Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farooq fit the pattern perfectly. I’ve been posting the findings of serious research into what leads someone to radicalize and kill for some time now and will continue to do so as I read and learn more. Meanwhile assertions that the Quran made them do it defy the fundamentals how the world … Continue reading “The San Bernardino Terrorists — So Very Predictable, So UNpredictable”
Sam Harris is making the news circuit again. (Who is this Sam Harris guy, anyway?) He’d choose Ben Carson over Noam Chomsky for President apparently because Ben Carson has a better understanding of the Islamist threat to the West; Jerry Coyne writes that Sam Harris drains the intellectual cesspool at Salon and sees himself and … Continue reading “(“Misrepresenting”) Sam Harris On Progressivism, Torture, Religion & Foreign Policy”
That question is too often asked rhetorically. The answer that is implied is that there is a “clash of civilizations” and that Islam has been plaguing the West with terrorism ever since its birth in the seventh century. The question usually hides an anti-Islamic bigotry born of ignorance of both Islam itself (and that includes … Continue reading “Why do terrorists come from Islam?”
Based on my reading of the first chapter of The New Threat: The Past, Present, and Future of Islamic Militancy by Jason Burke. . . . The turning point was in October, 1981, argues Jason Burke. Prior to the 1980s the most well-known terrorists were Leila Khaled and Carlos the Jackal. Religious agendas were very rarely found … Continue reading “The Origins of Islamic Militancy”
The first step to combating Isis is to understand it. We have yet to do so. That failure costs us dear. — Scott Atran in Mindless Terrorists? The truth about ISIS is much worse (The Guardian) We must fight their growing power any way, anywhere, we can. With words, with weapons, with sincere efforts at warm … Continue reading “ISIS: The First Step To Combating It”
It seems that I for a while I have been sheltered from some of the debates over Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia as they have taken shape in Great Britain in particular. I’m trying to catch up now. In particular I have not up till now really understood why those on “the Left” have been accused of supporting terrorists … Continue reading “Debating Islam, Islamism and Human Rights”
From The Daily Beast, by Maajid Nawaz, Paris Proves We’ll Never Kill Enough Jihadists to Stop Terror . . . . So why does this keep happening, and on this scale? The answer is not a comfortable one. Jihadist terrorism is alive and kicking. And though we must continue to put terrorists on the back foot by … Continue reading “So why does this keep happening, and on this scale?”
There was a time I needed to read Marx and Mao to orient myself to the essential thought of the ideologies challenging the West. Never did I imagine that in my lifetime those works would be gathering dust and I’d be seeking out the likes of al-Maqdisi’s Democracy a Religion and Naji’s The Management of Savagery (and more recently, al-Suri’s … Continue reading “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan”
The following passages in Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening by Maajid Nawaz caught my attention: I thought it made a few points worthy of wider attention. Maajid Nawaz was once a leader in a radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and is now the chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think-tank. Radical is his biographical account … Continue reading “The Conflict between Islamism and Islam”
Why did Christianity begin and why did it become the primary religion of the West? Why did Islamic terrorism become a major concern of the West? . . . . In senior high school I was taught that the real interest of historians is to ask why things happened. Memorizing dates and facts missed the point. Some biblical scholars … Continue reading “Historians Asking Why — Or Not Why But How”
Previous posts in this series: 1. Glenn Greenwald talks about the New Atheists 2. Sam Harris: Intellectual Coward or Misrepresented Victim? 3. Why the War between New Atheists and Other (“Progressive”) Atheists? Following completes my notes on the Glenn Greenwald-Kyle Kulinski discussion that was a response to the above points raised by Kyle. Indented paragraphs are direct … Continue reading “Glenn Greenwald Responds to Call for Ceasefire with New Atheists”
The Kyle Kulinski-Glenn Greenwald exchange arose as a response to Kyle’s earlier video calling for a “cease fire” between New Atheists and other atheists. This post backtracks and looks at that video before resuming the Glenn Greenwald exchange. During the exchange we were advised to view Kyle’s earlier video, New Atheists Vs Progressives — Proposing A Ceasefire, the one … Continue reading “Why the War between New Atheists and Other (“Progressive”) Atheists?”
Libby Anne had a somewhat similar religious background to mine and has consequently acquired, like me, an enhanced ability to notice wherever cultish or tribal or fundamentalist types of behaviours and attitudes surface in other (supposedly religion-free) areas of society. Back in March this year and in the wake of the Craig Hicks’ murders of three Muslims she wrote … Continue reading “You Can Count Me out of Atheist Tribalism”
Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne have in a recent Youtube discussion and publication both explained how they studied religion, read lots of theology, before undertaking their anti-theistic critiques. Harris begins by informing us that in his twenties he read a wide range of religious traditions; Coyne tells readers he read much theology as he “dug … Continue reading “Studying Religious Beliefs Without Understanding How Humans Work”