Saudi Arabia is moving to expand its already draconian laws concerning blasphemy. The new regulations by the ultra-conservative Shura council following the arrest of Saudi blogger and columnist Hamza Kashgari, 23, was arrested for tweeting comments deemed as insulting the Prophet Mohammad.
Category: Religion
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
It’s hard to strike the right balance between respect and mirth in writing this story, but I will try. Faithful in West New York, New Jersey, have commenced pilgrimages to a tree at the intersection of 60th Street and Bergenline Avenue. The skinny tree stands in front of a music store. On it, they say, is a revelation showing an image of the Virgin Mary resembling the famous sighting at Guadalupe.
Candles, flowers, cards, and towns folk have gathered around the opening in the bark where the purported miracle is said to be. Catholic diocesan spokesman and aptly named, James Goodness, is not convinced of divine intervention saying the image is likely “just some discoloration” that resembles St. Mary. However, the churchman is not one to disabuse the faithful of their faith. “But if it helps people to be stronger in their faith, then it is a good thing,” Goodness said.
Or is it?
Source: NJ.com
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The Vatican went to court to obtain a temporary injunction against the German satirical magazine Titanic in regards to its July cover, shown at left. The translation is: “Hallelujah in the Vatican: The leak has been found!” The cover refers to the Vatileaks scandal.
The Vatican claims that the covers are illegal and “harm the holy father’s legal rights.” That must refer to the right not to be offended.
Continue reading “Vatican Sues Over Satirical Magazine Cover”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
For many years in the late 60’s and through the 70’s a group of twenty five friends and co-workers would camp for a weekend on an island in the middle of Long Lake, in the Adirondack mountains. At the time these were the people who were closest to me, even more so than my family. The island we camped on in the middle of this magnificent lake was as beautiful and tranquil as you might imagine it to be. You could only reach it by boat and the isolation added to the feeling of peace that settled over us when we were there. An old mansion had once stood on a rise looking out at the Lake. All that remained of it was a huge fireplace and chimney. We would cook large dinners as twilight descended. As we ate our meals more wood was piled on the cooking fire until it was a large blazing bonfire and we would get high, talk, gaze into the fire’s ever changing shapes and play/sing music as night descended, sharing the communion and the warmth of our interrelationship.
As I recall those long weekends four decades past, I recognize that we were taking part in a ritual as old as the beginnings of human society. The sharing of a communal meal, the comfort of close companionship, primitive music and a roaring fire keeping away the terrors of the night. These earliest of human rituals developed the beginnings of that which we call society. Ritual as I define it is a combination of repetitive actions, rites and procedures performed by two or more individuals that provides comforting feeling and a sense of shared togetherness. The behaviors tap into the most universal of human archetypes and thus are easily recognized as reassuring by participants and by groups. I’m using my own definition here because if you Google “ritual defined” you will get a multiplicity of definitions, all with some precision, that in the end make the explanation of ritual more complex than it should be, hence my own hubris in creating my own definition.
As millennia passed the communal campfire developed into a complex mixture of ritual that bonded people together and like the earliest ones provide the comfort of safety in a fear ridden world. My generation of hipsters abjured the rituals we inherited, even as we created rituals of our own. It is a fact of humanity’s existence within society’s that communal rituals are needed to bond us together and that the breakdown of some of the binding rituals of American society, have separated us and have made our lives more chaotic and less personally meaningful. Let me explain what I perceive. Continue reading “A Meditation on Ritual”
While both President Obama and his Republicans challengers continue to engage in faith-based politics, a recent poll shows Americans faith in organized religion at an all-time low. Nevertheless, attacks on atheists and agnostics and secularists appear at an all-time high in the West (here and here).
Ironically, while confidence in our politicians are also at an all time low, they have reached out to churches to help push the faithful to the polls.
Continue reading “Gallop: Faith In Organized Religion At All-Time Low”
Islamic militants destroyed two of the historic tombs at the famous 14th century Djingareyber mosque in Timbuktu this week. The militants from the Ansar Dine group say the centuries-old shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam are idolatrous. In the meantime, some Egyptian Muslim extremists are following the victory by the Muslim Brotherhood with demands that the pyramids be destroyed for the same reason. Obviously these are extreme groups within the Muslim community. This later story is based on accounts coming from various sites but appear based on the same claimed translation of sites, though some have called it a hoax.
Continue reading “Islamic Militants Destroy Historic Sites In Timbuktu”
You would think that the claimed discovery of the Higgs boson — or God’s Particle — would lead to a new round of celebration in Pakistan over its own Nobel laureate, Adbus Salam. After all, Salam helped develop the theoretical framework that led to the apparent discovery of the subatomic particle. However, before laying the ground work for discovering the God Particle, Salam picked the wrong God in the view of many Pakistanis. Salam, who died in 1996, has been stricken from school textbooks and public acknowledgments because he was a member of the Ahmadi sect that is viewed by Muslims as heretical.
