religion

19 Jul 08

The absurd thing about Myers attempt to transmogrify his naked act of aggression, theft, vandalism and incitement into victim status is that he is basically saying that if we all are not going around the world desecrating whatever it is we don't believe in, we are ipso facto respecting and honoring same. So my failure to desecrate a Quran or the Satanic Bible means I am somehow respecting and honoring them.

18 Jul 08

Religion News (RSS): Muslim clerics annul rape victim's marriage

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religion islam justice

Lucknow: In a chilling reminder of the Imrana case, yet another young woman from Muzaffarnagar who allegedly fell victim to her father-in-law's sexual assault faces a bleak future after mullahs called for the annulment of her marriage.
"A woman who has had a sexual liaison with her husband's father cannot be his consort anymore. A divorce is a must," Mufti Maulana Imran, senior cleric from Darul Uloom Deoband, said on Monday after his view was sought. The prescribed punishment in the case, he maintained, was 'sangsar' or public stoning of the victim and the culprit until death.

17 Jul 08

L'Hôte: I am not you, atheism.

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l'hôte atheism spirituality religion

And yet Myers has unabashed contempt for every religious person, whatever the explanation. And ironically, he is himself quite ignorant of religion, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and epistemology, knowledge of which would enable him to make better arguments. And if he doesn't know he's ignorant, he's self-deceived. I'm sure if he read this, though, he would disparage it as the "courtier's reply". So I invite him to get into a public, taped debate with, say, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, Michael Rea, Dean Zimmerman, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Eleonore Stump, Marilyn McCord Adams, or Robert Adams. I believe it would be quite illuminating.
I honestly doubt Myers has given the status of his moral views, or any of his normative views at all, really, much thought. For instance, he would probably claim that moral beliefs are mere preferences for the world being one way rather than another, or expressions of emotions, etc. But when he's actually expressing them, I doubt very much they seem to him like other preferences, such as his preference for vanilla over chocolate ice cream. They probably seem to him to be 'objective'--not just the way he would like things, but the way things really ought to be, such that if you disagree with him you show yourself to be somehow deficient (whereas he wouldn't think that your disagreeing with him about ice cream preference shows you to be deficient).

Atheist rejects neo-atheism - Crunchy Con

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neoatheism atheism dawkins spirituality religion

If someone was a political commentator, and operated the way Meyers, Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens did, would anyone listen to them? No. As much as the success of the Ann Coulters of the world suggests otherwise, we largely understand that a basic level of decorum, mutual respect, and the assumption of good faith should under gird our national dialogue. Indeed, without these assumptions, the dialogue is not worth having.
But then there is atheism, where it is apparently the case that you can always come closer to righteousness by expressing still-greater contempt for those with which you don't agree. Now, this is all very strange; though growing, the atheist minority is stilled dwarfed in this country and in this world by the religious. And how can you possibly change people's minds if you're constantly ridiculing them? Doesn't make much sense.
2 more annotations...
- But I suspect that it makes perfect sense. It makes sense because the goal of the new atheism has never been to convert. It has never been to include. It has never been to change minds. The ridicule is the goal; the contempt is the end; the sheer fun of sanctimony, self-righteousness and loathing are the purpose.
- That is one thing you have to hand the Africans. They may not be producing a Richard Dawkins. But England is not producing a Peter Akinola. In the long run, I'd bet on the culture that produces an Akinola, not a Dawkins.

23 Jun 08

Ship of Fools: Features

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dawkins religion spirituality atheism science mlk

