Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Interesting to read an article by PhD candidate Galen Watts, Pioneering sociologist foresaw our current chaos 100 years ago in The Conversation. Reminded me of what I once posted about Durkheim here: Understanding the Nature of Religion and the Religious. And that reminded me of something I read years back by Ghassan Hage in his book, Against Paranoid … Continue reading “Guns, Violence and Durkheim”
I began this series about religion and religious extremism with the post, Atheists Do Not Understand Religion As I was thinking through the sequel to that post I came up with another application of the principles (essentialism, coalitional behaviour): Atheist Hostility to Jesus Mythicism … making sense of it Let’s recap with the point with … Continue reading “Towards Understanding Religious Fundamentalism and Extremism (and atheist in-fighting, too?)”
I don’t know what lies ahead but a study of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) by a Senior Analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies at CNA leads me to think that Western voices urging diplomatic support for the moderate political forces in Iran (as opposed to funding terrorist attacks or dropping bombs and … Continue reading “Iran, Iran, if only we had been friends”
“Despite its militant extremism, the Islamist movement has shown that it can be pragmatic.” — Roy, “Hamas and the Transformation(s) of Political Islam in Palestine,” 13 Let’s address head-on the Hamas Charter that denies Israel’s right to exist. (We will leave aside in this post Israel’s Likud Party platform that denies the right for a … Continue reading “The Hamas Charter: Context and Significance”
I have read four studies of Hamas and have this evening begun to update my information by beginning my fifth, Hamas Contained : The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance by Tareq Baconi. So far I have only read the Preface and already I wish everyone could read it and follow up by speaking out … Continue reading “Understanding Hamas in Gaza”
This post continues my assessment of the claims made in a doctoral dissertation by Michael Zolondek (supervised by Larry Hurtado and Helen Bond of the University of Edinburgh) that Jesus scholars use the same methods as historians of other fields. The sorts of methods he is addressing are specifically the “criteria of authenticity”. Though challenged … Continue reading “Part 2 of Testing the Claim that Jesus Scholars Use the Methods of Other Historians”
In some texts written by authors who had lost their state and been conquered by others, as may have been the case with the Yahwist, one can also see evidence of culture myths being used to delegitimize the conquering state. McCants, William F.. Founding Gods, Inventing Nations: Conquest and Culture Myths from Antiquity to Islam … Continue reading “Christianity as a counter-cultural myth to delegitimize Rome”
There has almost never been an example in Muslim history to parallel today’s terrorist acts. I recently posted a few thoughts of Olivier Roy in his Jihad and Death and here I post something he said in an earlier book, Globalised Islam. In his Introduction chapter he has a section headed Is jihad closer to … Continue reading “Jihad Closer to Marx than the Koran?”
This post is a continuation from Jihad and Death, the global appeal of Islamic State. –o0o– Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly … Continue reading “Jihad and Death, part 2. “The Avenging Hero of the Suffering Muslim Community””
Now that Islamic State has been defeated in the most prominent of its several bases it may not be a bad idea to extend our understanding of what we have just witnessed and its likely ongoing ramifications. There is something terribly modern about the jihadi terrorist violence that has unfolded in the past twenty years … Continue reading “Jihad and Death, the global appeal of Islamic State”
And so it ends in Mosul, Iraq . . . . Mosul’s bloodbath: ‘We killed everyone – IS, men, women, children’ Meanwhile — as if one can slip from the contents of the above article with a helpless sigh — Tom Holland, a historian whose books I’ve much enjoyed — “Unlike most historians, Tom Holland … Continue reading “The End of “The Islamic State” . . . and information links for informed discussion”
How does one go about questioning and engaging in discussion views that we find problematic. Jim Davila, Professor of Early Jewish Studies at the University of St Andrews, was impressed with words of wisdom posted by Larry Hurtado, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the University of Edinburgh, to add good advice of his … Continue reading “Wise Words from Larry Hurtado and Jim Davila”
In a former life I was mixed up with British Israelism (the belief that the Anglo-Saxon races are the “lost ten tribes of Israel”) so recently I was interested to find a new research paper by J. M. Berger using British Israelism as a case study in how an innocuous if eccentric belief system was … Continue reading “How Philo-Semitic British Israelism Morphed into Anti-Semitic White Supremacism / Christian Identity”
I like Maryam Namazie. I like her work. I like her ideas. I used to like George Galloway, especially for his blunt testimony to US senators ignorantly accusing him profiting from Iraqi oil sales, but in recent years he has alienated me with his support for Islamist ideology. He seems to side with political Islamist regimes and political … Continue reading “Muslim Profiling and Immigration”