Updates from razib RSS
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08:01:01 pm on July 19, 2008 |
re: thabet’s post on “the west vs. the rest as a false dichotomy,” i don’t think that these sorts of typologies are ever *false* or *true*, they just have utility on a case by case basis. aggregate patterns of utility can result in a pretty robust generalization, e.g., chinese vs. classical greek civilization is a dichotomy that has many problems on the margins but gives one “free information” in the categorization. the west vs. islam is harder because both these civilizations are coalitions of many cultures and they are derived from an intersection of sources, but in certain circumstances i do think it holds great utility. specifically, as opposed to starting with these categories *a priori* i think they’re useful organizers of a narrative as it proceeds along time & space.
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12:55:47 am on July 19, 2008 |
A Veil Closes France’s Door to Citizenship:
Ms. Silmi’s husband, a former bus driver who says he is finding it hard to get work because of his beard, dreams of moving his family to Morocco or Saudi Arabia. “We don’t feel welcome here,” he said. “I am French, but I can’t really say that I am proud of it right now.”i’m willing to contribute to a fund to relocate muslim fundamentalists to muslim majority countries, preferably saudi arabia. any pointers? also, we should give monetary incentives to theonomists/reconstructionists to move to african countries where fundamentalist christianity is really popular.
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01:14:28 pm on July 17, 2008 |
SM post, A South Asian American Agenda?. the discussion about the term “south asian” vs. “indian american”, etc. has broken out. there’s obviously some hostility toward muslim brownz on that thread in terms of their lack of interest in pan-south asian events. i offered a few quick opinions, but i would add
1) people who are of the dharmic religions have a *natural* association with india and south asian which people of the abrahamic religions do not. india is the holy land of the dharmic religions.
2) i suspect this explains the transition toward transnational islamic identity among many south asian diasporic muslim youth. specifically, an identity that is more rooted in the world of islam than the local parameters of islam on the north indian plain. a shift to identity markers which take arab standards as the norm and so on.
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02:15:52 pm on July 5, 2008 |
my review of a history of iran is up. one thing that surprises many people is that iran/persia as a shia domain is a function of the forced conversion of the sunni populace by the safavid turkish dynasty from eastern anatolia during the 16th century. though there were shia dynasties and regions within iran,
1) they were not notable in persistence vis-a-vis other regions
2) they tend to be temporally placed further back in time when shia-sunni distinctions were more fluid (e.g., the buyids were shia persians, but during a time before sunni islam had crystallized as a coherent counter-narrative to shi’ism).p.s. two of the four schools of sunni jurisprudence were founded by ethnic persians, the hanafi (the most numerous) and hanbali (the favorite of salafists)
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12:37:35 am on July 5, 2008 |
the analogy is usually sunni:shia::protestant:catholic. in A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind i stumbled upon another one, sunni:shia::judaism:christianity. the argument seems to be roughly that judaism is a legalistic religious focused on orthopraxy (at least in its historically dominant rabbinical form), while sunn islam is defined by its four madhhabs which define the bounds of sharia. in contrast, christianity is a more spiritual demonstrative religion focused on particular aspects of belief which exhibit emotional salience. in particular, the central role that karbala plays and emotional mass rituals triggered are analogized to the passions which have been common throughout european christianity (though interestingly these displays are attenuated in protestantism). i also think that one might note that to a large extent christianity and shia islam arose as sects at odds with the state, and so to some extent are habituated to be suspicious of secular power and naturally be more open to the idea of disintegrating and separating the state from the religion more naturally than sunni islam, which to a large extent was defined by lack of dissent from state islam.
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02:52:23 pm on July 3, 2008 |
page 141 of A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind
Alcohol seems to have played a significant part in the poor showing of later Safavid monarchs. From the time of Shah Esma’il and before, drinking sessions had been a part of the group rituals of the Qezelbash [religious order which conquered iran under shah esmai’l], building probably on the ancient practices of the Mongols and the Turkic tribes in Central Asia, but also on ghuluww Sufi practice and the Persian tradition of razm o bazm - fighting and feasting….when i was younger i had a rather simple view of religion. in short, i viewed religion as the straightforward working out of inferences from axioms of belief. when i would read about things like this my own assumption was that this was just deviation from ‘correct’ inferences.
in hindsight i think i turned religion simply into an inverse of my atheism, a spare set of assertions about the nature of the world as an objective entity. today i think i truly did not understand how religion was lived, in large part because i have never evinced much interest in the religious sensibility myself. instead of a mathematical formalism i now believe that religion as it is lived resembles art more than a science. this does not mean that i do not believe it is futile to analyze religion as a natural phenomenon, but art is a very difficult thing to get a tractable grasp on….
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10:23:56 am on July 1, 2008 |
Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman’s hat. bye-bye- bowzer….