BEYOND ALL THESE UNREASONABLE generalisations about religion, however, the greatest failure of Dawkins's case is his refusal to recognise any good that any religion has done. He talks about the crusades, but not medieval hospitals. He tells the story of Oral Roberts getting $8 million out of his flock to stop God killing him, but not of William Wilberforce (along with a lot of other Christians) devoting his life to fighting the slave trade. He details Catholic opposition to science, but not the work of monasteries – and Islamic scholars – who rescued Greek philosophical writings from oblivion.
Christian Voice is here, but not Christian Aid. Neither are the 19th-century reformers and philanthropists: Shaftsbury, Fry, Müller, Barnardo. Religious conflict in Northern Ireland, yes. Christian peace-building organisations, no. Etc., etc.
5 more annotations...
- The most outrageous example is Martin Luther King. He does get a brief mention – but not as someone driven by faith to fight for justice and equality; not as someone inspired by his religion to achieve change without violence; not as someone who was sustained through fear for his life and for his family by an encounter with Jesus. Instead, King was one of those leaders "whose religion was incidental. Although Martin Luther King was a Christian, he derived his philosophy of non-violent civil obedience directly from Gandhi, who was not." And that's it.
- This massive distortion is presumably accidental, and therefore symptomatic of being out of one's depth writing a 400-page treatise on religion. For one rather obvious thing, Gandhi was quite religious himself, so even Dawkins's version of events hardly leaves God out of it. What's more, Ghandi's non-violence was inspired by both Tolstoy (a Christian) and Jesus (also arguably a Christian), and specifically by the Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy's non-violence was also inspired by the Sermon on the Mount. King's non-violence was inspired by study of all three – Ghandi, Tolstoy, Jesus. It's very hard to look at this family tree of non-violence in a way that makes the religion incidental.
- "It was the Sermon on the Mount," said King himself, "that originally inspired the negroes of Montgomery to dignified social action." But the fact that religion can be – amid all the trash – an irresistible force for social justice seems to be something that Dawkins's theory simply can't cope with.
- I started off by likening him to the Pope. In fact, this ability to ignore or invert any evidence that doesn't fit with one's worldview reminds me more than anything of the way fundamentalists read the Bible, and creationists do science.
- Could the world do with a bit less religion? Quite possibly. But what we really need is fewer fanatics.

J. Budziszewski -- The Problem With Conservatism

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social entrepreneurship ethics conservative religion politics

Christians, of course, are not the only ones to have criticized mammonism. Warnings against the love of wealth were a staple even of ancient pagan conservatism. The idea was that virtue makes republics prosper, but prosperity leads to love of wealth, love of wealth leads to loss of virtue, and loss of virtue makes republics fall.
A more temperate but still objectionable form of mammonism is found in Toward the Future, a "lay letter" published in 1984 by a committee of prominent Catholic conservatives. Jesus told the story of a master who entrusts his servants with the care of his money while he is traveling to a distant place to receive a kingship. Upon his return, he finds that one servant has buried his share while the other two have made investments. The timid servant he scolds and dismisses, but the bold ones he praises and rewards with yet greater responsibilities. Traditionally the Church has understood this parable to mean that just as a king in this world expects his agents to take risks, not burying his money but investing it to earn a return, so God expects his people to take risks, not burying their gifts but using them to build up the Kingdom of Heaven. By contrast, the lay letter understands it to mean simply that God expects his people to invest their money to earn a return. "Preserving capital is not enough," the authors teach; "it must be made to grow." The use of gifts for the sake of the Kingdom becomes the growth of wealth for the sake of wealth.
4 more annotations...
- even Adam Smith recognizes that the invisible hand does not work unless laborers and businessmen submit themselves to the restraints of justice, and that an interest in wealth alone will not induce them to do so. After all, if winning is all that matters, why keep the competition going at all? Why not use one's wealth to wring special privileges from the government and so become more wealthy still? Capitalism depends on a moral spirit which it cannot supply and may even weaken; it is, in the most exact of senses, a parasite on the faith. But a Christian parasite is not by that fact Christian.
- The eighth moral error of political conservatism is meritism. According to this notion I should do unto others as they deserve. With the addition of mammonism, matters become even simpler, for then those who need help are by definition undeserving, while those in a position to help are by definition deserving. That meritism is not a Christian doctrine comes as a surprise to many people. Large numbers think the meritist motto "God helps those who help themselves" is a quotation from the Bible. What the New Testament actually teaches is that in what we need most, we are helpless; the grace of God is an undeserved gift. According to Christianity I should do unto others not as they deserve, but as they need.
- What does the contrast between meritism and charity look like in ordinary human relationships? Consider the governmental policy of paying women cash prizes for bearing children out of wedlock. Liberals want to continue the policy because they cannot tell need from desire. Meritists propose ending it because the subsidies are undeserved. Although a Christian may accept the cutoff, he cannot accept it for the reason given. All of us at all times need and receive many things that we do not deserve. The problem with the subsidies is that they are not what is needed. They so completely split behavior from its natural consequences that they infantilize their supposed beneficiaries; to infantilize them is to debase them, and no one needs to be debased.
- After achieving the cutoff, the meritist thinks his work is done, but the Christian thinks his work has only begun. He must now find another way to offer help; and he had better be prepared to pay the price. For a portrait of that price, don't think of a bureaucrat, think of Mother Teresa.

