Category Archives: culture

A Storm in a Soup Can?

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Cross-posted over at the Corner: TPM Muckraker has a rising-tide-of-intolerance type story over on its site. The topic? Soup. Earlier this year, Campbell Canada introduced a line of halal-certified soups. The 15 soups comply with Islamic dietary regulations which, much … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

Another Brick in the Wall

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Cross-posted over at the Corner: At first glance, there is less to this Sunday Telegraph story than meets the eye: Hundreds of girls are bring forced by British schools to wear the Islamic veil in a move which has been … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Knowing My Religion

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

An entertaining Pew survey showing that atheists and agnostics are better informed about religion than their theistic counterparts has raised a few eyebrows. I’m not convinced it’s such a big deal. As Daniel Larison records, there’s this detail: Data from … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged | 12 Comments

Dinesh D’Souza’s poison

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Heather Mac Donald

Forbes magazine has now “fact-checked” Dinesh D’Souza’s infamous September 27 cover story, “How Obama Thinks,” and has uncovered one “slight” misrepresentation, it says, of an Obama speech on the BP oil spill.  Such a “fact-checking” feint is irrelevant to this … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged , , | 96 Comments

Dhimmitude and demise done well

Posted on September 26, 2010 by David Hume

Sometimes readers will ask about a good book on the history of religion, and I’m pretty hard-pressed to recommend something without qualification, caveat, or caution. But I can recommend The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

“Wisdom” from Facebook

Posted on September 24, 2010 by David Hume

Here’s something I saw on a Facebook discussion which caught my attention: … The idiots who threatened violence over South Park are no more representative of Islam than the idiot threatening to burn Qur’ans is representative of Christianity. Let’s grant … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged | 5 Comments

Pagan Pique

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Cross-posted from the Corner: It’s not every day that I give thanks to the folks over at the Huffington Post, but today is one of those days. Take it away, Sam Stein: …A spokesperson for the neopagan network “The Witches’ … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

DeMint’s Witch?

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

No, of course not, but Republicans hoping for a GOP win in Delaware do now have to deal with this: O’DONNELL: I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Taking the Western side in religious history

Posted on September 17, 2010 by David Hume

A reader recently asked me about a history of Islam which did not exhibit the strong biases evident in Karen Armstrong’s body of work. I don’t know what to recommend really because I don’t read too many popular works of … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, history | Tagged | 3 Comments

It isn’t always about the mean

Posted on September 16, 2010 by David Hume

‘Draw Muhammad’ cartoonist changes name, goes into hiding at FBI’s insistence: Seattle Weekly announced Wednesday that it will no longer run Molly Norris’s artwork. The newspaper is also reporting that legally, there is no more “Molly Norris.” Norris — the … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, history | Tagged , | 4 Comments