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Israeli arms quietly helped Azerbaijan retake Nagorno-Karabakh, to the dismay of region’s Armenians

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has quietly helped fuel Azerbaijan’s campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, supplying powerful weapons to Azerbaijan ahead of its lightening offensive last month that brought the ethnic Armenian enclave back under its control, officials and experts say.Just weeks before Azerbaijan launched its 24-hour assault on Sept. 19, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats, even as Western governments were urging peace talks. The flights rattled Armenian officials in Yerevan, long wary of the strategic alliance between Israel and Azerbaijan, and shined a light on Israel’s national interests in the restive region south of the Caucasus Mountains. “For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” Arman Akopian, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The Associated Press. In a flurry of diplomati...

An atheist in northern Nigeria was arrested. Then the attacks against the others worsened

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

When the megaphone called out for the daily Islamic prayers, the nonbeliever grabbed his prayer beads and ambled through the streets to join others at the mosque in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest city. Formerly a Muslim, he now identifies as an atheist but remains closeted, performing religious obligations only as a cover.“To survive as an atheist, you cannot act like one,” said the man, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity over fears for his safety. He said he narrowly escaped being killed by a mob in 2015 after some people found out he had forsaken Islam.“If I ever come out in northern Nigeria to say I am an atheist, it will be an automatic death sentence,” said the man, a business owner in his 30s.In parts of the world, the religiously unaffiliated are on the rise, and can safely and publicly be a “none” — someone who identifies as an atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. In countries like Nigeria, the situation is starkly different.Nonbelievers in ...

Fearing ostracism or worse, many nonbelievers hide their views in the Middle East and North Africa

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

There’s the Tunisian woman who fasts during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, though not for God. The Iraqi woman who, until recently, wore a hijab. And a man whose Egyptian identity card still identifies him as “Muslim.”Such are the ways that some of the religiously unaffiliated, or “nones” — people who are agnostics, atheists or nothing in particular — negotiate their existence in the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, where religion is often ingrained in life’s very fabric.Aware that rejecting religion can have repercussions, many conceal that part of themselves. Declaring disbelief may spur social stigma, ostracism by loved ones or even unleash the wrath of authorities, especially if going public is coupled with real or perceived attacks on religion or God.“I have a double life all the time,” said the 27-year-old Tunisian woman. “It’s better than having conflict every day.”Many nonbelievers seek community, ideas or pockets of digital defiance on the internet even though onl...

In the pope’s homeland, more Argentines are seeking spiritual answers beyond the church

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

CAPILLA DEL MONTE, Argentina (AP) — In the pope’s homeland, there’s a woman who believes in angels and calls them aliens. Another who proudly identifies as a witch.And a spiritual guru so turned off by the Vatican’s opulence that he left the church to help others connect spiritually outside organized religion.All three are former Catholics who have joined many other Argentines in the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. Known as the “nones,” they identify as atheists, agnostics, spiritual but not religious, or simply, nothing in particular.Pablo Robles says a better label for him would be “all,” since he has a rich spiritual life outside religion.Robles grew up Catholic but became disenchanted while visiting the Vatican in 2000. At a papal Mass, he listened to a sermon on humility — and found himself questioning how the church’s vast wealth conflicted with that message.“I was next to a gold column larger than my apartment,” Robles said. “It just unsettled me so much that I...

Nearly 80% of Italians say they are Catholic. But few regularly go to church

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

ISOLA DEL GRAN SASSO, Italy (AP) — Two children scribbled petitions to St. Gabriele dell’Addolorata in the sanctuary where the young saint is venerated in this central Italian mountain village. Andrea, 6, asked for blessings for his family and pets, while Sofia, 9, offered thanksgiving for winning a dance competition.Their parents bring them here often, and consider themselves better Catholics than many — but they rarely if ever go to Mass and don’t receive Communion because they are not married, thus shunning two sacraments the Catholic Church considers foundational.“I practice where I want,” said the mother, Carmela Forino. “One has to believe in something, right? You do what you feel in your heart. You can’t require me to go to Mass on Sundays.” That’s the paradox in this country long considered the cradle of the Catholic faith. Elsewhere in deeply secular Western Europe, the “nones” — those rejecting organized religion — are growing fast.In Italy, however, most retain a nominal ...

