Religious links
A review by philosopher Simon Blackburn of Karen Armstrong’s book on religious practice.
About the naturalness of religious belief.
About evolution and religion: and followers of Darwin not following Darwin’s example.
Pictures of the largest active Hindu temple outside India.
Nice use of the Bhavagad Gita.
On the continuing appeal of John Calvin.
About whether religion is necessary for Western civilisation to continue. A secular conservative responds.
Demurring on Obama’s invocation of God in health care debate (Obama is even keener on publicly invoking God than Dubya was): As an atheist, for instance, my core moral concern is that elected officials stop telling me what my core moral concerns should be..
American Lutherans have a new statement on human sexuality.
About the doctrine of taqiyya or deception.
A nice piece on if Israel was not a Jewish state. A tongue-in-cheek piece testing if you are an Islamophobe.
Yale University Press is publishing a book on the Danish cartoons controversy without the actual cartoons.
About far-left attempts to suppress criticism of Islam. If one substitutes “Islam”, and “Islamism” for “the Soviet Union”, Orwell on British left intellectuals of the 1930s and 1940s describes near perfectly the common mindset among many progressivists.
A Qatar academic and spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement on Muhammad as jihad model.
A symposium on why American Jews are (US) liberals: But I suspect that until conservatism convinces most Jews that they have a sympathy and practical program for those who are real or putative outsiders, it will remain, among Jews at least, distinctly the minority movement. … Liberals, he shows, tended to favor Jewish emancipation and equality, while conservatives, by and large, preferred the old status quo that kept Jews restricted and confined. … First, Reform Judaism is much stronger in the United States than in any other country, and adherence to Reform Judaism strongly correlates with liberal voting behavior. Reform today is the largest of America’s Jewish religious movements, and all surveys agree that Reform Jews vote Democratic more reliably than any other large body of Jews. There is no need to seek out the “Torah of liberalism,” for Reform Judaism is the engine that drives the liberal train in the United States; additional explanations are unnecessary. … In the United States, however, pro-Israel sentiment has always been much more powerful than elsewhere, thanks largely to evangelical support for Israel, and prudent liberals have therefore been as supportive of Israel as have their conservative opponents. … Jewish voters don’t embrace candidates based on their support for the state of Israel as much as they passionately oppose candidates based on their identification with Christianity-especially the fervent evangelicalism of the dreaded “Christian Right.” … For many Americans, the last remaining scrap of Jewish distinctiveness involves our denial of New Testament claims, so any support for those claims becomes a threat to the very essence of our Jewish identity. Many Jews therefore view enthusiastic Christian believers-no matter how reliably they support Israel and American Jews-as enemies by definition. … In 1992, Jewish voters deserted the Republicans in part because of the troubling record of the first President Bush on Israel but also in response to the prominent, passionate “culture war” speech at the Houston convention by “Pitchfork Pat” Buchanan-a rare conservative who combined support for Christian Right domestic issues with bitter hostility to the state of Israel. … The liberal belief that Jews should be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage has nothing to do with connecting to Jewish tradition and everything to do with disassociating from Christian conservatives. … It is reassuring for liberal Jews to believe that all people are fundamentally decent and reasonable, and that all disputes can be settled through compromise and conciliation. About the rural factor. A response from a liberal-but-no-longer-left Jew. A response to the response.
About the naturalness of religious belief.
About evolution and religion: and followers of Darwin not following Darwin’s example.
Pictures of the largest active Hindu temple outside India.
Nice use of the Bhavagad Gita.
On the continuing appeal of John Calvin.
About whether religion is necessary for Western civilisation to continue. A secular conservative responds.
Demurring on Obama’s invocation of God in health care debate (Obama is even keener on publicly invoking God than Dubya was): As an atheist, for instance, my core moral concern is that elected officials stop telling me what my core moral concerns should be..
American Lutherans have a new statement on human sexuality.
About the doctrine of taqiyya or deception.
A nice piece on if Israel was not a Jewish state. A tongue-in-cheek piece testing if you are an Islamophobe.
Yale University Press is publishing a book on the Danish cartoons controversy without the actual cartoons.
About far-left attempts to suppress criticism of Islam. If one substitutes “Islam”, and “Islamism” for “the Soviet Union”, Orwell on British left intellectuals of the 1930s and 1940s describes near perfectly the common mindset among many progressivists.
A Qatar academic and spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement on Muhammad as jihad model.
A symposium on why American Jews are (US) liberals: But I suspect that until conservatism convinces most Jews that they have a sympathy and practical program for those who are real or putative outsiders, it will remain, among Jews at least, distinctly the minority movement. … Liberals, he shows, tended to favor Jewish emancipation and equality, while conservatives, by and large, preferred the old status quo that kept Jews restricted and confined. … First, Reform Judaism is much stronger in the United States than in any other country, and adherence to Reform Judaism strongly correlates with liberal voting behavior. Reform today is the largest of America’s Jewish religious movements, and all surveys agree that Reform Jews vote Democratic more reliably than any other large body of Jews. There is no need to seek out the “Torah of liberalism,” for Reform Judaism is the engine that drives the liberal train in the United States; additional explanations are unnecessary. … In the United States, however, pro-Israel sentiment has always been much more powerful than elsewhere, thanks largely to evangelical support for Israel, and prudent liberals have therefore been as supportive of Israel as have their conservative opponents. … Jewish voters don’t embrace candidates based on their support for the state of Israel as much as they passionately oppose candidates based on their identification with Christianity-especially the fervent evangelicalism of the dreaded “Christian Right.” … For many Americans, the last remaining scrap of Jewish distinctiveness involves our denial of New Testament claims, so any support for those claims becomes a threat to the very essence of our Jewish identity. Many Jews therefore view enthusiastic Christian believers-no matter how reliably they support Israel and American Jews-as enemies by definition. … In 1992, Jewish voters deserted the Republicans in part because of the troubling record of the first President Bush on Israel but also in response to the prominent, passionate “culture war” speech at the Houston convention by “Pitchfork Pat” Buchanan-a rare conservative who combined support for Christian Right domestic issues with bitter hostility to the state of Israel. … The liberal belief that Jews should be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage has nothing to do with connecting to Jewish tradition and everything to do with disassociating from Christian conservatives. … It is reassuring for liberal Jews to believe that all people are fundamentally decent and reasonable, and that all disputes can be settled through compromise and conciliation. About the rural factor. A response from a liberal-but-no-longer-left Jew. A response to the response.