings, and various ecumenical and other interreligious encounters in the Flanders region of Belgium, I would like to make the following comment…

If you think that killer plagues and superbacteria are the stuff of horror movies alone, you may need to think again. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics have promoted the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant organisms. Antibiotics commonly used to kill pathogenic bacteria are now becoming ineffecti…

At first glance, nature seems to be whatever we can see. Thus many of us tend to take life for granted and assume that its existence is both ordinary and natural. We do not question the validity of such assumptions, and therefore leave ourselves open to deception and misunderstanding. Assuming that…

IN ACADEMICS Useful Links: Organizations devoted to the academic study of religion and interfaith research and activities have found a home on the Internet. Have a look at: www.conjure.com/religion.html; www.theorderoftime.-com/cyber/to/rs-file/interf.html; www.interfaithclergy.org/ links.html; h…

On January 1, 1994, the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) begins, a new revolution unfolds. There are no calls to overthrow the government or unleash revolutionary terror, but only the demand to exercise Article 39 of the constitution: The people, the repository of national s…

Question: Will religion, supposedly developed by “primitive” people to explain the unknown, eventually become unnecessary? Answer: Those who answer the above question with a resounding “yes” base their answer upon the following suppositions: People who could not explain or control a certain natura…