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
In a series of just published articles not so subtly titled Murderers and Martyrs: The Difficult Struggle of Christians in the Orient, the German newsmagazine Spiegel details the sorry plight of Christians in Egypt and Pakistan. Although the facts and reporting are unfortunately accurate, this is sure to ratchet up the already considerable levels of [...]
Tags:Bernard Lewis·Christians·colonialism·Coptic Christians·Copts·Edward Said·Egypt·essentializing·Germany·imperialism·Murderers and Martyrs·Muslims·Orient·orientalism·Pakistan·persecution·radical Islam·Spiegel
“Prepare to believe”! This is the injunction found underneath the Creation Museum’s logo, helpfully reminding us that credulity is more important than fact. What are we supposed to believe? That the biblical creation story is literally true and explains everything:
The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its [...]
Tags:Abraham·Adam·Answers in Genesis·Ark Encounter·Bedrock City·biblical literalism·Brontosaurus ribs·Christians·creation·Creation Museum·creationists·Custer·dinosaurs·Eve·evolution·Flintstones·Garden of Eden·incest·Muslims·Noah's ark·Paleolithic·separation of church and state·South Dakota·theme park·Tower of Babel·young earth
In the NYT’s Art & Design section, Nicolai Ouroussoff has a fascinating report (and nice slideshow) on the controversial construction boom in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. The Saudi royals seem so impressed by Sin City’s overwhelming and kitschy architecture, they have imported Vegas sized and styled buildings to better serve the (very rich) [...]
Tags:architecture·capitalism·class·class conflict·commerce·consumerism·Grand Mosque·hajj·Islam·jihad·jihadists·kaaba·Las Vegas·Mecca·modernity·Muslims·Nicolai Ouroussoff·pilgrimage tourism·pilgrims·Saudi Arabia
Watching Germany grapple with its rough beast is sort of like cultural voyeurism — outsiders are weirdly fascinated even as Germans seem unsure of how to proceed. Two recent articles in Spiegel offer powerful reminders that gawking, a paradoxical product of attraction and revulsion, can be unsettling.
The first, by Frank Hornig and Michael Sontheimer, discusses [...]
Tags:Berlin·Bethlehem·Civil Religion·eschatology·Frank Hornig·Fuhrer·German History Museum·Germany·Hitler·Ian Kershaw·Jews·Michael Sontheimer·Muslims·National Socialism·nationalism·Nazi·Ole Reissmann·racism·rough beast·salvation·schadenfreude·The Second Coming·uncivil religion·W.B. Yeats·weltanschauung·xenophobia
Over at Religion Bulletin, the always informative Craig Martin alerts us to the work of Aaron W. Hughes and conducts a thought provoking interview with Hughes. Their topic is “Islam” and I encourage everyone to read it as a palliative to the kind of glib talk about essentialized “Islam” that dominates the news, blog posts [...]
Tags:Aaron Hughes·apologetics·authenticity·Craig Martin·discourse·ecumenical·essentializing·historical Muhammad·Huffington Post·identity·Islam·Islamic Studies·liberal·Muslims·redaction history of Koran·Situating Islam·social construction·tradition·William Chittick
Nearly all the interesting discussions about Islam are coming from Europe rather than the United States. In Germany the debate was given a major jolt by Thilo Sarrazin, as I noted in German Angst and Islam. Unlike debates in the United States — which are usually reduced to simple dichotomies that can be quickly judged [...]
Tags:Bolshevism·essentialism·Europe·Germany·Hamed Abdel-Samad·Ho Chi Minh·Islam·Islam is like a drug·Lenin·Mao·Marxism·moderate Islam·Muslims·political action·radical Islam·The Downfall of the Islamic World·Thilo Sarrazin·vanguard
Live Science’s Bad Science Columnist (I kid not) Benjamin Radford has written an article on the “Culture of Blasphemy Among Nonbelievers.” In pursuit of his insulting story, Radford obtained a juicy quote from “Professor Reinhold Aman, editor of the scholarly Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression” (I kid not).
While Radford notes that Muslims tend [...]
Tags:Allah·Bad Science Columnist·Benjamin Radford·blasphemers·blasphemy·Islam·Muslims·Reinhold Aman
Provocative and thoughtful as he usually is, Hitchens opines on anti-semitism for The Atlantic:
There is, probably first and certainly foremost, religious anti-Semitism. Unlike other nations or peoples, Jews were among the witnesses to the alleged lives and preachings of Jesus and Muhammad, and turned away from men they deemed false Messiahs. It is inconceivable that [...]
Tags:anti-semitism·Christians·Christopher Hitchens·false messiahs·false prophets·Jesus·Muhammad·Muslims
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