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

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spirituality hayek poverty africa n.t. wright religion

When I mentioned Friedrich Hayek, it was because various people have insisted that I should turn to him to discover how wrongheaded it is to give aid to poor or starving people. My point about reading him in a comfortable chair in North America was that there is a vast credibility gap between those lofty right-wing ideals and the realities of squalor and poverty, especially when there is a traceable connection between the two. What about Matthew 25?
Neuhaus offers as a put-down the remark that “the last time he checked, the accommodations at Durham Cathedral were very comfortable indeed.” Guess what: I don’t live at, or even near, Durham Cathedral. And I share my ancient house with my private office, with the Diocesan headquarters, and with a few large public rooms let out to offset costs. The point, anyway, was not where one lives but the difference between comfortable theorizing about economics and doing something for the poor. Imagine the parable of the Good Samaritan: “Along came an economist, but he, having read Hayek, knew that to help the man in the ditch was only a short-term solution that would encourage a culture of dependency, so he passed by on the other side.”
2 more annotations...
- Interestingly, when people lapse into postmodern-style spin, their remarks tend to rebound on their own heads. “Impromptu punditry on publicly disputed questions without benefit of careful thought,” eh? “Rambling, convoluted reflection?” Look in the mirror, Father Neuhaus. And thanks for the lunch.
  
  N.T. Wright
  Bishop of Durham
- With respect to concern for the poor, Wright again makes the unseemly suggestion that his concern is greater than that of the disciples of Friedrich Hayek. I hold no brief for Hayek, but the bishop apparently missed the many issues of First Things addressing questions of global development, most recently the three-part series on Paul Collier’s much-discussed book The Bottom Billion. He tells me he has not heard of it.

04 May 08

Crunchy Con - Rod Dreher, Conservative blog, Beliefnet conservative politics and religion blog

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spirituality religion atheism dawkins materialism orthodox

I had a good breakfast meeting this morning with David Berlinski, the mathematician and author (most recently) of "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions" -- reviewed here. David is a secular Jew and a born iconoclast. He argues in his new book that Richard Dawkins (for whom he has a lot of respect) and other New Atheists (for which he has a lot less respect) badly overstate what science can know. His book is not an apologetic for faith, but an attempt to remind scientific materialists that they are claiming too much, that science (and atheism) can't explain all they say it can.

23 Apr 08

Edge: BREAKING THE GALILEAN SPELL By Stuart A. Kauffman

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ethics religion secularism science enlightenment

Dr. Kauffman
is also an emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of
Pennsylvania, a MacArthur Fellow and an external professor at the
Santa Fe Institute. He is
the author of The Origins of Order, At
Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization, Investigations and Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion (Basic Books, forthcoming, May 5th).
The fourth injury is that all of us, whether we are secular or of faith, lack a global ethic. In part this is a result of the split, fostered by reductionism, between the world of fact and the world of values. We lack a shared worldwide framework of values that spans our traditions and our responsibilities to all of life, one another, and the planet. Secular humanists believe in fairness and the love of family and friends, and we place our faith in democracy. Our diverse religions have their diverse beliefs. But in the industrialized world all of us are largely reduced to consumers.
1 more annotations...
- If we are members of a universe in which emergence and ceaseless creativity abound, if we take that creativity as a sense of God we can share, the resulting sense of the sacredness of all of life and the planet can help orient our lives beyond the consumerism and commodiﬁcation the industrialized world now lives, heal the split between reason and faith, heal the split between science and the humanities, heal the want of spirituality, heal the wound derived from the false reductionist belief that we live in a world of fact without values, and help us jointly build a global ethic. These are what is at stake in ﬁnding a new scientiﬁc worldview that enables us to reinvent the sacred.

21 Apr 08

Religion is ‘the new social evil’ - Times Literary Supplement

An unsophisticated analysis that reflects public opinion. There is a failure to acknowledge that subjectivism is a more serious threat to tolerance than is religion. If there is no objective standard ("my opinion is as good as yours"), then there is no reason (beyond civility) not to force one's moral opinions on others.

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moral realism ethics religion society tolerance subjectivism

A CHARITY set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade
has identified a new social evil of the 21st century - religion.
Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on
modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years
ago.
6 more annotations...
- The researchers found that the
  “dominant opinion” was that religion was a “social evil”.
- Many participants said religion divided society, fuelled intolerance and
  spawned “irrational” educational and other policies.
  
