Science and Religion

French intellectual caught quoting fake philosopher

2010-02-09T12:25:00.001-08:00

French intellectual caught quoting fake philosopher
Tue Feb 9, 5:30 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – Leading French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy has been caught red-faced for praising the work of a philosopher who, it turns out, was invented as a joke by a journalist from a satirical daily.

In his latest book "De la guerre en philosophie" (Making war in philosophy), Levy quoted Jean-Baptiste Botul, an expert on German philosopher Immanuel Kant created by journalist Frederic Pages.

Levy acknowledged late Monday that he had often quoted Botul's work "The sex life of Immanuel Kant" during many public appearances and in the pages of his latest book.

"As it turns out, it was a hoax," admitted the author in an opinion piece posted on the website of his magazine La Regle du Jeu.

"It was a truly brilliant and very believable hoax from the mind of a Canard Enchaine journalist, who remains a good philosopher all the same," said Levy, known by his initials BHL.

"So I was caught, as were the critics who reviewed the book when it came out," he wrote. "The only thing left to say, with no hard feelings, is kudos to the artist!"

Levy's gaffe made the rounds of Internet websites with many commentators saying that France's leading expert on modern thought -- and a regular on TV chat shows and celebrity magazines -- had thoroughly embarrassed himself.

Levy last stirred controversy when he published an account in 2008 of his visit to Georgia during the war with Russia that French newspapers said contained excerpts that were made up.

YouTube - Five Major Flaws in Guns, Germs, and Steel - Part 1 of 5

2009-11-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

YouTube - Five Major Flaws in Guns, Germs, and Steel - Part 1 of 5: "Five Major Flaws in Guns, Germs, and Steel - Part 1 of 5"

Is Blind Faith in God and the Bible a Modern Invention? | Belief | AlterNet

2009-11-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

Is Blind Faith in God and the Bible a Modern Invention? | Belief | AlterNet: "Is Blind Faith in God and the Bible a Modern Invention?

By Devilstower , Daily Kos. Posted November 10, 2009.

A new book points out that the ancient Christians -- and even early Americans -- did not share the blind faith of today's fundamentalists."

nsf.gov - Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: Figure G-1 - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

2009-11-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

nsf.gov - Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: Figure G-1 - US National Science Foundation (NSF): "Female share of S&E postdoctoral fellows, by field: 1996 and 2006"

Focus on Technology

2009-11-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

Focus on Technology: "From Sputnik to MySpace: The New Education Race, and How to Win IT, with Douglas Rushkoff"

Yahoo! News

2009-11-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News: "23% Believe in Ghosts, Do You?"

Demons on a Leash - Answers in Genesis

2009-10-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

Demons on a Leash - Answers in Genesis: "Haunted houses, ghosts, demons—our Western culture can’t seem to get enough of the spirit world. The latest Gallup poll indicates that 42% of Americans believe in demon possession, 37% believe in haunted houses, and 32% believe in ghosts. (Not just Americans are enthralled—40% of the British believe in haunted houses, too.)"

Texas Freedom Network: Publications and Research

2009-10-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

Texas Freedom Network: Publications and Research: "2008
Evolution, Creationism & Public Schools: Surveying What Texas Scientists Think about Educating Our Kids in the 21st Century

By Raymond A. Eve, Ph D and Chawki Belhadi

Creationist pressure groups claim that there is a raging controversy over evolution within the science community. But the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund has released a groundbreaking statewide survey of what science faculty at public and private universities in Texas really think about evolution and 'intelligent design'/creationism. The results are not what evolution opponents want to hear."

The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics

2009-10-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics: "Satan will get you if you don't watch out
by Lonnie Roy, Raymond A. Eve, Anson Shupe

(This is Part 2 of a two-part article. Part 1 was printed last month in The Skeptic)"

The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics

2009-10-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics: "Satan will get you if you don't watch out
(Moral Panics and a struggle for control of the means of cultural reproduction among a sample of college students)

by Lonnie Roy, Raymond A. Eve, Anson Shupe"

Discovering Ardi Videos : Evolution, Ardi : Discovery Channel

2009-10-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

Discovering Ardi Videos : Evolution, Ardi : Discovery Channel: "* Discovery Channel Videos:
*
Discovering Ardi Videos"

