The role of religion in modern political life

The role of religion in modern political life is a puzzle. God as an idea worth taking seriously is clearly on life support, at least as far as serious analysis goes. As Andrew Levine says, for a long time in the world of political analysts “the idea that the Creator of all there is would care about the political affairs of particular Homo sapiens, that He (always a He!) would favor some members of our paltry species over others, seemed too preposterous to take seriously” and that “it is hard to see how any part of the Sturm und Drang of modern politics could really be about God, no matter what some political actors do, say, or believe. If their self-representations belie what is plainly the case, they must be deceiving themselves.” [Read more…]

A young Muslim woman’s story of leaving her faith

Kimberly Winston recounts the moving story of ‘Samya’, a young woman aged 20 in the US, who left her parents and her five siblings and fears that if her true identity were revealed, she might be killed by her family. Her crimes? “She rejected a marriage arranged by her father, who came to the U.S. from the Middle East when Samya was an infant. And perhaps more serious to her parents: She has become an atheist.” [Read more…]

Is the Tea Party inadvertently saving Social Security?

Whenever the political class, the major players in the business world (especially the financial sector), and their media lackeys, all of whom are collectively known as The Villagers, enthusiastically agree on something, concerned people should sit up and take notice because it signals that a big swindle is about to be perpetrated on the general public. The clue that such a thing is in the works in when the phrase ‘everyone knows’ is bandied around about a major policy proposal with absolutely no evidence to back it up. [Read more…]

American-British collusion in drone killings

I wrote earlier about how the Obama administration will not deny that it has the right to summarily kill US citizens without trial even if they are in the US, and the deafening silence that has accompanied this outrageous claim. It is remarkable the extent to which so-called ‘liberal Democrats’ have sold their soul when it comes to the subversion by the current administration of the things that they used to say they held dear, such as the rule of law and upholding the constitution, not to mention notions of fundamental human rights, all of which they used to condemn the Bush administration’s reign of lawlessness. [Read more…]

The intriguing world of visual special effects

I have not seen the film Life of Pi and am probably not going to. I read Yann Martel’s book some years ago and what I liked most about it were the opening chapters of the boy Pi simultaneously following the religions of Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, unbeknownst to his parents or to the clerics of the three religions, each of whom thought he was a devout follower of only their faith. Once the boy started on his ill-fated journey across the ocean, I lost interest while the film seems to have that as its main focus. [Read more…]