If one reads a commentator such as Prof. Stephen Walt, the controversy over the mosque near Ground Zero is a very simple matter. Opponents of the mosque proposal are preaching demagogic anti-Muslim intolerance and are therefore simply wrong. Or, as he says:
You know that someone is engaged in demagoguery when they keep using demonstrably false but ( Read more... )

Obituary for an amazing Italian cavalry officer who led the last cavalry charge faced by the British army.

About faulty analysis from inadequate WWII statistics, using tanks and capital ships as examples.

A new book on the Eastern Front argues Stalin won because Hitler underestimated Stalin’s willingness to spend lives:
Wars have a chilling ( Read more... )

Remember, God hates shrimp!

Review of The Shack, a novel about interrogating God which is a massive bestseller in the US.

A nice explication of the differences between the Latin/Catholic and Greek/Orthodox views of the Trinity.

About the rise of the religious Left in the US.

A psychologist looks at the data on clergy sex abuse ( Read more... )

The Iranian President denounces Jews as sub-human and Obama as a ruthless dictator: it is hard to know which is worse, whether he believes this stuff or whether he does not. The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the US endorses US military action to stop an Iranian bomb. Noting there is nothing particularly new in this, apart from possibly its ( Read more... )

Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels has been creating a stir with his cotentions, based on his work in Danish prisons, on criminality, Muslim culture and problems of integration. He holds that general integration of Muslims into Western societies is not possible (which it is certainly not if your ideal is the degree of cultural homogeneity that ( Read more... )

Dustin (Hoffman) and Jason (Bateman) doing the big kiss thing.

Iceland’s PM has married her partner of several years.

UK forced marriages unit is finding gay or bisexual men being forced into marriages.

Slavic gay pride in Belarus defies ban.

China has its first gay pageant.

About standing against Uganda’s “execute homosexuals” laws ( Read more... )

About Paul’s use of ‘unnatural’ (para physin) in Romans. (Only plausible if you have not read Philo of Alexandria.)

A deceased Bangladeshi man with a Muslim and a Hindu wife will have his religion determined by his friends.

Examining the problems of legal stability and justice in (pdf) incorporating religious norms directly in law ( Read more... )

Best term ever for modern greenie-paganism: ‘fluffwicca’.

About the pagan roots of Easter.

About the push to have a UN treaty banning “defamation” of religion.

Indian sceptic challenges Tantric master to kill him and lives.

Concern about Saudi Arabia pouring huge sums into Islamist groups in the Balkans ( Read more... )

About Haiti and Voodoo.

The Vatican’s chief exorcist sees the Devil everywhere.

Arguing that religion has an adaptive evolutionary role.

Be fruitful and multiply: a Hasidic woman who died recently is estimated to have 2,000 living descendants:
Like many Hasidim, Mrs. Schwartz considered bearing children as her tribute to God.
Over the last four ( Read more... )

Getting Easter imagery a little wrong.

Exploring the rich religious life of India.

Thousands of Iranians celebrate ancient Zoroastrian fire festival.

The head of St John Chrysostom will be visiting New York so people can venerate this queer-hating, Jew-hating, misogynist patron saint of preachers of the gospel of love.

Visiting Qom:
Despite ( Read more... )