Ardi Fossil Discovery: New Human-Evolution Puzzle Piece - TIME

2009-10-15T16:12:00.000-07:00

Ardi Fossil Discovery: New Human-Evolution Puzzle Piece - TIME: "the surprising thing is that she bears little resemblance to chimpanzees, our closest living primate relatives. The elusive common ancestor's bones have never been found, but scientists, working from the evidence available — especially analyses of Australopithecus and modern African apes — envisioned Great-Great-Grandpa to have looked most nearly like a knuckle-walking, tree-swinging ape. But '[Ardi is] not chimplike"

2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist - Yahoo! News

2009-10-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist - Yahoo! News: "2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist"

Study: Religiosity of Humanities Students Most Likely to Wane | Christianpost.com

2009-08-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

Study: Religiosity of Humanities Students Most Likely to Wane | Christianpost.com

This Just In: College Will Make You an Atheist | Belief | AlterNet

2009-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

This Just In: College Will Make You an Atheist | Belief | AlterNet

Politika Erotika: THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: China Needs an Einstein. So Do We.

2007-04-28T05:19:00.000-07:00

Politika Erotika: THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: China Needs an Einstein. So Do We.: "I’ve been thinking about China as I read Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Albert Einstein. China isn’t even mentioned in the book — “Einstein: His Life and Universe” — but Mr. Isaacson’s stimulating and provocative retelling of Einstein’s career plays into two very hot debates about China.

First, what does Einstein’s life tell us about the relationship between freedom and creativity? Or to put it bluntly: Can China become as innovative as America, can it dominate the 21st century, as many predict, when China censors Google and maintains tight political controls while establishing its market economy?

Second, how do we compete with China, no matter how free we are, when so many of China’s young people are studying math and science and so many of ours are dropping out? Or to put it more bluntly: If Einstein were alive today and learned science the boring way it is taught in so many U.S. schools, wouldn’t he have ended up at a Wall Street hedge fund rather than developing theories of relativity for a Nobel Prize?"

Canada Announces Goals for Reducing Emissions - New York Times

2007-04-28T05:17:00.000-07:00

Canada Announces Goals for Reducing Emissions - New York Times: "OTTAWA, April 26 — Canadian industries must cut the rate at which they produce gases linked to global warming by 18 percent over the next three years, the federal government said Thursday.

While the new plan offers an accelerated timetable compared to an earlier proposal from the Conservative government, it falls well short of the country’s commitments under the Kyoto protocol on climate change."

Commentary: What would Jesus really do? - CNN.com

2007-04-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

Commentary: What would Jesus really do? - CNN.com: "NEW YORK (CNN) -- When did it come to the point that being a Christian meant caring about only two issues,� abortion and homosexuality?

Ask the nonreligious what being a Christian today means, and based on what we see and read, it's a good bet they will say that followers of Jesus Christ are preoccupied with those two points.

Poverty? Whatever. Homelessness? An afterthought. A widening gap between the have and have-nots? Immaterial. Divorce? The divorce rate of Christians mirrors the national average, so that's no big deal.

The point is that being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it's high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith. And those on the left who believe they have a 'get out of sin free' card must not be allowed to justify their actions."

Are humans hard-wired for faith? - CNN.com

2007-04-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

Are humans hard-wired for faith? - CNN.com

Evolution fares poorly in Newsweek poll

2007-04-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

Crooks and Liars � Evolution fares poorly in Newsweek poll: "Evolution fares poorly in Newsweek poll
By: Steve on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 PM - PDT

The latest Newsweek poll included a variety of interesting questions about Americans and religious matters, including the not-surprising fact that 91% of the public say they believe in God and almost as many (87 percent) say they identify with a specific religion. But perhaps more importantly, Newsweek also asked poll respondents about modern biology.

Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.

These poll results come just a few months after an international study was conducted to measure which countries were the most accepting on evolutionary biology. Of the 34 countries involved, the United States ranked 33rd. Only Turkey ranked lower."

BBC Radio - "Heart and Soul"

2007-03-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

BBC World Service | Heart and Soul

A program with Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, and the author of a couple of the course readings. She interviews a number of pro-creationism/ID advocates.

There is a 30 minute streaming sound file of her BBC radio program available on the Web at this link. Soon it will be removed -- BUT, I'll put it on the course website under password protection so you can listen to it later if you like. --RAE

"In scientific circles over the last 150 years, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has become the accepted explanation for how we and all other living things evolved from primitive, single-celled ancestors.

Click on the blue title to go to the whole article and sound file on the Web.

