Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Being ashamed is not enough - Haaretz, February 2, 2007

If a peace agreement is ever signed with the Palestinians, the Hebron settlers will have to end their illegal holiday at the Park Hotel, which has been going on 38 years too long, because no border will be able to include this outrageous enclave inside a large Arab city. Following the 1994 massacre by Baruch Goldstein of Muslims praying in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Yitzhak Rabin should have seized the opportunity to remove the Jewish settlement, but he was deterred. And since then, no leader has even dared think about doing so.

On Faith: Georgetown Blog, July 16, 2007

Query: Can an atheist or agnostic commentator discuss any aspect of religion for more than thirty seconds without referring to religious people as imbeciles, extremists, mental deficients, fascists, enemies of the common good, crypto-Nazis, conjure men, irrationalists, pedophiles, bearers of false consciousness, authoritarian despots, and so forth? Is that possible?

First, some basic definitions. Politically speaking, American secularism is made up of two overlapping, albeit distinct, constituencies. The first is comprised of the aforementioned nonbelievers whose best-selling spokespersons are fast becoming the soccer hooligans of reasoned public discourse. The second is much larger and much quieter. It encompasses religious Americans who favor strict Church/State Separation this they share with the nonbelievers.

Nonbelievers of late have been churning out loud, unsubtle, anti-religious manifestos. The world would be a better place, they all seem to suggest, if religion and all of its associated personnel were simply to disappear. In this regards the new nonbelievers seem stuck in the ‘90s—and by this I mean the 1890s. This calls attention to one glaring problem with atheism and agnosticism today: it lacks new ideas. The movement abounds in polemicists, but has not produced a thinker of real substance since perhaps the days of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Patrick Cockburn: Ignominious end to futile exercise that cost the UK 168 lives - Independent, September 3, 2007

The British failure is almost total after four years of effort and the death of 168 personnel. “Basras residents and militiamen view this not as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat,” says a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “Today, the city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful and unconstrained than before.”