Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Leaderless Jihad Another MHR (“most highly recommended”) Podcast of a Late Night Live (LNL) program on ABC Radio National (only available online another few weeks). Dr Marc Sageman, an expert on terrorism and counter-terrorism, uses historical analogies to argue that Islamic jihadism does have a limited shelf life. He believes that the zeal of jihadism … Continue reading “Leaderless Jihad”
Since we’re the good guys we’ve done nothing so bad as to deserve all the headaches we have to put up with from Islamic terrorists and the bad guys in the Middle East. When the bad guys wearing the dark skins and having the wrong religion say that the root cause of all the strife … Continue reading “When Popeye David beat flabby Goliath and called it a ‘miracle’”
There is much to commend The God Delusion as a clear presentation of a wide range of reasons for viewing atheism as not only a rational but a wholesome and positive alternative to religion. I will probably address some of these in future posts. (The book is also far by miles from being the rabid … Continue reading “Richard Dawkins compounds the Sam Harris error on suicide bombers”
Not sure if this series of posts is going to turn out to be more review or just notes and commentary on Anatol Lieven’s book, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (2004). “This book seeks to help explain why a country which after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, had the … Continue reading “America Right or Wrong / Anatol Lieven”
continuing my notes from Jason Burke’s “Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror” . . . . 1993 New York World Trade Center bombing Ahmed Ajaj was detained for this attack and in his bag was a manual titled “Al Qaeda”. American investigators translated this (correctly) as “the basic rules”. It was not a group. American … Continue reading “Part 3 of “Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror””
I gave the following little spiel on ABC’s Bush Telegraph Country Viewpoint radio segment back at the start of the 2003 Iraq war. It looks much better on the good version — ABC’s online site here. My son decided to join the army at time of the East Timor troubles when people were coming out … Continue reading “My little radio spiel March 2003”
When this is required reading for all “coalition of the willing” political leaders and no-one in power can make a public statement or foreign policy decision without having passed a test on their comprehension of it we will at last begin to see the beginnings of rationality and humanity in our dealings with the Middle … Continue reading “Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror / Jason Burke (2003). A short review”
This is a disturbing book principally for its ignorant tirade against Moslems. As an atheist myself I had hoped for something more rational and informative given the enormous popularity of this book in the U.S. but find Harris here is too often little more than a mega-mouthpiece for Western (read American?) ignorance of Moslems and … Continue reading “The end of faith: religion, terror, and the future of reason / Sam Harris. (Norton, 2005) Review”
This was the first book I read by an Australian Lebanese academic and I found its discussion of fundamentalism and suicide terrorism most informative. It opened my eyes to seeing how our own Australian nationalism can be seen by non-westerners as just as fundamentalist as any other kind:
This is a disturbing book principally for its ignorant tirade against Muslims. As an atheist myself I had hoped for something more rational and informative given the enormous popularity of this book in the U.S. but find Harris here is too often little more than a mega-mouthpiece for Western (read American?) ignorance of Muslims and … Continue reading “The end of faith: religion, terror, and the future of reason / Sam Harris. (Norton, 2005) Review”