Geologists now have evidence that our planet's history dates back about 4.6 billion years and cosmologists will tell you that our universe came into being through a process known as the Big Bang more than 13 billion years ago.

In spite of that, many people are guided by a different set of beliefs, based on scripture. In the United States the incidence of such beliefs is particularly high. In a recent survey, more than 40% of Americans said they thought that humans and other creatures had been created in their present forms and have not evolved. Of those who did accept evolution, a third thought that it was guided by some supreme being."

SMU profs protest intelligent design conference | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Religion

2007-03-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

SMU profs protest intelligent design conference | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Religion

Redesigning Life to Make Ethanol

2007-03-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

Technology Review: Redesigning Life to Make Ethanol: "Synthetic Genomics' approach is based on research that Venter's Institute for Genomic Research conducted on a micro�rganism called Mycoplasma genitalium in the late 1990s. The microbe, which dwells in the human urinary tract, has only 517 genes. While that's the smallest genome seen in any life form known, researchers in Venter's group showed that the organism could survive even after they had knocked out almost half of its protein-coding genes (some genes code not for proteins but for other biomolecules that perform regulatory functions within the cell). Using the DNA sequence of this 'minimal genome' as a guide, they are now attempting to synthesize an artificial chromosome that, inserted into a hollowed-out cell, will lead to a viable life form. Once they are over this first hurdle, they plan to build synthesized, task-specific genetic pathways into the genome, much the way one might load software onto a computer's operating system. Rather than create spreadsheets or do word processing, however, such 'biologically based software' would instruct the cell to break down cellulose to produce ethanol or carry out other useful functions. 'This is a totally new field on the verge of explosion,' says Venter."

The Illuminati and Angels & Demons FAQ - Do the Illuminati Really Exist?, by Massimo Introvigne

2007-03-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

The Illuminati and Angels & Demons FAQ - Do the Illuminati Really Exist?, by Massimo Introvigne: "Angels & Demons by Dan Brown is the latest bestselling novel claiming that the Illuminati were, or are, an important and powerful secret society. Is this only a novel?"

Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine - CNN.com

2007-02-20T06:33:00.000-08:00

Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine - CNN.com: "But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or 'Daddy' as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God."

Top Bin Laden Expert: Confession Fake

2007-02-19T11:53:00.001-08:00

: "Was Osama Bin Laden responsible for 9/11?

The Bush Administration says yes, citing a grainy, badly-edited videotape that surfaced in December, 2001. In that tape, a fat guy who vaguely resembles Bin Laden chortles about the success of the 9/11 attacks. (In earlier interviews, Bin Laden had denied responsibility for 9/11, once even deploring the loss of civilian life in the attacks and calling them un-Islamic.)

Is the famous “confession video” genuine? Despite Bush’s insistence that the tape is authentic, America’s top academic Bin Laden expert has finally gone on the record, joining numerous other experts.

“It’s bogus,” says Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University’s Religious Studies program."

Two Versions of Genesis

2007-02-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

Biblical Creationism: Some Mistakes -- Order of Creation

Priests can't be witch doctors anymore -- bummer

2006-08-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- Southern Africa's Catholic bishops have warned priests to stop moonlighting as witch doctors, fortune tellers and traditional healers, and to rely on Christ for miracles.

See:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/08/16/africa.catholic.witchcraft.reut/index.html

USATODAY.com - The 'American Inquisition'

2006-04-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

USATODAY.com - The 'American Inquisition': "Paranoia gripped Spanish society as the Inquisition coincided with a Christian war against the Muslims of southern Spain. Clandestine trials, secret prisons, rampant eavesdropping, torture, desecration of Islam's holy books, and gruesome public executions created an atmosphere of pervasive terror. Suspects were assumed to be guilty, with no recourse to a defense, to a jury, or to a legitimate court.

In the chaos now roiling the Western world, does any of this sound familiar?"

The 'American Inquisition' - Yahoo! News

2006-04-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

The 'American Inquisition' - Yahoo! News: "Through the mist of time, the Spanish Inquisition has come down to us as one of the most barbarous periods in all of history. Its viciousness peaked in the late 15th century, during the reign of the messianic 'Catholic kings,' Ferdinand and Isabella.
ADVERTISEMENT

Paranoia gripped Spanish society as the Inquisition coincided with a Christian war against the Muslims of southern Spain. Clandestine trials, secret prisons, rampant eavesdropping, torture, desecration of Islam's holy books, and gruesome public executions created an atmosphere of pervasive terror. Suspects were assumed to be guilty, with no recourse to a defense, to a jury, or to a legitimate court.

