Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
A prayer circle formed in the room where the Huckabee campaign holds a Caucus watch party.

Evangelicals not on same page - Los Angeles Times, Jan 18, 2008

GREENVILLE, S.C — The Christian heart of the Republican Party beats fiercely on the broad boulevard where one finds both the gated entrance to Bob Jones University and the headquartersof His Radio network, home to an AM Christian station and a sister music station, “FM With Love From Jesus.”

But the two bastions of Southern evangelism mirrored the split in the ranks of conservative voters before the state’s Republican primary Saturday.

Host Tony Beam of the network’s “Christian Talk” became a warrior for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from the moment he turned on his microphone at 6 a.m. Thursday.”We need a leader in America who has the core value system that’s built on the eternal truths of the Bible,” Beam told listeners. “We need a lighthouse, a guiding force to get us in the right direction.”

Prominent conservative and Bob Jones University dean Robert Taylor made an opposing pitch on the university’s radio station earlier in the week.”Mitt Romney is the only candidate who shares our values and can win in November,” Taylor said. “That’s why it’s so important that conservatives rally around him.”

Nicholas Kristof, A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion, New York Times, December 3, 2006

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.

Or, at least, crash the Web site of www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com. That’s a snarky site that notes that while people regularly credit God for curing cancer or other ailments, amputees never seem to enjoy divine intervention.

“If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day,” the Web site declares, adding: “It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.”

That site is part of an increasingly assertive, often obnoxious atheist offensive led in part by Professor Dawkins — the Oxford scientist who is author of the new best seller “The God Delusion.” It’s a militant, in-your-face brand of atheism that he and others are proselytizing for.

He counsels readers to imagine a world without religion and conjures his own glimpse: “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no ‘honor killings,’ no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.”

Look elsewhere on the best-seller list and you find an equally acerbic assault on faith: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Mr. Harris mocks conservative Christians for opposing abortion, writing: “20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.”

The number of avowed atheists is tiny, with only 1 to 2 percent of Americans describing themselves in polls as atheists. But about 15 percent now say that they are not affiliated with any religion, and this vague category is sometimes described as the fastest-growing “religious group” in America today (some surveys back that contention, while others don’t).

Irreligion - John Allen Paulos - Book Review - New York Times, January 13, 2008

A physicist, a biologist and a mathematician walk into a bar. Bartender says, “Any of you believe in God?” Which of the three is most likely to say yes? Answer: the mathematician. Mathematicians believe in God at a rate two and a half times that of biologists, a survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences a decade ago revealed. Admittedly, this rate is not very high in absolute terms. Only 14.6 percent of the mathematicians embraced the God hypothesis (versus 5.5 percent of the biologists).

Religion and Violence: A Bibliography (Last updated: October 12, 2006)
Compiled by Charles K. Bellinger

[This is an expanded version of a bibliography published in The Hedgehog Review 6/1 (2004): 111-119.]

The literature on religion and violence was already substantial before the Sept. 11 attacks, and it has swelled at an increased pace since then. I have not seen abundant evidence, however, that the serious reflections on violence expressed in these books has made a noticeable impact on the shape of higher education, on news media reporting, or on the thinking of government officials around the world. This is unfortunate.

Popular opinion doesn’t reflect on the complexity of violence. We assume that violence (that is, the violence done by others) is evil, but we don’t understand it and seem to have little interest in understanding it. The authors listed below are trying to change that situation in both respects. They invite us to develop an interest in reflecting on violence and offer substantive understandings of it from their own perspectives. I foresee a time in the future when their efforts will bear fruit as a “critical mass” of interest develops and overcomes the apathy of our current situation. At that point, the ideas contained in these books will begin to have a significant impact on higher education, the media, and governmental and military decision-making.

I will append to each subsection below a short list of Library of Congress Subject Headings that will enable the reader to explore the topic further. The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of books that have been assigned that subject heading that fit the following parameters as of December, 2005: English language, published from 1980 to 2005, held by at least 50 libraries (according to WorldCat).