Faith and Discourse

Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes today on the lack of moderate Muslim voices following tragedies caused by strict interpretations of Muslim law. She opens with this brain-blendingly vile quote from the Qur'an: "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (24:2)"

On the same day, we can read a hundred articles, both pro-but-really-con and just con, about Mitt Romney's faith and how deeply it informs his identity as an American and a politician. (Oh, and we find updates, lots of updates).

David Brooks says "[Romney] argued that the religious have a common enemy: the counter-religion of secularism," then goes on to lambaste Romney for uniting religions that are just separate, if you really think about it; Brooks even calls this unity New Age-y.

In a way, that makes Romney's faith more appealing: If a dedicated Mormon can respect other faiths, then why can't Brooks and other "centrist social conservatives" (or whatever he/they call himself/themselves)?

The sheer dumbfoundedness of Brooks on secularism or Hitchens on faith lumps those very different writers into a sort of category, opposite to Ali and (in the most generous sense, as per Brooks's article) Romney. The question (for everyone, esp. pres. cand.s) isn't, "do you have faith or not?" The question is, "can you talk with those who do - and don't?"

That said, of course Romney's admitting that his faith influences his politics so greatly is both unsurprising and hugely annoying. (BTW, found a shrill, also annoying, but very well-designed site challenging Mormonism and Romney - challenging in general.)

That's why I think a Pastafarian should run for president in 08. Just sayin.

Unorthodox And Unafraid

Consider the case of the young atheist:

He loans a friend a book. Then the boys' school administrators freak out because, in loaning another student a book about religion, the atheist somehow violated the "establishment clause."

Funny.

The kid has a great blog, and he tells his story much better than I could.

(His reading list is very good, by the by, if heavy on the R. Dawkins and Nietzche. But give him a break, he's young.)

I'm quite glad there are others in the world who support free thought. Actually, I just wrote a Sir Salman Rushdie tribute for Wishtank which veers off into a discussion about why we should never limit language/thought/questioning.

Basically, telling kids they can't question their faith is as ineffective as it is immoral. The kids--all of them, bible-thumpers, young Saudis bound for the Madrasah, or even little Dawkinses who think themselves Brights but have never really asked the Hard Questions about existence, consciousness, etc.--are going to find out that others don't necessarily agree with them.

And then they will probably blog about their findings. O Internet...

The Wonder of SPACE JESUS

Zee Germans don't like Tom Cruise's religion, and I'm not sure I like HisHolySpace, a MySpace for Christians.

For one, MySpace does not group your profiles by gender; HisHolySpace does. (Though here females are "the women who serve him" and males are "the men who serve him," with an unexplained third category, "seekers of the truth.")

I am most wary of the site's "mission statement," a term usually de-formalized on the internet as "about" or "about us." Here's what I'm worried about (emphasis mine):

Like-minded: means to “Think the same way” this exhortation is not optional or obscure but is repeated throughout the NT (cf. Rom 15:5; 1Cor. 1:10; 2Cor. 13:11-13)

Meaning you're with us or the terrorists. Good guys or bad guys. Christ's personal S.W.A.T. team or the demons, left behind after the Rapture.

I gotta admit, though - they got enthusiasm.

Banner at the bottom of a random page within HisHolySpace reads: "Stop Satan NOW!"

Group I would join if I were Christian: "Jesus' Disciples for SPACE EXPLORATION!"

Of course, other god groups have their own sites (www.muslimspace.com, www.naseeb.com, www.muslimsocial.com, www.shmooze.com, www.koolanoo.com, etc.), and a study could be made as to how severely different religious factionas EMPHASIZE THE ENDS OF THEIR SENTENCES.

One WONDERS...

Tony, Tony, Tony

Is Tony Blair converting to Catholicism? (More about this sparklingly unimportant issue here.)

The writer wonders why anyone converts to the Old Skygod Religions these days... They don't like my gay friends, for one.

There are alternatives. Yoism's been around for a while, and some former mainstreamers have taken note, forming Open Source Judaism, which is an intriguing a concept with a seemingly decrepit website.

Forgetting post-prime ministerial-conversion woes, one wonders how different this country will be when its rulers cease to be primarily Episcopalian WASPs, not that the Kennedy or Kerry Catholics are all that different.

If Mos Def (or Lupe Fiasco) isn't president at some point in my lifetime, I'm going to be one cranky, cranky ghost. That's all I'm sayin.

C. Hitchens, when not rabid, says some smart things

Though he also makes a lot of strange, awkward comparisons. Regarding his Quaker/Bin Laden remark, let me just point out that a Quaker is more like a Sufi, not a radical jihadi like Bin Laden. All religions have peaceful mystics as well as angry radicals. (Except the Church of the Subgenius, which has only angry mystics.)

