Just in case it’s of interest to any readers of this blog (I saw that Razib had already mentioned the wider topic), here is my take (via NRO) on the Swiss and their minarets. Razib himself says that he is inclined to agree with Rod Dreher on this topic, but not, I hope, in this respect:
If the Swiss are afraid of losing their Christian cultural heritage, why do only 16 percent of them go to church?
That’s the sort of observation that one might expect from a devout religious believer such as Rod, so fair enough. Unsurprisingly however, it fails to reflect the complexities of the way that religion and nationality often intersect. Faith is one thing, flag another. There is nothing particularly strange about a people believing that an often extremely loosely-defined Christianity forms (and should continue to form) a part of their nation’s heritage, not to speak of its cultural, ethical and intellectual landscape, without themselves wanting to go to church, or indeed having any belief in the supernatural whatsoever. As to how they defend that Christian heritage, well, baptisms, carols, Christmas trees, Easter eggs, family traditions, the proper teaching of history in schools and, yes, occasionally packing the kiddies off to a church service or two might make a pretty good start. It can be a useful thing, going through the motions.
Sorry to go off topic, but this new site design doesn’t let readers know who has written which post.
@Ross: this new site design doesn’t let readers know who has written which post.
Yes but it’s very much easier to read.
Who says the Swiss are protecting their Christian heritage?
Maybe their just trying to prevent the continuation of a process that would result in the creation of what would eventually be referred to as an Islamic Heritage.
I wrote about this, condemning liberal atheists for actually perpetuating the spread of religion (namely Islam):
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2009/12/swiss-minarets-and-liberal-atheists.html
(Larry Auster quite liked it. Dont know if that’s good or bad at this site. For Derb, I imagine bad.)
Also, please make the font bigger and give the entire post instead of just a snippet on the front page.
Off topic too about the site design.
It’s an annoying junk because if you zoom on it to have larger fonts YOU LOOSE THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE LINES and have to scroll horizontally FOR EACH LINE.
Which RETARD designed that?
bad bad template.
The text is too small, making the lines to long to easily read. Since several writer’s here tend to long paragraphs, that reduces readability even more.
No author is listed
Not enough of the post is in the snippet on the front page
It’s ugly (worse than my site design!)
The only thing that could make it worse would be a scrolling twitter widget. Of course, the old design didn’t have that either.
Your new format is, as others have observed, a large step backward. I
assume that omitting the contributors’ names was just an oversight, but
the font is way too small, and the overall effect is just plain ugly. Also, links are not clearly marked (at least in Internet Explorer). You
say, “here is my contribution …”, but it isn’t at all clear where “here”
is. And what is this “website” box on the comments form?
scrolling twitter widget
Sounds like something from a B monster movie.
Links are nearly invisible, too.
But most importantly, women and minorities are having a disparate time with this new format.
@Le Mur
Haha!!
“There is nothing particularly strange about a people believing that an often extremely loosely-defined Christianity forms (and should continue to form) a part of their nation’s heritage..
Shouldn’t we call that ‘implicit religiousness?