America’s nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don’t like organized religion

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy “the beauty of the morning on the beach,” he recalled. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church.” Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades. “Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals, harming “innocent human beings,” in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.As Dulak rejects being part of a religious flock, he has plenty of company. He is a “none” — no, not that kind of nun. The kind that checks “none” when pollsters ask “What’s your religion?”The decades-long rise of the nones — a diverse, hard-to-summarize group — is one of the most talked about phenomena in U.S. religion. The nones are reshaping America’s religious landscape as we know it...

In secular Japan, what draws so many to temples and shrines? Stamp collecting and tradition

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Almost weekly Momo Nomura makes time to visit Shinto shrines. She performs the prescribed rituals — cleansing her hands, ringing a bell, bowing and clapping. But her main purpose is getting a Goshuin, a stamp with elegant calligraphy that shrines provide for a fee to certify the visit.She loves the stamps, which she began collecting during the pandemic. One with blue hydrangeas got her started.“Because of the Goshuin, shrines have become closer to me, but I don’t consider this a religious activity,” Nomura said after getting her stamp and taking selfies at Sakura Jingu, a western Tokyo shrine established in 1882 as a minority Shinto sect focused on traditional values.Nomura, who posts about her hobby on social media as Goshuin Girl, says she enjoys the stamp designs, and shrine visits allow a moment of reflection and a change of pace from her busy life as a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Differences of religious sects are not an issue, she says.“It’s a mindfulness k...

Nonreligious struggle to find their voice and place in Indian society and politics

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

CHENNAI, India (AP) — Despite India’s millennia-old history of nonreligious movements, most atheists and rationalists choose to keep quiet about their skepticism of faith — it’s easier and far less risky than going public in one of the world’s most religious countries.The space that does exist for debating religious authority and belief is shrinking, said Avinash Patil, a religious skeptic who was born Hindu and is now a leader of an anti-superstition group working in one of the country’s western states. He blames the growth of nationwide religious and communal tensions over the last decade as well as rising Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.“When you are open about it and engage in activism, it can get challenging, and even dangerous,” said Patil, chairperson of Maharashtra Andhashradha Nirmulan Samiti.In fact, Patil and his organization are still seeking justice for its founder and renowned rationalist, Narendra Dabholkar, who was gunned down ...

Israel is perennially swept up in religious conflict. Yet many of its citizens are secular

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

MEVASSERET ZION, Israel (AP) — Israel is a nation perennially swept up in religious fervor and conflict. And yet, strikingly, a large portion of its population is secular, and even its insular ultra-Orthodox community loses a steady stream of members who tire of its strict religious rules.The country is home to about 7 million Jews, almost half of the global Jewish population. But Jewish identity is a complex blend of religious and ethnonational identity; most Israeli Jews are not diligent observers of Judaism.An Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics survey published in 2021 found that among Israeli Jews over the age of 20, about 45% identified as secular or not religious, while 33% said they practiced “traditional” religious worship. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim in Hebrew, made up 10%.For Naor Narkis and many other secular Israelis, their Jewish identity is cultural — defined by the Hebrew tongue and historical experience — rather than governed by traditional religious wors...

Adnan Syed goes before Maryland Supreme Court facing ‘specter of reincarceration,’ his lawyers say

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Attorneys for Adnan Syed, who is now free after being imprisoned more than two decades ago for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, will once again be arguing to keep his freedom in a case known to millions by the true-crime podcast “Serial.”In a case fraught with legal twists and divided court rulings, arguments are set to begin Thursday in Maryland’s Supreme Court. Syed’s attorneys are appealing the reinstatement of his murder conviction by an appellate court, in a case that has broader ramification’s for victim’s rights as well as Syed’s future. Syed, 42, was released from prison in September 2022, when a Baltimore judge overturned his conviction. City prosecutors had dropped all charges after finding flaws in the evidence.However, in March, the Appellate Court of Maryland ordered a redo of the hearing that enabled Syed to walk out a free man. The appellate court said the victim’s family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend the ...