  One said: “Faith in supernatural phenomena inspires hatred and prejudice
  throughout the world, and is commonly used as justification for persecution
  of women, gays and people who do not have faith.”
- The findings contrast with Rowntree’s “scourges of humanity”, which included
  poverty, war, slavery, intemperance, the opium trade, impurity and gambling.
  
  Poverty and drugs remain, but are joined by issues such as family breakdown,
  young people’s behaviour and fears over immigration.
- Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said he
  was “extremely pleased”.
  
  “Britain has had it with religion,” he said.
- If one is tolerant and accepting, seeking truth, then one looses one's religion.
- in my part of the world the "spoiled, consumerist, every-person-for-themselves types that typefy our society" are usually religious people dealing with strangers outside of church.

13 Apr 08

Jerusalem banned by politically correct clergy - Telegraph

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ethics religion political_correctness enlightenment blake poetry

The pseudo-scholarly clergy don't like that line because they deny the Glastonbury legend about Jesus coming to England with Joseph of Arimathea. This shows a numbskull literal-mindedness.
When I preach the Resurrection on Easter Day, I try to evoke the Lord's appearances around Galilee, and on the walk to Emmaus, as if they had happened in my beloved Yorkshire Dales.
Blake didn't think Jesus came to England, either. He was a poet and his lines are the stuff of imaginative allusion. But imagination is a bit beyond the reach of the polite mechanicals among the modern clergy.
Christians in England are redeemed by Christ, as surely as the first disciples were redeemed by him in Galilee. Blake's magnificent poem is a way of bringing this home to us, building the truth of the experience into our hearts and minds by using homely, national imagery.
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- What the modern clergy can't stand is the powerful evocation of England. When they see the word "England" they don't hear the music of ancient Albion. They see patriotism and national pride, which to them are the next worse things to fascism and expansionary imperialism.
  But, as Chesterton said, if a man won't love his country, it is difficult to believe he loves anything. Blake's hymn was a prelude to Milton, and he knew that Paradise Lost, the Fall of Man, happens down the Old Kent Road as definitely as anywhere else.
- Odd, the trendy clergy's preference for abstractions and internationalism when it was abstracted international communism under Stalin and Mao which slaughtered millions more even than the über-nationalists in the Third Reich.
  There is nothing abstract or theoretical about Blake's hymn. He wasn't writing a report for the General Synod. As a poet of genius, he knew that the way to convey spiritual realities is to incarnate them in things: swords, chariots, clouded hills, mountains green.
- Now, at last, we are getting close to understanding this sour prejudice against Jerusalem among so many clergy. For Blake is attacking them - those who, though they promised at ordination to challenge the follies of the age, actually aid and encourage them.
- If Blake could hear for five minutes these people banging on about their true preoccupations, the follies of the age - anti-racism, gender egalitarianism, compliance, the foreign aid industry and the paranoid fantasy of global warming - he would sing all the more loudly against this lot: "Bring me my bow… bring me my arrows… bring me my sword…"

01 Apr 08

Rev. Jim Wallis searches for old-time justice | csmonitor.com

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csmonitor poverty religion social justice

The author and activist aims to strengthen the link between spirituality and commitment to moral issues like poverty.
For the ebullient Reverend Wallis, faith isn't full-blown unless it goes beyond being a private matter to pursue the public
good.
3 more annotations...
- Wallis's last bestseller – "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong
  and the Left Doesn't Get It" – helped nudge Democratic presidential candidates into articulating a connection among their
  faith, values, and policies.
- "Hope is a choice made because of faith; believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change," he says.
  "The best social movements have spiritual foundations."
- Until recently, he felt like a man born out of time because for decades, evangelical
  fervor has focused predominantly – and often angrily – on issues of personal morality, such as abortion. It ignored what Wallis
  considers the concerns central to Jesus' teachings. At the top of his list: care for the poor.

02 Apr 07

Suspicious fire destroys N.Y. synagogue - Boston.com

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anti-zionism religion zionism

Neturei Karta doesn't recognize the existence or authority of Israel, arguing that a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish law.
The group drew protests after about five members traveled to Tehran in December for a two-day conference convened to debate whether the Holocaust occurred. Some were photographed meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a "myth." After the group returned, a large protest made up mostly of other Jews opposing their anti-Zionist views was held outside the Monsey synagogue.
"There's no question that the issue is to stifle the opposition to Zionism," Weiss said after the fire. "Anybody who would like to reveal to the world their opposition to this political, national movement of Zionism is attacked."
1 more annotations...
- NEW YORK --Authorities are investigating a suspicious fire that destroyed the synagogue of an anti-Zionist Jewish group that had been heavily criticized for attending a conference in Iran last year where participants debated the Holocaust.