Anyway, read a fascinating Hitchens interview with TruthDig.

Wowee-Wow: Another Anti-Gay Religious Leader, I R Surprised

From the Times:

The archbishop of Canterbury sent out more than 800 invitations yesterday to a once-a-decade global gathering of Anglican bishops. But he did not invite the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and the bishop in Virginia who heads a conservative cluster of disaffected American churches affiliated with the archbishop of Nigeria.

The exclusions offended liberals and conservatives in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has been threatened by schism since the election in 2003 of the bishop of New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson, who lives with his gay partner.

...Bishop Robinson said he was extremely disappointed at his exclusion and asked in a statement, “At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a ‘listening process’ on the issue of homosexuality, how does it make sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the discussion?”

LOL, I think I'm going to call up Hezbollah to hold a Quorum On Healing Society In Lebanon and not invite any secular Muslims, Christians, or Druze. Post-Falwell / pre-fixin stuff.

Oh my f%$^ing God!

I'm sorry to blaspheme on the occasion of the righteous death of Jerry Falwell (yeah, I said that right). I hesitated exactly one day to mark his passing. It may be unChristian to speak ill of the dead, but I think Jesus is on my side on this one. Jerry Falwell was a hateful bigot and there was absolutely nothing Christian about him. It has amazed me in the past couple of days how people on 'my' side of the political spectrum want to 'praise' the reverend for his 'faith' and 'conviction'. Even Al Sharpton had kind words to say about that fat prick, and that really pisses me off. Maybe Al forgets the early 80's when good ol' Jerry was begging his congegation to buy krugerrands to help prop up PW Botha's apartheid government. Or how he blamed Al, and me, and you, for 9/11. But perhaps his biggest crime, one that sadly just keeps on giving, is the inspiration he gave to bloodthirsty sickos like Ann Coulter. Here is Ann, today, in her column's eulogy of Larry Flynt's favorite motherfucker:

I note that in Falwell’s list of Americans he blamed for ejecting God from public life, only the blacks got a qualifier. Falwell referred to blacks who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle.

No Christian minister is going to preach that being a Negro is godly behavior, but Falwell didn’t add any limiting qualifications to his condemnation of feminists, the ACLU or People for the American Way.

There have always been colored people — even in the prelapsarian ’50s that Jerry Falwell and I would like to return to, when God protected America from everything but ourselves.

What Falwell was referring to are the black activists — the ones who kept sitting at lunch counters where they clearly weren’t welcome, blamed Wallace for segregation, and keep trying to teach small schoolchildren about “busing.”

Don't rest in peace, Jerry. Instead, enjoy the red hot pokers in hell that you so richly deserve. God willing you'll have Ann's company there real soon.

Jerry Falwell Deceased; Tinky Winky Alive And *Wink* Still A Good Dresser

Details >>

The brief lives of the intolerant and ineloquently spiritual pass with much fanfare but little substance. My personal Criswell predicts that, decades from now, we will still honor progressive thinkers such as William James, Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Irshad Manji, but will have relegated the likes of Falwell to the dutifully beskipped endnotes of religious history.

To quote the AP:

In 1999, he [Falwell] told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive.

Well, yes, whynot... And he lives in Clinton, NJ, and wears Pumas and loves sour cream. (Come on, Jerry, be specific. The shadow government you propped up through the Eighties didn't invest in that hope-powered JewFinder for nothing.)

In a statement, President Bush said he and First Lady Laura Bush were ''deeply saddened'' by the loss of a man who ''cherished faith, family and freedom.''

''One of his lasting contributions was the establishment of Liberty University, where he taught young people to remain true to their convictions and rely upon God's word throughout each stage of their lives,'' Bush said.

(The Reader ponders this latter nugget for herself.)

Goodnight, Mr. Falwell; we luminists and humanists and Sufis and hippies and mothers and siblings and average Joes bid you only the softest goodnight. And we hope you find yourself somewhere pleasant but challenging, or at least as challenging as fin-de-siecle America must have been for you. The secret of death is now in your hands. One only hopes you wield it with more grace than you so potently wielded your backward convictions in life.

Falwell is survived by his wife, Macel, two sons, and a daughter, Jeannie Falwell Savas. He was 73.

The Intolerant--Guess What--Do Not Tolerate Theater, Either...

Extremism hits home in the New York theater world.

This makes me want to go see Invincible Summer right away.

(Holy) crap !!

This is sick.