Elizabeth is an autistic 11-year-old girl with autism. She is unable to speak, but with the help of a letterboard and other communication aids, Elizabeth is able to write deeply personal poetry.

Some faith groups are fighting to prevent federal funds from paying for abortions, while others argue that abortions are an important health service.

Right now, in most states, when a dying patient can no longer communicate, doctors have no choice but to keep care going, even if it is painful for the patient, expensive, and unlikely to do any good. But is that necessarily the right thing to do?

Watch religion columnist Cathleen Falsani, author of "The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers," discuss theological and moral themes in previous films by Joel and Ethan Coen, including "The Big Lebowski," which has inspired its own religion.

The surprising choice of President Obama as this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace came with a citation praising Obama for goals familiar to many, especially the religious communities.

Set in 1967, the story in the new Coen Brothers movie centers on a Jewish physics professor in the Midwest, Larry Gopnick, who looks to his faith to make sense of his personal and professional calamities.

In 1934, a cross was placed in the Mojave Preserve to honor American soldiers who lost their lives in World War I. But a lawsuit brought with the backing of the ACLU argues that such displays of religion on public lands are unconstitutional. Legal scholars say this case has at least the potential to be the most important religion case to reach the Supreme Court in decades.

The Hindu holiday of Navaratri is known as the Festival of Nine Nights. These nine nights fall around harvest time, and each day is spent worshiping one of Shakti's many manifestations, including Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Bethesda, Maryland is one of several churches across the country that planted vegetable gardens for the first time this spring, partly in response to the recession. All of the produce grown at the church is donated to St. Luke's House, a mental health facility the parish helped to found almost 30 years ago.

As the war in Afghanistan approaches its eighth year, Bob Abernethy speaks with William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, about the future of the United States' involvement in that region.

A ceremony was held in honor of writer, liberal activist, and Harvard University theologian Harvey Cox, who is retiring after 44 years of scholarship and teaching. In his new book on the difference between faith and belief, this Harvard professor and scholar of religion says what it means to be religious is shifting significantly as the 21st century unfolds.

Rabbi Irwin Kula of the National Center for Jewish Learning and Leadership says Yom Kippur and the High Holidays are about life, not death. The paradox, he says, is that "one of the great ways to focus ourselves on life is to think about death."

Composer and conducter Thomas Beveridge says his Yizkor Requiem is "a quest for spiritual roots" and a musical bridge between Christianity and Judaism.

John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, talks about the changes among conservative and progressive religious groups brought about by the election of President Barack Obama and the start of his new administration.

Marilynne Robinson received the Orange Prize for fiction this past summer in Britain for the best writing in the English language by a woman. Five years ago, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gilead, and her latest book, Home, has also had glowing reviews. Robinson is a mainline Protestant with great respect for Calvinist theology and strong opinions about the world around her.

There's a whole virtual world to explore in the online community called Second Life. There are even virtual churches where one can attend Sunday morning services online.

Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, says everything having to do with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is designed "to help us make teshuva, return to that deepest path that we know we want to be on."

A community of entrepreneurial Cistercian monks in rural Wisconsin balance a life of prayer and work, charity and contemplation. They also run a multi-million-dollar ink-and-toner business.

In the world's largest Muslim nation, says Professor Dewi Fortuna Anwar, "there seems to be a greater willingness both to be openly religious and to be modern and educated at the same."

The designers of the memorial to the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 needed to create a plan that was modest, that fits the location, and that respects the site as both a public memorial and a grave.