In the chaos now roiling the Western world, does any of this sound familiar?"

The God Who Wasn't There: Clip: The Gap

2006-04-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

The God Who Wasn't There: Clip: The Gap: "CLIP: The Gap

Jesus was a spiritual and political leader of great renown. The sick came from miles around to seek his miraculous healing powers. At the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered Jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the Messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by Pontius Pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

Given these facts, Jesus would have been one of the most remarkable figures in Palestine. Yet not one historian of the time thought that this man was important enough to note, even in passing.

In fact, there were not even any Gospel accounts for years following the supposed death of Jesus.

How many years? View the clip... "

Science & Theology News - The Daily Dose: British leaders continue to speak out against creationism

2006-03-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

Science & Theology News - The Daily Dose: British leaders continue to speak out against creationism: "Yesterday in The Daily Dose we reported that the Rt. Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and the leader of Anglican believers worldwide, spoke out against creationism. Now others have joined the chorus.

An item from The Scotsman shows that other high-ranking Anglican officials are weighing in on the controversy:

The leader of the Scottish Episcopal Church said yesterday that creationism should not be taught in schools and that a 'false battleground' was pitting science against faith."

AP Wire | 03/20/2006 | House OKs Bible study in public high schools

2006-03-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

AP Wire | 03/20/2006 | House OKs Bible study in public high schools: "A bill that allows public high schools to offer classes on the Bible sped through the House Monday, passing overwhelmingly with no debate."

Maureen Farrell: Apocalyptic Times

2006-03-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

Maureen Farrell: Apocalyptic Times: "A few years ago, a Time/CNN poll found that that more than a third of Americans search the news for signs of the Apocalypse. Since Sept. 11, they've not had to look very hard. In the immediate aftermath of World Trade Center attacks, for example, the Associated Press reported on Satan's visage in the smoke clouds, an incident Peggy Noonan wrote about in the Wall Street Journal. 'If you are of a certain cast of mind, it is of course meaningful that the face of the Evil One seemed to emerge with a roar from the furnace that was Tower One,' she wrote, before reminding readers that a cross emerged unharmed amid the falling concrete and wreckage."

Faith-based funds boom as investors find religion - Mar. 23, 2006

2006-03-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

Faith-based funds boom as investors find religion - Mar. 23, 2006: "NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Are investors losing their religion? No way. Just take a look at the number of dollars flowing into faith-based mutual funds.

According to fund research firm Morningstar, the value of assets held by faith-based funds has jumped nearly seven-fold since 2000 to $15.9 billion this year."

Y! News

2006-03-23T05:53:00.000-08:00

Y! News: "Three Christian Activists Rescued in Iraq (AP)
(0 min ago)

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and British troops Thursday freed three Christian peace activists in rural Iraq without firing a shot, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street."

CNN.com - Family beheaded over 'witchcraft' - Mar 19, 2006

2006-03-20T06:07:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - Family beheaded over 'witchcraft' - Mar 19, 2006: "GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) -- A tea plantation worker and his four children were beheaded in India's remote northeast by a mob which accused them of practising black magic, police said on Sunday.

Sixty-year-old Amir Munda, who was also a traditional healer, his two sons and two daughters were killed by angry villagers after a kangaroo court held them guilty of spreading a mysterious disease which killed two people and left many others ill over the last two weeks."

CNN.com - The big bang's 'smoking gun' - Mar 16, 2006

2006-03-19T08:12:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - The big bang's 'smoking gun' - Mar 16, 2006: "(AP) -- By the faint cosmic glow of the oldest known light, physicists say they have found evidence that the universe grew to astounding proportions in less than the blink of an eye.

In that trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space through a process known as inflation. At the same time, the seeds were planted for the formation of stars, galaxies, planets and every other object in the universe."

World | Reuters.co.in

2006-03-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

World | Reuters.co.in: "By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Human-fueled global warming has reached a 'tipping point,' according to a new survey of scientific research that found warming would continue even if greenhouse gas emissions halted immediately.

'It would keep on warming even though we have stopped the cause, which is greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels,' David Jhirad of the Washington-based World Resources Institute said on Wednesday.

