NewsPronto

 
Men's Weekly

.

USA Conversation

The Conversation USA

The Conversation USA

From India and Taiwan to Tibet, the living assist the dead in their passage

  • Written by Liz Wilson, Professor of Comparative Religion, Miami University
imageHindu devotees prepare to scatter ashes of the deceased into the sea as part of Ngaben, a mass cremation ceremony, in Surabaya, Indonesia.Juni Kriswanto/AFP via Getty Images

Many people see death as a rite of a passage: a journey to some new place, or a threshold between two kinds of being. Zoroastrians believe that there is a bridge of judgment tha...

Read more: From India and Taiwan to Tibet, the living assist the dead in their passage

More Articles ...

  1. Workplace discrimination saps everyone's motivation − even if it works in your favor
  2. How Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor became Halloween's theme song
  3. Jewish response to Hamas war criticism comes from deep sense of trauma, active grief and fear
  4. Collaborative water management can be a building block for peace between Israelis and Palestinians
  5. Palestinian Christians and Muslims have lived together in the region for centuries − and several were killed recently while sheltering in the historic Church of Saint Porphyrius
  6. Day of the Dead is taking on Halloween traditions, but the sacred holiday is far more than a 'Mexican Halloween'
  7. In the Israel-Hamas war, children are the ultimate pawns – and ultimate victims
  8. This course uses big data to examine how American newspapers covered lynchings
  9. United Auto Workers union hails strike-ending deals with automakers that would raise top assembly-plant hourly pay to more than $40 as 'record contracts'
  10. Violent and disturbing war images from the Mideast can stir deep emotions − a PTSD expert explains how to protect yourself and your kids from overexposure
  11. Louisiana's 'In God We Trust' law tests limits of religion in public schools
  12. White patients are more likely than Black patients to be given opioid medication for pain in US emergency departments
  13. How to deal with visual misinformation circulating in the Israel-Hamas war and other conflicts
  14. Asteroids in the solar system could contain undiscovered, superheavy elements
  15. Why Elon Musk is obsessed with casting X as the most 'authentic' social media platform
  16. A Halloween party in Boston turned ugly when a gang hurled antisemitic slurs and attacked Jewish teenagers
  17. AIs could soon run businesses – it’s an opportunity to ensure these 'artificial persons' follow the law
  18. 'I see no happy ending' − a former national security leader on the Gaza hostage situation
  19. Back in the 1960s, the push for parental rights over school standards was not led by white conservatives but by Black and Latino parents
  20. UN warns that Gaza desperately needs more aid − an emergency relief expert explains why it is especially tough working in Gaza
  21. I studied 1 million home sales in metro Atlanta and found that Black families are being squeezed out of homeownership by corporate investors
  22. To better understand addiction, students in this course take a close look at liquor in literature
  23. Public schools and faith-based chaplains: Texas’ new combination is testing the First Amendment
  24. Turkey faces competing pressures from Russia and the West to end its 'middleman strategy' and pick a side on the war in Ukraine
  25. FDA advisory panel's conclusion that oral phenylephrine is ineffective means consumers need to think twice when buying cold and flu meds
  26. How often do you lie? Deception researchers investigate how the recipient and the medium affect telling the truth
  27. New House Speaker Mike Johnson leads a GOP majority weakened by decades of declining party authority
  28. When communities face drinking-water crises, bottled water is a 'temporary' solution that often lasts years − and worsens inequality
  29. Polls have value, even when they are wrong
  30. Antisemitism has moved from the right to the left in the US − and falls back on long-standing stereotypes
  31. What are roundabouts? A transportation engineer explains the safety benefits of these circular intersections
  32. Being humble about what you know is just one part of what makes you a good thinker
  33. From morgue to medical school: Cadavers of the poor, Black and vulnerable can be dissected without consent
  34. Israeli invasion of Gaza likely to resemble past difficult battles in Iraq and Syria
  35. TCUS senior editor Kalpana Jain explores Indigenous communities in Indonesia − and learns about their struggles to reclaim land
  36. Are ghosts real? A social psychologist examines the evidence
  37. Let the community work it out: Throwback to early internet days could fix social media's crisis of legitimacy
  38. The Rio Grande isn't just a border – it's a river in crisis
  39. Backlash to the oil CEO leading the UN climate summit overlooks his ambitious agenda for COP28 – and concerns of the Global South
  40. Space rocks and asteroid dust are pricey, but these aren't the most expensive materials used in science
  41. How 'La Catrina' became the iconic symbol of Day of the Dead
  42. Hot-button topics may get public attention at the Vatican synod, but a more fundamental issue for the Catholic Church is at the heart of debate
  43. GOP's House paralysis is a crisis in a time of crises
  44. The Israel-Hamas war deepens the struggle between US and Iran for influence in the Middle East
  45. Biological sex is far from binary − this college course examines the science of sex diversity in people, fungi and across the animal kingdom
  46. A layered lake is a little like Earth’s early oceans − and lets researchers explore how oxygen built up in our atmosphere billions of years ago
  47. Key Trump co-defendants accept plea deals – a legal expert explains what that means
  48. For the Osage Nation, the betrayal of the murders depicted in 'Killers of the Flower Moon' still lingers
  49. How much time do kids spend on devices – playing games, watching videos, texting and using the phone?
  50. Hezbollah alone will decide whether Lebanon − already on the brink of collapse − gets dragged into Israel-Hamas war