It is always a sign of war going badly when the US mounts a “winning hearts and minds” campaign to go alongside conventional military operations. It surely is a worse sign when US Marines teach Afghanis to read the Koran so they can “help people understand Islam’s true nature.” When Devil Dogs are tasked with [...]
Tags:Afghanistan·Allah·authenticity error·Brian Mockenhaupt·Devil Dogs·Enlisting Allah·essentializing·hearts and minds·Is There a Text In This Class·Islam·Koran·Marines·Mullah Omar·Muslims·Navy·reader response theory·social construction·Stanley Fish
Imagine you are dining at a friend’s home. Your host is excited because she has prepared a special dish for you. When dinner is finally served, you are surprised to see a whole egg on your plate and when you open the egg, you are even more surprised to see this:
That’s balut, a dish of [...]
Tags:ablution·atheism·aversion·balut·cleansing·contagion·disease·disgust·Erika Salomon·fairness·filth·germs·Gross Gods·Icky Atheism·ingroups·Jesse Preston·Koran·outgroups·pollution·priming·Quran·Richard Dawkins·Ryan Ritter·The God Delusion
As is the case with charismatic or evangelical forms of Christianity, some strands of Islam have a robust sense of supernatural agency that populates the world with all manner of malevolent spirits who are ostensibly responsible for real world afflictions. In a recent article, psychiatrist Amir Afkhami reports on an Islamic “faith healer” in Iraq [...]
Tags:Amir Afkhami·charismatic·Christianity·demons·evangelical·faith healing·folk beliefs·folk religion·Freud·hysteria·Iraq·Islam·jinns·Koran·Mullah Eskandar·Quran·shamanic healing·spirits
In the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), Karl Marx famously observed that “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” Nowhere is this more true than in Germany, where the mass of history is heavy and sometimes suffocating.
With this in mind, the recent furor over Thilo [...]
Tags:18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte·adultery·Arabs·Craig Martin·dead generations·enlightenment·execution·Fremdarbeiter·German Muslims·Germany·honor killings·integration·Islamist·Karl Marx·Koran·Matthias Matussek·nightmare·pre-Enlightenment·radical Islam·Religion Bulletin·separatist Islam·stoning·terrorism·Thilo Sarrazin·tradition·Turks·weltanschauung
The inaptly named Dove World Outreach Center (an evangelical church) in Gainesville, Florida wants to create a bonfire of Korans but has been denied a permit by the fire marshal. Incredibly, Gainesville’s “burning ordinance” prohibits the open air torching of books — either some city councilman was worried about global warming or wanted to prevent [...]
Tags:apostasy·book burning·burning ordinance·Christian Bible·Christian colonialism·Christian history·Christian imperialism·content neutral·Crusades·Dove World Outreach Center·First Amendment·Florida·Gainesville·heresy·Inquisition·intolerance·Islam·Islamic colonialism·Islamic imperialism·Koran·Koran bonfire·Muslims·Nazis·Ten Reasons to Burn a Koran·Thirty Years War·zealotry
Over at HuffPo Religion, Cynthia Boaz has written an earnest piece that implores Americans to think harder about Islam and not simply demonize it. I agree with much of what she says but the unfortunate fact is that her plea will fall on few or deaf ears. Not many religious or political extremists are reading [...]
Tags:authenticity·authorial intent·Christopher Hitchens·Cynthia Boaz·fear·interpretation·interpretive communities·Islam·jahiliyya·jihadist·John Calvert·Koran·madrassa·Milestones·misconceptions about Islam·multiplicities of Islam·Muslims·oppression of women·Pakistan·political extremism·reader response·religions of the book·religious extremism·religious writings·Sam Harris·Saudi Arabia·Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism·singular Islam·Stanley Fish·truth·truths about Islam·violence·zealotry
As usual, lots of weird news from religion land. Let’s start with this AP report about a Baptist minister in St. Cloud, MN who paid for a newspaper ad stating that Muslims “seek to influence a nation by immigration, reproduction, education, the government, illegal drugs and by supporting the gay agenda.”
This minister clearly knows nothing [...]
Tags:altruism·beatification·canonization·Catholic saint·compassion·ecumenical·Family Research Council·intolerance·Islam·James Dobson·James Verini·JC·Koran·liberal religionists·Muslims·Reverend Dennis Campbell·sainthood·Sharia law·South Park·Tenzin Gyatso·toddlers·wife beating