The rate of warming would be slower, Jhirad said in a telephone interview, but a kind of thermal inertia would ensure that global temperatures continue their upward trend.

He referred to a report released by the nonprofit institute this week that analyzed research reports on climate change for 2005.

'Taken collectively, they suggest that the world may well have moved past a key physical tipping point,'"

Norman Solomon | Digital Hype: A Dazzling Smokescreen?

2006-03-08T06:12:00.000-08:00

Norman Solomon | Digital Hype: A Dazzling Smokescreen?: " As each new season brings more waves of higher-tech digital products, I often think of Mark Twain. Along with being a brilliant writer, he was also an ill-fated investor - fascinated with the latest technical innovations, including the strides toward functional typewriters and typesetting equipment as the 19th century neared its close.

Twain would have marveled at the standard PC that we take for granted now. But what would he have made of the intrusiveness of present-day media technology - let alone its recurring content?"

CNN.com - At least 66 dead in Nigeria's religious violence - Feb 22, 2006

2006-02-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - At least 66 dead in Nigeria's religious violence - Feb 22, 2006: "ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Revenge attacks against Muslims killed at least 20 people in the southeastern Nigerian city of Onitsha on Wednesday after days of anti-Christian violence killed dozens in the mainly Muslim north."

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Points

2006-02-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Points: "James Kurth: America's Christian soldiers

click link above for full story -- may require registration

03:32 PM CST on Sunday, January 29, 2006

President Bush has often spoken of freedom as God's gift to America and to mankind, and of America's calling to bring freedom to all peoples. Moreover, his strongest electoral support has come from evangelical Protestants. These are the people the liberal media call 'the religious right' (although by that logic, the media themselves should be called the 'secular left')."
As it happens, Protestantism has indeed had a major impact on U.S. foreign policy, but this is not primarily due to evangelical Protestantism. It is due to the "Protestant Deformation."It is this peculiar pseudo religion upon which both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush have drawn in their foreign policies to spread American ideas of liberal democracy, free markets, individual freedom and human rights abroad.

Analysts have debated for decades the relative influence of different factors in the shaping of American foreign policy. Although numerous scholars have stressed the importance of realism, idealism, capitalism or liberalism, until recently almost no one has thought that Protestantism itself – the dominant religion in the United States – was worthy of consideration.

Cartoons as Culture War?

2006-02-21T05:28:00.000-08:00

"February 13, 2006
Muslims and the West: A Culture War?

Guest Commentary by John L. Esposito, Gallup Senior Scientist

Opinion and analysis by John L. Esposito, University Professor at Georgetown University and author of What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam and Unholy
War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Esposito is a Gallup Senior Scientist and co-author of the forthcoming Can You Hear Me Now: What a Billion Muslims Are Trying to Tell Us.

Newspaper cartoons of the prophet Mohammad have set off an international row with dangerous consequences, both short and long term. The controversial caricatures first published in Denmark and then in other European newspapers, target Muhammad and Islam and equate them with extremism and terrorism. In response ! to outcries and demonstrations across the Muslim world, the media have justified these cartoons as freedom of _expression; France Soir and Germany's Die Welt asserted a 'right to caricature God' and a 'right to blasphemy,' respectively.

One of the first questions I have been asked about this conflict by media from Europe, the United States, and Latin America has been, 'Is Islam incompatible with Western values?' Are we seeing a culture war? Before jumping to that conclusion, we should ask, whose Western democratic and secular values are we talking about? Is it a Western secularism that privileges no religion in order to provide space for all religions and to protect belief and unbelief alike? Or is it a Western 'secular fundamentalism' that is anti-religious and increasingly, post 9/11, anti-Islam?"

For the full article, see:

http://www.global-college.com/cartoonwar.htm

Message from a former student

2006-02-21T05:20:00.000-08:00

Re Muslim anti-Cartoon Riots

From a former grad student. One very bright guy. And a Muslim.

