I suggest some of you who have an interest in this sort of thing head over to Midwinterspring’s latest post.
Latest Updates: theology RSS
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thabet
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buzz
Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute. There’s a schism alright, and I seem to find myself on the unfashionable side of it - Michael Ruse
The question: Is there an atheist schism?
As a professional philosopher my first question naturally is: “What or who is an atheist?” If you mean someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning then I doubt there are many in this group. Richard Dawkins denies being such a person. If you mean someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn’t think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night, then I guess a lot of us are atheists. But there is certainly a split, a schism, in our ranks. I am not whining (in fact I am rather proud) when I point out that a rather loud group of my fellow atheists, generally today known as the “new atheists”, loathe and detest my thinking….
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thabet
Terry Eagleton is interviewed by The Immanent Frame (a blog you should read if you’re interested in religion).
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buzz
Worship services at the first (and last) unsplintered monolithic religion
Every simpleton who watches Fox news knows clearly that while we ’speak’ of moderate and extreme Muslims…in fact, they are all one fatwa away from being radicalized. Rifqa Bary has made this quite clear.
So it goes with Christianity in the dreaded “Fitnutz” debate. While abrogation has been defined and refined, one thing most of you involved in the discussion will agree on is that Christians are all idiots who believe exactly the same thing: the Divinity, the Trinity and the only begotten Son of God.
Not necessarily so fellow bloggers. Meet the non Trinitarians. Here the divinity of Jesus and the trinity are debated according to scripture. Can it be that there is variation in Christian belief? I thought that was only a “Muslim thing.”
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thabet
Even while I can sympathise with the author is trying to achieve, I have to say this is a terrible article on ’secularism in Islam’.
Full of anachronisms, unnecessary attempts to shoehorn one history into another, bizarre use and abuse of terminology, the article misses one crucial fact: the Mu’tazilites of the period the author discusses were just as involved in the political intrigues of their day as their theological opponents.
(Another point is that terms like ‘freedom’ or ‘liberalism’ are not uncontested in Western traditions as the author claims.)
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thabet
It’s not ok to criticise Christianity in Germany if you’re Muslim:
The state of Hesse had planned to hand its 45,000-euro (61,000-dollar) prize this July jointly to a Jew, a Muslim, a Catholic and a Lutheran to honour the cultural achievements of the monotheistic religions.
But Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz and Peter Steinacker, former head of the Lutheran church of Hesse and Nassau, objected to sharing the state culture prize with Navid Kermani, an Iranian-born author.
Kermani had begun an article about a crucifix, a standard Christian image that depicts Jesus Christ in an agonizing death nailed to a wooden cross, with, ‘I’d express my personal rejection of the theology of the cross frankly with ‘blasphemy and idolatry’.’
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razib, murtad fitri
a long discussion with willow re: theology & anthropomorphism ended with her response to a question like so:
I think among Jews the ability to keep omni-god abstract is fairly high. Anecdotally that has been my experience. I think the reasons for this are many. (They mess less with the afterlife, and much less with Satan, and they are wholly iconoclastic.) On the other extreme, most Christians I’ve ever spoken to about faith issues anthropomorphize omni-god pretty vigorously. (Which you’d have to do if you wanted to take the Bible literally, or even if you didn’t, but kept it as your central text.) Muslims fall somewhere in the middle. I really don’t have the data to guess at percentages. In all cases, with the possible exception of the Jews, I think the percentage of people who ‘default’ is higher than those who don’t.
the perception of christians is what you’d expect; the very ‘genius’ of incarnation of christ as a man makes him easier to relate to than the omni-god (this is a christian argument i’ve heard, i am moderately skeptical for a variety of reasons, but i’ll leave that aside). but what about the assertions about jews? willow, being an american, will probably be basing her perceptions on american ashkenazi jews. wha do they believe? we can look at the religious identification survey.
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aziz
question: what are the primary theological arguments in favor of active Dawah? (the bus ads issue is still on my mind).
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kaitlin
I like this perspective.
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baraka
Three articles of note:
*Shelina Janmohamed – A Muslim woman’s journey: “I wanted to write about my experiences – not of oppression, or turning away from religion – but of love”
*The NYT on Muslim women’s quest for equal rights: “Secular feminism has fulfilled its historical role, but it has nothing more to give us,” said Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an Iranian anthropologist who has been helping to formulate some of the arguments. “The challenge we face now is theological.”
*Thomas Friedman on two women traveling across India in a hybrid/solar car, exploring local green initiatives: “Why did this tour happen? Why this mad, insane plan to travel across India in a caravan of solar electric cars and jatropha trucks with solar music, art, dance and a potent message for climate solutions? Well … the world needs crazy ideas to change things, because the conventional way of thinking is not working anymore.”
Here’s to amplifying different perspectives and new ways of thinking!
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Lawrence of Arabia
A pair of today’s ongoing conversations concerning the law, its basis and intelligibility, has reminded me a conversation that took place over at eteraz.org back in 2007. A rather lengthy recapitulation of that conversation can be found here, along with some background and a few editorial comments from myself.
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willow
Muslim professor thinks the Prophet is a myth. I am less interested in the fact that he does not believe in a historical Prophet Muhammad, and more interested in the fact that he still considers himself a Muslim. His position seems like a close cousin of the second-naivete movement in Christianity.
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willow
I’ve been reading all this CS Lewis and he’s inspired me to apologia. Subquestion: How do you feel about miracles? A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend about how unspiritual so many Muslims have become, and he spontaneously came up with this gem: “They say the jinn are only a metaphor, and then they hike their pyjamas above their ankles…”
Been cracking me up ever since.
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thabet
The ‘theological divide’ between Qom and Najaf.
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willow
Anybody read Ibn Warraq’s The Origins of the Koran? Thoughts? How scary is it?
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thabet
