FAITH & BELIEF

The Chinese New Year is a Dragon year and it starts on Jan. 23. The Chinese New Year is also called the Spring Festival or the lunar New Year and is one of the most colorful festivals in the world. The 15-day long celebrations have several myth and beliefs woven around them. Each day denotes certain customs and traditions...

The Dragon Year has already arrived and before you join the festivities, we suggest you go through this list of things that you should do to make the most of the New Year!

Check out the top predictions, as calculated by various astrologers, for the year 2012 and for the five Chinese elements...

In less than two days, the Year of the Rabbit will come to an end. However, the Chinese are already busy celebrating the arrival of the New Year - the Year of the Dragon.

The ancient enmity between Shia and Sunni Muslims exploded in violence again on Saturday in Iraq when a suicide bomb killed at least 50 Shia pilgrims and wounded almost 100 in the southeastern city of Basra, according to Iraqi police and security officials.

One YouTube user, Jefferson Bethke, has created a video dubbed as controversial and conversation-sparking about why Jesus is the answer but not religion, in a viral video entitled, Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus. The video, which was uploaded to YouTube on Jan. 10, is nearing 6 million views and has amassed more than 64,000 comments as of Friday morning.

Religion is an important issue to the Republican voters and this is posing a challenge to Republican front runner Mitt Romney in the conservative South Carolina state.

Friday the 13th is an almost universally acknowledged day of bad luck. Unfortunately, it is here again... meaning that people who fear the date may be so terrified they won't get out of their beds! Even more unfortunately, for them, the date is set to repeat itself twice more this year.

In an earlier piece, I wrote how evangelicals could propel Ron Paul's 2012 campaign to victory over frontrunner Mitt Romney in the Republican nomination race.

The leader of Boko Haram, Nigeria's increasingly deadly Islamic rebel group, said that the recent attacks on Christians was revenge for years of Muslim persecution.

The split goes all the way back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the year 632 and it had to do with succession.

Most of the Republican presidential candidates laid out their credentials as social conservatives in a debate on Saturday as the 2012 campaign prepares to move from New Hampshire to South Carolina. With another debate to be hosted by NBC's Meet the Press, they can do it all over again on Sunday.

Amid growing discontent from the public against Vladimir Putin, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church has urged the Kremlin to enact reforms and policy changes.

Pope Benedict XVI has named 22 new cardinals, his top advisers, on Friday that will eventually elect his successor, according to the Associated Press.

New York 's Archbishop Timothy Dolan will be one of the 22 who will join the ranks of cardinals on Feb. 18.

Friday was the holiday of Epiphany in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Gunmen opened fire on a church service in Nigeria Thursday, killing six people and wounding 10, the church's pastor said, the latest in a string of attacks that has raised fears of sectarian conflict in Africa's most populous nation.

The well-known conservative Christian family who star on the popular 19 Kids and Counting traveled to Iowa to lend their support to Santorum in the days before the caucuses.

Debbie Cook, a well-known scientologist and a former executive of the Church of Scientology, shocked the world when she blasted the church's leader for fraudulent fundraising practices in an email which has gone public and sparked controversy internally within the Church.

Pigs and pork products are considered ‘haram’ (unclean) by Muslims and the act of defiling a mosque in such a way is considered an incitement of religious hatred.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews dressed up as Holocaust prisoners in a protest against what they feel is the Israeli government's unjust persecution of the their conservative community.

Rapper Kid Cudi expressed his sympathy and gratitude to Ben Breedlove, an 18-year-old boy who recorded videos about his struggles with heart disease just one week before his death on Christmas Day. His funeral was held Thursday.

Fox Latin America has apologized for a Facebook poll which sought to uncover people's opinions on who was responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.

It is unclear if Paul shares the homophobic views of some of his staff-members

Rumors have persisted for many years that Gaddafi might have been Jewish.

Has a Christian-Muslim war in Nigeria begun? Christian leaders are up in arms over Boko Haram while President Goodluck Jonathan frantically tries to cool boiling blood.

An annual cleaning ritual of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one of the most scared and oldest continuously operating churches in the world, ended up in a broom fight between the clergy belonging to three separate monastic communities.

Check out a collection of photographs that show how Christmas was celebrated across the world...

Christmas is celebrated around the world by millions. Most of the Christmas celebrations are alike and has common idea and message. But the Christmas traditions in some communities and countries vary drastically. These traditions are anything from unusual to bizarre and funny. Here is a glimpse to the most unusual and bizarre Christmas traditions in the world.