Hi Dr. Eve,

Some scattered thoughts on the issue:

i) There are obvious grievances among the Muslim people around the world. Flushing Quran in toilet (Gitmo), Abu Ghuraib humiliations, attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan under wrong pretexts, American foreign policy of supporting dictatorial regimes (including the ones in the Middle East and Pakistan) - Muslim people, or for that matter, any person who is not under the influence of corporate media, can see the link of animosity toward Islam by the West. Here, I am taking about the the image or perception of America in the mind of people over there. This would be Grievances, Cultural Framing, and New Social Movements related argument. Especially related to the last one, the new social movements, which tend to be more about Identity. These series of actions including the mockery of Prophet are threatening the very ideals and identity of Muslims all over the world, compelling the even the moderate leaning Muslims to support the extremists (involved in violence, which I don't think is the only way to protest).

ii) Part of this global drive has to do with the advancement in technology, media, communication that has more than ever before facilitated the possibility of a global 'Ummah' (which means, a Muslim "community" in abstract sense; not a polity or state). This would be Resource Mobilization Argument (from "Imagined Communities").

iii) Understanding the issue itself can be helpful in understanding the reaction. So some people in the Western media seem to claim that the issue is about depicting Prophet in pictures. I do not think that is the main issue. Depiction of Prophet has been done in the Turkish and Iranian arts for centuries. a) The issue is about the intent behind the design and publication of those malicious cartoons, not the pictures themselves. b) Next, Muslims see it as ethnocentricism of the West to publish these cartoons but deny the publication of Jesus cartoon (presented to the same newspaper three years ago) or Holocaust related stuff. In other words, West is not free of sacred cows either. Now in the Islamic world, Muslims would be similarly outraged by any mockery of Prophet Jesus. So, the point is that many Muslims think that it is an abuse of the "freedom of speech" ideal to target particular communities or groups. This becomes especially important given the history of racism and exploitation of colonial people in the West. This critique could be seen in Said's "Orientalism". Now, supposedly the more civilized people in the West should be more aware of the misrepresentation of the Prophet in Orientalist literature and in the Western Imagery (like Dante's placement of Prophet Mohammad in the lowest level of Hell).

U.S. Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War - Yahoo! News

2006-02-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

U.S. Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War - Yahoo! News: "PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in
Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of 'raining down terror' and apologizing to other nations for 'the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown.'
ADVERTISEMENT

The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a 'culture of consumption' and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming."

Plugged in: Strange bedfellows - Feb. 8, 2006

2006-02-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

Plugged in: Strange bedfellows - Feb. 8, 2006: "NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - An unlikely coalition of evangelical Christians, FORTUNE 500 executives and environmentalists is coming together to press the U.S. government to take action to curb global warming.

The latest example: Evangelical leaders Wednesday announced a 'call to action' asking government and business leaders to agree to 'cost-effective, market-based' regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which are mostly caused by burning fossil fuels."

Independent Online Edition > Environment

2006-02-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Independent Online Edition > Environment: "Tony Blair has warned world leaders they have less than seven years to save the planet. "

TomPaine.com - Decoding The Cartoon Crisis

2006-02-08T22:29:00.000-08:00

TomPaine.com - Decoding The Cartoon Crisis: "This is no mere clash of cultures. It is a new form of the colonial struggle that defined European-Arab/Asian relations in the 19th century. The difference this time is that the natives in the south are not helpless and quiescent in the face of the West's large guns, disdainful rhetoric or insulting cartoons. Muslims, Arabs, Asians and others today are much more aware of the policies of Western states, concerned about their goals, angry about Western double standards, able to resist through the use of mass media, political and other channels, and willing to stand up, fight back and assert their right to live in freedom and dignity. The message from the Arab-Islamic heartland is that the 19th century has officially ended."

Cartoon bans hit Danish firms - Feb 7, 2006

2006-02-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - Cartoon bans hit Danish firms - Feb 7, 2006: "(CNN) -- A boycott of Danish goods called by Muslim leaders over the publishing of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad is dealing a blow to the nation's businesses.

Oil giant Iran became the latest nation to impose penalties, saying on Monday it would cut off all trade ties with Denmark. Reuters reported that Iran imports $280 million worth of goods from Denmark a year.

A report on the state-run news agency IRNA said Iranian Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi had stopped trade with Denmark, but certain types of machinery and medicine would be allowed in for another three months."

Christianity and the workplace are increasingly intertwined - Feb. 1, 2006

2006-02-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

Christianity and the workplace are increasingly intertwined - Feb. 1, 2006: "NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business Magazine) - Entrepreneurs, it's been said, are born hungry and alone. And most are quick to seek not just bread but also fellowship. Nowhere is that impulse more evident than in the growing ranks of Christian business owners, who are banding together for mutual support while they seek to express their faith through their companies. They have created at least 30 networking organizations in the U.S., about half of them launched in the past five years."