19 Mar 07

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the great Anatolian philosopher and the father of the Mevlevi sect

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islam mevlevi philosophy poetry religion rumi

"Come, come again, whoever you are, come!

Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!

Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,

Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are."
Who is Mevlana?

Mevlana who is also known as Rumi, was a philosopher and mystic of Islam, but not a
Muslim of the orthodox
type. His doctrine advocates unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity
and awareness through love. To him and to his disciples all religions are more or less
truth. Looking with the same eye on Muslim, Jew and Christian alike, his peaceful and
tolerant teaching has appealed to men of all sects and creeds.

17 Mar 07

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . NEWS FEATURE . Obama Church Controversy . March 9, 2007 | PBS

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influence israel politics religion usa

LAWTON: Some campaign advisors are reportedly urging Obama to distance himself from Wright. At the last minute, Obama asked Wright not to offer a public prayer at the rally when he announced his run for the presidency. Wright told us he has long understood that Obama may be forced to distance himself.

Rev. WRIGHT: He can't afford the Jewish support to wane or start questioning his allegiance to the state of Israel because I'm saying I think the position we've taken in terms of Palestinians is wrong.

15 Mar 07

Orthodox World

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christian orthodox religion

Time
in Icon

To be able to understand icons
it is necessary to know how people of the Middle Ages perceived and understood
the concept of time. The difference between the concept of time in Western
Europe and that in Byzantium was formed in the Renaissance period, when
Europe, unlike Byzantium, acquired the new attitudes and outlook towards
the world.

12 Mar 07

Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings

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puritan reformed religion spirituality

Puritan and Reformed Writings

“Do not seek for warm fire under cold ice.” –Samuel Rutherford

14 Aug 06

Christian Today > Christian News, Updated Daily > Aging Billy Graham Focuses More on God, Less on Politics

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politics religion us

The preacher [Billy Graham] now thinks that both left- and right-wing movers and shakers have gone too far by blowing minor issues out of all proportion.

He feels they have ignored the core issues of the gospel such as making the love for God and for other people a priority. - thomasneal on 2006-08-14

12 Aug 06

Apocalypse soon | Salon Life

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middle.east politics religion us

Which brings us to that final question: Does violence in the Middle East -- theoretically a precursor to the Second Coming -- make premillennialist Christians happy? Yes and no. "Anyone who believes in the Rapture looks forward to going, and yes, I assume, to be rescued from a world heading for even more perilous times," says "Left Behind" series coauthor Jenkins. But he insists that the bumper sticker types gloating about it are not quite in line with the messiah they claim to follow. "Why hurry an event that will assure that untold millions will be left behind? I mean, 'good for us, too bad for you' seems an attitude wholly antithetical to the teachings of Christ." - thomasneal on 2006-08-12

Sirocco :: Israel: a dire prophecy :: August :: 2006

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afterposten ethics gaarder middle.east norway religion terrorism

We do not believe in the notion of God’s chosen people. We laugh at this people’s fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as God’s chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism. - thomasneal on 2006-08-12

Tom 's Library tagged religion → View Popular

The last word on P.Z. Myers - Crunchy Con

Religion News (RSS): Muslim clerics annul rape victim's marriage

L'Hôte: I am not you, atheism.

Atheist rejects neo-atheism - Crunchy Con

Ship of Fools: Features

J. Budziszewski -- The Problem With Conservatism

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Crunchy Con - Rod Dreher, Conservative blog, Beliefnet conservative politics and religion blog

Edge: BREAKING THE GALILEAN SPELL By Stuart A. Kauffman

Religion is ‘the new social evil’ - Times Literary Supplement

Jerusalem banned by politically correct clergy - Telegraph

Rev. Jim Wallis searches for old-time justice | csmonitor.com

Suspicious fire destroys N.Y. synagogue - Boston.com

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the great Anatolian philosopher and the father of the Mevlevi sect

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . NEWS FEATURE . Obama Church Controversy . March 9, 2007 | PBS

Orthodox World

Time
in Icon

Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings

Puritan and Reformed Writings

Christian Today > Christian News, Updated Daily > Aging Billy Graham Focuses More on God, Less on Politics

Apocalypse soon | Salon Life

Sirocco :: Israel: a dire prophecy :: August :: 2006

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