The West: the swords of Islam

Posted on October 23, 2011 by David Hume

Revolution Won, Top Libyan Official Vows a New and More Pious State:

The leader of Libya’s transitional government declared to thousands of revelers in a crowded square here on Sunday that Libya’s revolution had ended, setting the country on the path to elections, and he vowed that the new government would be based on Islamic tenets.

The sea of flag-waving citizens reacted with shouts of “God is great;” minutes earlier, they had sung the bouncy Italianate national anthem used before Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi came to power. The song has been revived to help celebrate the downfall of the dictator, who was killed on Thursday.

…

“We are an Islamic country,” Mr. Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the Transitional National Council, said as the sun descended. “We take the Islamic religion as the core of our new government. The constitution will be based on our Islamic religion.” He also promised that Islamic banks would be established in the new Libya.

The emphasis on Islam in the short speech — he began by thanking God and declaring God “the greatest — appeared to be an answer of sorts to the speculation about how much of a role religion might play here.

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Why stand athwart history?

Posted on October 21, 2011 by David Hume

Coming soon to a bookstore near you: Reflections on the Revolution in Araby.

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Rosa Parks, Sadly Missed

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via the New York World:

On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.

They were Orthodox Jews with full beards, sidecurls and long black coats, who told her that she was riding a “private bus” and a “Jewish bus.” When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her.

“If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’” he told Franchy, who rode the bus at the invitation of a New York World reporter. She then moved to the back where the other women were sitting. The driver did not intervene in the incident.

The B110 bus travels between Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. It is open to the public, and has a route number and tall blue bus stop signs like any other city bus. But the B110 operates according to its own distinct rules. The bus line is run by a private company and serves the Hasidic communities of the two neighborhoods. To avoid physical contact between members of opposite sexes that is prohibited by Hasidic tradition, men sit in the front of the bus and women sit in the back.

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“A License to do Things”

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via ThinkProgress Health (I know, I know) comes this gem from Santorum:

Rick Santorum pledged to repeal all federal funding for contraception, during a recent interview with CaffeinatedThoughts.com editor Shane Vander Hart, arguing that birth control devalues the act of procreation. “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be

I won’t give Santorum much, but I will give the defeated Pennsylvania senator this. He doesn’t hide what he thinks.

Good grief.

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Trending….

Posted on October 17, 2011 by David Hume

Poll from Real Clear Politics:

And Google Trends:

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Back, Back to the Medieval We Go (If We Ever Left)

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via the Utne Reader:

With a doctorate in astrophysics, Frank (not his real name) considers himself a man of science who relies on research and analysis to make sense of the world. Despite the occult overtones, his body’s violent reaction to the deliverance prayer struck him as an obvious case of cause and effect. He became convinced that he—like the poor souls he’d just read about—was infested with evil spirits.

After reading more books about demonic possession, Frank, a lapsed Catholic at the time, asked around for a priest who might be willing to exorcize him.

In a way Frank was fortunate. Exorcism is experiencing a renaissance in American Catholicism. There are more exorcists in the United States now than at any other time in modern history, according to experts. More than 100 bishops and priests met in Baltimore last November to recruit dozens more. So Frank didn’t have to look far to find Father Gary Thomas, a gregarious priest in Saratoga, California, a small city on the western slope of Silicon Valley…

Dormant for centuries at a time, exorcism tends to awaken when the church confronts significant crises, says Nancy Caciola, a history scholar at the University of California–San Diego. Portable manuals detailing ever more elaborate and standardized rituals of exorcism proliferated during the papal schism of the 15th century, when two men claimed to be the rightful pope. The manuals surfaced again during the Protestant Reformation.

The challenges now confronting the Catholic Church in the United States are legion: the sex abuse scandal, a secularizing society, and a restive flock that, studies show, loses one out of three adult Catholics, to name just a few. Exorcism reasserts the relevance of the church and its inimitable power over human destiny. Who else is going to help when the devil comes for you?