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04:39:33 pm on June 26, 2008 |
ali e. mentioned how he doesn’t follow the links. well, i’m fixin’ to change that. here are links to fotos of women from muslim-majority nations participating in miss universe, as well as those from muslim backgrounds in non-muslim majority nations. warning, bikini foto on page. albania, canada, egypt, germany, indonesia, kazakhstan, kosovo and turkey.
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04:25:34 pm on June 26, 2008 |
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04:24:32 pm on June 26, 2008 |
Religious Tolerance Is Overrated :
The Mormon church knows it has a problem; much of the country thinks it’s odd, if not downright creepy. To aggressively combat that image, it might want to consider taking a less wussy stance when it comes to commenting on truly revolting religious practices. Otherwise, some folks might get the idea that the church is vaguely sympathetic. And then poor Mitt Romney will never get another shot at the presidency.
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01:51:00 pm on June 26, 2008 |
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03:07:56 am on June 24, 2008 |
Sworn to virginity and living as men in Albania . via phd diva.
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09:57:22 pm on June 23, 2008 |
Muslim Voters Detect a Snub From Obama. this is obviously politics are work, muslims are a disliked group compared to say catholics or jews (though not compared to atheists, and they are around the same range as mormons). additionally, contrary to the article muslims probably only matter in michigan. states like florida have too many other groups who obama would lose if he became seen as a “pro-muslim” candidate (whatever that is).
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12:21:43 pm on June 23, 2008 |
from the survey below ….
importance of religion in one’s life - very important
national : 59%
muslims : 72%frequency of attendance at religious services - more than once a week
national: 15%
muslims: 17%frequency of prayer - day
national: 58%
muslims: 71%frequency of receiving answers to prayers - at least once a week
national: 19%
muslims: 31%literal interp. of scriptures - word of god, literally true word for word
national - 33%
muslims - 50%interp. religious teachings - there is ONE true way to interpret teachings of my religion
national - 27%
muslims - 33%views of one’s religion as one true faith -my religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life
national - 25%
muslims - 33%
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11:29:49 am on June 23, 2008 |
Belief in God or Universal Spirit - Do not believe in god
evangelical xtian - 0%
mainline xtian - 1%
historically black denom - 0%
catholics - 1%
mormons - 0%
orthodox - 4%
jews - 10%
muslims - 5%
buddhists - 19%
hindus -5%what’s going on here? i was a bit surprised by the fact that 5% of muslims said they didn’t believe in god…but, i believe like judaism and hinduism islam in the united states is a minority religion which has ethno-cultural saliences for people raised in that tradition. therefore, the tendency to continue to identify as muslims in some way despite an open admission of atheism.
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12:08:50 pm on June 12, 2008 |
Sex, Lies, and Virginity Restoration: The case for doctor-assisted chastity fraud. my ?, will this have to occur when the older generation passes on? i know a lot of guys are invested in the virginity thing, but it seems that many of the men also are playing up to expectations….
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05:57:49 pm on June 10, 2008 |
Operation Lets Muslim Women Reclaim Virginity :
Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the thin vaginal membrane that normally breaks during the first act of intercourse.
“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”
As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women find themselves caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
for me the creepiest part is the presentation of the blood as proof of virginity. what’s up with that? am i being narrow-minded?
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03:55:41 pm on June 7, 2008 |
listening to stuff on international salafists on the radio and reading via book. one notable thing about the terrorist salafist international which focused on the “far enemy” was its high educational levels, social status and technical (engineering) orientation. recent data suggests that this is changing, and more lower class and less eduated muslims (some from the diaspora in western europe) with clearly nihilistic inclinations are filling the holes generated by the war of attrition. this is good from an american perspective because uneducated nihilists usually lack coordination and execution skills.
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03:09:04 pm on May 30, 2008 |
What Statistics Don’t Tell Us - The bad news about the good news about terrorism. sounds like The Black Swan.
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01:00:12 pm on May 30, 2008 |
here is some data on the proportion of evangelical xtians & muslims in europe including the russia (which is around 10% muslim and rather populous remember) over the years….
1900 1970 2000 2025
Muslims, 2.3%, 2.7%, 4.3%, 5.1%
Evangelicals, 8%, 4.6%, 8.2%, 9.8%there are several issues with the worry of the islamicization of the native white stock of the continent
1) it’s ahistorical, europe has had repeated swings between secularization and re-confessionalization since the enlightenment. the current swing to secularization may not be the “end of history”
2) 40,000 converts to islam per year is a hard number, but what about those who shift from mainline toward evangelical flavors of christianity? (which in england might be under the umbrella of anglicanism)
3) times change. the presumed moribund church of ireland (protestant) is now growing faster than the roman catholic church (mostly through conversion). see the irish census. straight line projections are really problematic, especially because of #1
4) the data thabet points to suggests that mainstream islam is similar in many ways to conservative christianity (see responses to moral issues by “religious americans”). i think it is plausible if europeans need something to feed their soul they would choose evangelical forms of christianity more often than islam since the latter is associated with insular ethnic communities.
