Death doulas

The thought of death is frightening to many. Our sense of our own existence is so strong that the idea of non-existence can have an unsettling effect, although we know in our rational minds that we have to die sometime and that we were non-existent before we were born so it would not be a new experience (or more appropriately non-experience) for us. When we go to sleep too we are to some extent non-existent in that we become oblivious to the world around us but that does not seem to bother us.
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Hispanics are increasingly less Catholic

The Hispanic population is often perceived as overwhelmingly Catholic but a new Pew survey finds that to be an increasingly false perception, with only about 55% of them identifying themselves as such, down from 67% in 2010, a remarkable drop of 12% in just four years. “About 22% are Protestant (including 16% who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical) and 18% are religiously unaffiliated.”
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Is Israel more like apartheid South Africa or colonial Algeria?

Today is election day in South Africa, 20 years after the election in which Nelson Mandela became president and apartheid was effectively ended. It seems like the African National Congress will be re-elected to office despite the record of corruption of the party and its leader president Jacob Zuma, which is partly blamed for the voting apathy of the so-called ‘born frees’, young people who were born after end of apartheid and who can vote for the first time.
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Vatican scolds US nuns again

I do not expect the Catholic church under pope Francis to change any of the major doctrines of the church such as on contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage, and celibacy. However, given his expressions of wanting to create a kinder, gentler image for the church, I did expect him to back off on some of the non-doctrinal harsh measures that his predecessors had taken.
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