Pope John Paul II, who is rumored to have performed several exorcisms, frequently warned Catholics that Satan is very real and very dangerous. In a similar vein, Pope Benedict XVI praised a group of Italian exorcists in 2005, encouraging them to pursue their “important ministry.”

Good grief. Read the whole thing.

H/t: Andrew Sullivan

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Sarah Palin Part II

Posted on October 17, 2011 by David Hume

Perhaps worse than Palin! On Taxes and Fences, Cain Stumbles a Bit:

When Mr. Gregory asked if Mr. Cain would describe himself as a “neoconservative” — the foreign policy approach championed by the Bush administration that favored the aggressive use of military power to promote American interests and values abroad — Mr. Cain seemed unsure.

“I’m not familiar with the neoconservative movement,” he said.

This is idiotic. Is he joking?

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“I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ”

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Andrew Stuttaford

So said Unitarian William Howard Taft some time before he was elected President.

Would he have been electable now?

H/t Andrew Sullivan

Posted in Church & State, politics | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Perry’s Pastor Problem

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Andrew Stuttaford

Posted on the Corner yesterday.

Kathryn, I agree with you that Rick Perry would be well-advised to put some distance between himself and Rev. Jeffress, but William Donohue, a man who once said that “radical atheists” should “apologize” for Hitler (almost certainly not an atheist, incidentally) is perhaps not the individual best placed to object to those who would “demonize” theological difference. That said, Mr. Donohue is, of course, perfectly entitled to his views about atheists or anyone or anything else, just as others are entitled to rebut them. We are too nervous about robust religious debate in this country. If someone happens to believe that another’s religion (or irreligion) is “false” or, for that matter, the work of Old Nick, what of it? What matters is not what people believe, but what they do, and if they can agree to differ in a reasonably civilized manner that ought to be enough. Tolerance is the acceptance, however pained, of difference, not its denial.

So what should Perry do? These rituals of apology/distancing (call it what you will) have become an unpleasant part of today’s PC circus (and that’s PC of all political persuasions). That’s a shame. Nevertheless, we are where we are and the governor should explain that when it comes to matters of faith, Jeffress speaks for Jeffress, not Perry, and leave it at that. If Perry is then asked more questions about what he thinks about such questions, he should explain.

On the wider topic of whether a presidential candidate’s religious affiliations should be something that should be immune from comment and criticism, the answer is no. If a candidate insists that his or her God is central to who they are and what they believe, that’s a fair enough thing to say, but, under those circumstances, it’s no less fair for voters (or political rivals) to ask what that might mean for how that candidate might act as president, and, if they don’t like the answer, to say so or vote so.

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Moving Secularism Forward, March 1st to 4th, Orlando

Posted on October 14, 2011 by David Hume

Moving Secularism Forward:

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the Council for Secular Humanism will hold their annual conference “Moving Secularism Forward” March 1–4, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida.

At “Moving Secularism Forward”, learn about one of Florida’s most dramatic church-state battles regarding the Blaine Amendment, and much, much more; including an optional motorcoach excursion to Kennedy Space Center.

Topics:

Situation Review: The International Academy of Humanism, Outreach and Advocacy Strategies, Does Secularism Have a Political Agenda? What Are Our Objectives as Secular Humanists?

Speakers:

Daniel C. Dennett, Sir Harold Kroto, Steven Pinker, Rebecca Goldstein, PZ Myers, Katrina Voss, Russell Blackford, Stephen Law, Rita Swan, Anthony Pinn, Victor Stenger, Elisabeth Cornwell, Eddie Tabash, Ophelia Benson, Lionel Tiger, Ronald Bailey, Razib Khan, Jamila Bey, Sikivu Hutchinson, David Silverman, Bill Cooke, Steven K. Green, Ellenbeth Wachs, Ronald A. Lindsay, Debbie Goddard and Tom Flynn.

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