Yesterday political analyst Matthew Dowd posted the following tweet: A fundamentalist radical Christian is just as misguided and frightening as a fundamentalist radical Muslim. No difference. — Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) August 10, 2017 The tweet prompted a variety of responses including this one from Chad of Truthbomb Apologetics: This is a astonishingly ignorant comment. It […]
religious violence
Two Atheists (both friendly), One Theist, and a Discussion of Religion and Violence
Today the highly esteemed Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta) posted an announcement of the publication of An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar complete with an except in which Justin Schieber and I discuss the relationship between religion and violence. Check it out: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/12/06/atheist-christian-discuss-whether-religion-leads-violence/
Sports, violence, and irrational secularists
Let’s approach the matter of religion and violence from a slightly different angle. I lived in London, England for a couple years. One day I was strolling down the sidewalk when I noticed the street had been blocked off at an intersection and a couple dozen bobbies were standing around nervously. Curious, I went up […]
Haha. Imagine that.
Ahem, Imagine if you caricatured a complex religious worldview you reject which claims billions of adherents from all cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, and educational levels, by comparing it to an infantilized belief of childhood. And then you went on to ignore all the complex cultural, socio-economic, political, and religious factors that lead to societal violence and war by suggesting the […]
The irrational fear of Islam, or why “radical Islam” is like the Ebola virus
With the most recent terroristic act in San Bernardino at the hand of Muslim Syed Farook and his wife, one can anticipate the fear and paranoia about “radical Islam” will continue to grow. To be sure, like any other radicalized ideology, radical Islam is a reality against which one must be vigilant. However, I worry that […]
59. A Response to Bill Maher on Religion and Free Speech
In this podcast I offer a response to Bill Maher’s recent incendiary comments against Islam. While Maher attempts to position himself as a defender of the true spirit of liberalism and free speech, I argue that his understanding of free speech is egregiously truncated and produces rhetoric which foments misunderstanding, demonization, and the eroding of […]
Did God raise up Bin Laden?
The question is repugnant not only on the surface but all the way down to its very core. It presumes a moral framework that is utterly alien to my way of understanding the universe. And yet it is a question that kept bubbling to the surface as I read Clay Jones’ essay “We Don’t Hate Sin […]