We have followed the plight of women in Afghanistan as both the Taliban and the government roll back on advances in women’s rights after the U.S. invasion. Now another disturbing video has surfaced where dozens of men cheer as a man pumps round afer round into a woman accused of adultery. As nine shots are fired into her, the men cheer “God is Great!” in ecstatic celebration, as shown in the video accompanying the article below. Notably, this killing took place not in some far off province but the village of Qimchok to the north of Kabul.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I am a regular subscriber to the website WhoWhatWhy written by investigative journalist Russ Baker. Recently he ran a response by one of his readers, Dave Parker, to a video Russ posted of Nick Hanuer, a billionaire venture capitalist who gave a talk at TED, which is an acronym for the non-profit, Technology, Entertainment and Design, TED holds conferences around the world on business/societal issues that relate to its theme. In his talk Mr. Hanuer dispelled the idea that the Rich create wealth and instead said it was really the middle-classes that drove the economy. He disparaged the idea that it is the entrepreneurs who are the “job creators”. Although the talk was well received by the conference attendees, TED curiously chose not to publicize it as it usually does with other such talks. Perhaps their decision was because Mr. Hanuer’s thesis goes against the current widely accepted mythology regarding job creation and entrepreneurship. Here is a video of his talk:
In his comment on this video, Dave Parker used the writings of Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was:
“an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience.”
My reading Dave’s article was the type of moment where you can imagine me slapping my head and exclaiming: “Damn, why didn’t I think of that”. Indeed, I’ve read all of Campbell’s books and seen all of his famed PBS series of interviews, done with Bill Moyers. What follows is my jumping off from Mr. Parker’s excellent comments and any credit for what I’m writing here goes to him for his perception. In applying Campbell to Mr. Hanuer’s comments, Dave solidified a concept for me that’s been playing in my head for years about the 1%’s need to increase the disparity between themselves and everyone else . The Rich are trying to create a new kind of feudalism where Lordships are won not on battlefields, but in corporate boardrooms. The rest of us need to be impoverished because without serfs to worship them, having everything ultimately becomes boring. Some of the 1% no doubt are less ego-driven and have empathy for those not on their level, but even they are beneficiaries of a mythology in creation. I believe that this mythology is the result of a campaign waged since the supporters of Barry Goldwater went down to an inglorious defeat. Continue reading “Mythology and the New Feudalism”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Louisiana state Representative Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, was an enthusiastic support of Governor Bobby Jindal’s school voucher program, until a Muslim school applied for a share of the spoils. Hodges reportedly said: “I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools.”
Hodges’ sense of Christian privilege has led her to wishfully imagine that the founding fathers share her religious sentiments.
Continue reading “Muslim Schools Entitled To Jindal’s Vouchers”
South Carolina Judge Michael Nettles has imposed a novel sentence on Cassandra Tolley, 28, for DUI. Tolley has been ordered to read and write a summary of the Old Testament book of Job. I have been an outspoken critic of such novel punishments for years (here and here). The order to read and summarize a religious book is not simply an affront to our legal system but a danger to the separation of church and state.
Continue reading “South Carolina Judge Sentences Drunk Driver To Read Book Of Job”
For years, politicians around the country have striven to allow families to leave public schools and attend religious (largely Christian) schools through voucher programs. However, many people are alarmed by the call of Rep. André Carson (D-Indiana), a Muslim member of Congress, that our schools should be modeled on Islamic schools or Madrassas. As a staunch supporter of public schools and an educator, I strongly oppose the intermingling of religion with our public schools. I also do not find Madrassas to be a particularly compelling model for education in the United States.
Continue reading “Rep. André Carson Calls For U.S. Schools To Be Modeled On Madrassas”
Bahawalpur Pakistan was the scene of a horrific crime after thousands of Muslims were told by religious leaders to raid a police station and punish a man accused of ripping pages out of a Koran. The mentally ill man was accused of blasphemy, but never saw a courtroom. The mob pulled him from the police station, beat him to death and then set his body on fire.
Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chief executive, has twitted on his views of evil. While various people of late have been citing Murdock with the same criticism after the eavesdropping scandal, Murdoch was moved to discuss evil with regard to recent complaints by Katie Holmes that she is being followed by what her friends call “Scientology goons” — reportedly raised fears that the Church might try to snatch the child of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Murdoch responded with “Scientology back in news. Very weird cult, but big, big money involved with Tom Cruise either number two or three in [hierarchy].” That must make work a bit awkward since Greta Van Susteren, one of his leading hosts, has been a prominent member of Scientology for decades. Her show “On The Record” airs every weekday.
Continue reading “On The Record On Evil? Fox News Owner Calls Scientology a “Very Weird Cult””
Algerian writer Boualem Sansal have been stripped of his literary prize of 15,000 euros after the Arab sponsors of the award learned that he had visited Israel. Originally, the Editions Gallimard Arabic Novel prize was withdrawn entirely, but under pressure Sansal was given the prestigious French literary award but not the cash. The incident has tarnished the image of the award and undermined its commitment to artistic expression.