The Politics of the Muslim Controversy

Salman Rushdie condemns ‘hate-filled rhetoric’ of Islamic fanaticism, The Telegraph: It’s hard not to conclude that this hate-filled religious rhetoric, pouring from the mouths of ruthless fanatics into the ears of angry young men, has become the most dangerous new weapon in the world today. If the rhetoric is the weapon then let’s find out why … Continue reading “The Politics of the Muslim Controversy”


Muslim Violence: Understanding Religion and Humanity

Jerry Coyne has posted Resa Aslan’s response to claims that the Muslim religion is inherently bad. He labales Aslan as “the Great Muslim Apologist”. Listening to the two sides of this discussion I’m pushed to try to understand why they appear not to be truly communicating with each other. I have in the past argued … Continue reading “Muslim Violence: Understanding Religion and Humanity”


WHO’s WHO: Mythicists, Mythicist Agnostics & Historicists Who Call for Scholarly Debate (Updated 6th August 2020)

Table 1: Mythicists, Mythicist Sympathizers & Agnostics (and their Religious Backgrounds) As of 6th August 2020 only the colour coded table has been updated. The remainder of this page dates from some years earlier.  The following updated table was originally posted at Who’s Who Among Mythicists and Mythicist Sympathizers/Agnostics and again at Maurice Casey’s Failure to … Continue readingWHO’s WHO: Mythicists, Mythicist Agnostics & Historicists Who Call for Scholarly Debate (Updated 6th August 2020)”


The Jesus Challenge

Jerry Coyne, a scientist whom I and many others respect for his efforts in advancing a popular understanding of evolution, has invited a guest post on his blog, Why Evolution Is True, by Ben Goren on the historicity of Jesus. He begins (and I quote this much to whet appetites to read the full post … Continue reading “The Jesus Challenge”


Terrorism Facts #4: Personal Motives of Palestinian Suicide Bombers

Palestinian suicide bombing operations are now (hopefully) history. The last one was five years ago. It is still good (even if painful) to understand them, however. (I have certainly found much of the reading preparation for this post to be painful; sometimes I could not bring myself to repeat certain details of what I learned.) … Continue reading “Terrorism Facts #4: Personal Motives of Palestinian Suicide Bombers”


And inspiring news from another Muslim nation

Since a good number of Westerners have been led to fear Muslims as a whole partly because of the publicizing of violent events in Bangladesh, it is worth drawing attention to the actions of the overwhelming majority of an even larger Muslim nation. Courageous Pakistani Muslims have been defiantly standing up against the murderous Taliban … Continue reading “And inspiring news from another Muslim nation”


Islamophobia, the word’s origin and meaning

I’m no longer desirous of defending myself, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or other public atheists against the charge of “Islamophobia.” It’s been widespread on the Internet these past two weeks, but I’ve ignored it. In the end, I’ve concluded that those charges come from borderline racists themselves: people who think that bad ideas, threats of … Continue reading “Islamophobia, the word’s origin and meaning”


Why Haven’t Muslims Condemned Terrorism?

And it’s not just a handful of extremists, either: it’s the legions of “moderate” enablers who, through either intimidation or cowardice, refuse to decry their co-religionists. No surprise given that the penalty for apostasy is death . . . . (Jerry Coyne accusing Muslims of not speaking out against acts of terrorism) Coyne is advertizing … Continue reading “Why Haven’t Muslims Condemned Terrorism?”


Terrorism Facts, #1: How Radical Islamists Justify Killing Civilians, even Muslims

Ironically people who identify Islamic terrorists with the “true beliefs of Islam” are (unknowingly) serving as mouthpieces for those terrorists. The fact is Islamic terrorists believe they alone represent true Islam and that the vast majority of those who profess to be Muslims deserve to die. Those terrorists would love nothing more than to hear … Continue reading “Terrorism Facts, #1: How Radical Islamists Justify Killing Civilians, even Muslims”


Orientalism, Us, and Islam

One of the most influential publications of the twentieth century was Orientalism [link is to the Wikipedia article on the book] by Palestinian born American scholar Edward Said. The book has been translated into 36 languages and said to have revolutionized Middle Eastern studies in the U.S. Naturally, as with any major revolutionary work that … Continue reading “Orientalism, Us, and Islam”


Islamophobia and (some?) New Atheists

Disclaimer: this post expresses my own view entirely. Others who also have posted on this blog may or may not think quite differently. . Time to get dirty hands and write about something important. Something unhealthy has been happening in the name of criticizing “tenets of religious belief . . . bad ideas and behaviors.” … Continue reading “Islamophobia and (some?) New Atheists”


The free-will myth: further evidence that conscious “decisions” are made unconsciously in advance

Jerry Coyne has published another post discussing another recent experiment that stacks more evidence against the notion of us freely making conscious choices. It is based on a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Predicting free choices for abstract intentions. Jerry raises the obvious social implications for this theses, including one … Continue reading “The free-will myth: further evidence that conscious “decisions” are made unconsciously in advance”


A Wonderful Idea from Dr McGrath for Mythicists

Dr McGrath has proposed a wonderful idea that will be sure to clear the air of much misunderstanding and misinformation about what proponents of the Christ myth “claim”. He has suggested setting up a TalkHistoricity site where all the mythicist claims can be set out and people who know better can respond to them, — … Continue reading “A Wonderful Idea from Dr McGrath for Mythicists”


A mythicist publishing in a peer-reviewed journal?

According to most scholars with anti-mythicist viscera I have come across, the very idea of a mythicist publishing in a scholarly peer-reviewed journal is not supposed to be possible. So it is heartening to see a mythicist’s publication in a pay-wall journal (you can’t read it unless you pay the publisher — and it doesn’t … Continue reading “A mythicist publishing in a peer-reviewed journal?”