The Friendly Atheist has an excellent short piece which utterly destroys liberal and moderate Muslims in their case for Islam being a religion of peace. It is not that, as I have shown here, and due mainly to this. The problem stems from the core text, the Qu’ran. And you can’t really be a Muslim and drop the Qu’ran – they are inseparable.
Category Religion and Society
The BHA has released this: During a speech detailing Conservative plans to open 500 new free schools by 2020, David…
There is a group called Christians Against Dinosaurs. They are clearly nuts. This article is taken from Addicting Info. It makes for disturbing reading:
Most Christians are warm, loving people. Some use their chosen holy book to spew hatred and bigotry. Others…are just insane.
I was having a conversation earlier today and was levied with a claim which went something like this:
“we should respect the beliefs of others”
and I must say, I was a little annoyed.
Usually, you expect biting satire to come from The Onion, or Private Eye. this unexpected piece of genius comes from the Guardian in response to the meddling of churches and religious organisations recently to the proposed law changes to allow three-parent families relevant to mitochondrial donation. The church was deemed irresponsible for trying to sway politicians on the matter.
UKIP, The British, but more popular version of the Tea Party, is stooping to new lows, as if that was possible. One of their authorised group, a Christian group whose tag line is “Fighting through Christ for deliverance form EU tyranny”, has made declarations about homosexuality and Manchester’s gay Pride event which seem right out of a previous century. This is from The Pink News (H/T Matthew Coussell through via Hope Not Hate):
I have told you before that Reasonable Doubts is my favourite podcast. Well, here is a great RD Extra podcast with Luke Galen, psychologist, looks skeptically at claims of religious people being kinder, more charitable, prosocial. So very worth a listen:
This is from The Independent, though what is equally as depressing in this day and age, is that the Bill to allow prayers at the beginning of Council meetings seems to have got through the House of Commons unopposed:
Tory James Arbuthnot comes out as an atheist, claiming MPs must pretend to be religious
A Conservative MP has said Tory MPs are under pressure to pretend they are religious and he could only confess that he was an atheist because he was standing down at the next election.
Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of new laws which define atheists as terrorists, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, the Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”.
I am engaged in many conversations and debates across multiple platforms on the internet. At the moment, and in general recently, I have been wrapped up in many debates with my fellow liberals. The subject has been Islam and as to whether it is in some culpable proportion responsible for the violent extremism which is taking place across the globe. From the Middle East and ISIS (incorporating a number of different countries) to France and the Charlie Hedbo events; from Nigeria and Boko Haram to Kenya and Somalia with al Shabaab, things are not looking good.
This is well worth a watch with some great panellists on both sides of the debate line. I will be…
This is a really interesting BBC article looking at violent extremism and its sudden apparent arrival on the scene: Boko…
This is the advert that someone I know took out in the newspaper, The South Bend Tribune,which is in South Bend,…
Enough said:
Oh dear. Kenya again feeling the brunt of Islamist extremism:
Gunmen from the Somali militant group al-Shabab say they have attacked a bus in northern Kenya, killing 28 people.
The bus was travelling to the capital, Nairobi, when it was stopped in Mandera county, not far from the Somali border.
Gunmen separated out non-Muslims by asking passengers to read from the Koran, officials and witnesses said. Those who failed were then shot in the head.
From the BBC (see Jacques Rousseau’s skeptical view here): If you expose your child to Moses, Muhammad or Matthew the Apostle,…
Someone with whom I once did teacher training is now a fervent Catholic and blogger at his site. We have had many a strong argument on facebook, and recently he alerted me to this blog post to see what I thought. I am now going to critique his piece on abortion and Dawkins.
I have articulated this many, many times, but never yet as a full blog post, so here goes. What is it that differentiates the two major world religions, and how does this translate across to the behaviour of their adherents?
This is a pretty vital question for understanding the state of affairs with world religions and worldviews, especially in present day context…
This meme is pretty powerful because it is so accurate. I can never understand how pro-lifers are very often pro-gun, anti-universal healthcare and so on. There is a disconnect there, for sure.
The Religion Hurts Humanity blog recently posted this on a survey about pro-life attitudes: