Our doorstep is dirty. Clearly.

And you gotta love the nutjobs defending that Obama is a racist. Sheesh.

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Worse than a clown. *shudders*

It’s uncomfortable to watch him make a fool of himself.

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[...] the fact that Barack Obama’s father was a Muslim Kenyan, descended from a long line of Muslims, will remain true until the day he dies, and nothing he ever does in his life can change half of his genes that he inherited from his father. His genes are for keeps. The fact that he has attended Christian church for the past 20 years is not going to change that. Michael Jackson looked white much longer than Barack Obama sat in the pews of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church. Obama is still as (half) Muslim as the day he was born.

Part of his argument makes sense. If a segment of the human population has interbred for a long time, they’re likely to have certain genetic markers in common which could be used to identify them. Call this a genetic fingerprint that would identify the a certain group.

Historically, I think it’s questionable whether or not Islamic Kenyans have maintained enough of a closed group to develop a fingerprint. Islam is a very diverse religion, and in many cases it seemed to live comfortably along side other religious groups for centuries. When Monophysite Christian and Muslim groups intermingled, what does that do to the group genetics?

But more to the point, what does defining a person’s religion by their genetic markers do for us? Is it a useful definition? Since what we’re looking for when we ask about someone’s religion is some understanding of their beliefs, I can’t see that it is. Unless Kanazawa is going to suggest that some people are genetically predisposed to accepting the Trinity while other are predisposed to a more straight-forward monotheism, I just don’t see the point.

Joachim Krueger, another blogger at Psychology Today, is even less impressed:

If religion is inherited through the Y-chromosome, he is fully Muslim; if it is inherited through the mitochondrial DNA, he is fully Christian; if the religious gene is located somewhere else, he has a 50-50 chance of being one or the other, and the premise of Satoshi’s post is moot. Now, Satoshi knows all this. I therefore conclude that his post is meant to entertain, enrage, and befuddle. That’s too bad because the primary purpose of these blogs is to help, advise, and educate. Am I wrong?

The Dove World Outreach Center says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, it invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it’s causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times,” Pastor Terry Jones told CNN’s Rick Sanchez earlier this week.

Jones wrote a book titled “Islam is of the Devil,” and the church sells coffee mugs and shirts featuring the phrase.

Imagine if a Muslim church in FL was hosting a “International Bible Burning” event. They’d flip. But because it’s a religion other than theirs, they think it’s great.

What does such an event accomplish? It does not change anyone’s mind, it only fuels anger and violence.

There have been many words aired over the proposed Cordoba Center in Manhattan, presumably because of its proximity to the World Trade Center site. With the attention paid to this particular mosque, a person might be easily led into thinking that the controversy is simply over a site with historical and emotional value, and that by-and-large the sentiment of religious freedom prevails in the rest of the United States.

Unfortunately, that impression would be wrong. From the New York Times:

At one time, neighbors who did not want mosques in their backyards said their concerns were over traffic, parking and noise — the same reasons they might object to a church or a synagogue. But now the gloves are off.

In all of the recent conflicts, opponents have said their problem is Islam itself. They quote passages from the Koran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic Shariah law.

These local skirmishes make clear that there is now widespread debate about whether the best way to uphold America’s democratic values is to allow Muslims the same religious freedom enjoyed by other Americans, or to pull away the welcome mat from a faith seen as a singular threat.

“What’s different is the heat, the volume, the level of hostility,” said Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky. “It’s one thing to oppose a mosque because traffic might increase, but it’s different when you say these mosques are going to be nurturing terrorist bombers, that Islam is invading, that civilization is being undermined by Muslims.”

The article details four other recent cases of community protests in reaction to a proposed mosque or Muslim community center. What unites these protests with the Cordoba Center controversy is the focus, which has shifted onto Islam itself being the problem identified by protesters rather than the more mundane civil complaints one would expect when any new large gathering place is proposed. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers opines that this basic anti-Islamic sentiment has always been there and the Cordoba Center has merely provided a convenient pretext to stop hiding it, with cover being provided by prominent national political leaders.

I find the general thrust of the argument plausible, and if it is, has many worrying historical parallels with American antisemitism and anti-Catholicism. Those borderline conspiracy theories generally asserted that people of these groups had secret intentions to subvert the values and structures of the host society, and ultimately replace them with incompatible values. Such popular assertions led large groups and even entire political parties to form in opposition to these supposed subversive elements and promote arguments and legislation to combat the phantom threat, invariably oppressing them and placing their members at risk of harm.

This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.”

What do you think? Should the mosque be allowed near the WTC site?

Consider for example the broad stream of Buddhism usually called (in the west) Pure Lands Buddhism or Amidism. Like most forms of eastern religion, it seems to play well with others, so there are many combinations and permutations. Still, if you take a step back and squint, it looks like Pure Lands Buddhism may be the most popular form of Buddhism in the east.

One of the core concepts of Pure Lands is that a Buddha named Amitabha (there are several other renderings) provides an alternative path to enlightenment. The idea is that this current age, with its temptations and hardships, makes it extremely difficult for the commoner to engage in the meditative pursuits that lead to enlightenment. By exhibiting devotion to Amitabha, the believer may be reborn in the Pure Lands at a future time.

The Buddha Amitabha has created the Pure Lands as a place of peace and repose, where the (literally) born-again believer may be instructed by Bodhisattvas and attain enlightenment with relative ease.

Which, is you squint some more, looks quite a bit like heaven. And Amitabha sounds an awful lot like a messiah figure, with whom we are saved. My understanding is that the various Pure Lands groups occasionally have the same arguments that reformed Protestants do: saved by grace alone or saved by grace through faith?

I’ve also heard that the same arguments take place in certain Hindu sects, where they are known as the “cat school” and the “monkey school.” The cat school says that we are saved by grace alone, like a mother cat yanking up a straying child by the scruff of its neck. The monkey school says that we are saved by grace through faith, like a baby monkey who is lifted by mother, but then must cling on to her back.

I’d just like to echo what I said before: we’re all humans, and all faced with many of the same problems and failings. It shouldn’t be surprising that our religions end up sharing many of the same traits.

Priest drowns baby during baptism:

Police are investigating Father Valentin for accidential homicide after witnesses at the ceremony said the priest did not cover the baby’s mouth during the ritual, The Sun newspaper reports.

Father Valentin had denied being responsible for the baby’s death during the baptism in Moldova.

The six-week-old baby died on the way to hospital and an autopsy found he had drowned, the baby’s dad Dumitru Gaidau told Romania’s Publica TV.

Mr Gaidau, 36, said his son was clearly in distress during the ceremony.

“He couldn’t inhale, his face turned blue and he was foaming at the mouth. He [the priest] said we should not interrupt this their ritual,” he said.

“We couldn’t believe it that he just put his hand over his belly and over the head and submerged him three times in the water.”

Water was found in the baby’s lungs.

Very sad — death by superstition.

Cracked.com has gotten ambitious and published a list of 10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On. And … eh, it’s Cracked.com. Not bad – I’d say he’s usually half right on both sides – but don’t expect anything deep.

For example, they do the classic comparison of theistic villains and Stalin:

Yeah, yeah, I know the Christians are saying that the guy who fights an unjust or needless war is violating God’s law, and thus isn’t a good Christian. Meanwhile, the atheists are saying that Stalin was merely bloodthirsty, separate and apart from his disbelief in a higher power. Both believe, then, that it is a corruption of their belief system that allows unjust slaughter to happen.

The problem is that atheism is not a belief system, and it has no moral dimension. I’m perfectly happy saying that atheists are just as likely to be horrible people as believers. But you can’t corrupt something as simple as atheism: you either hold a belief in a deity or not.

Atheism is clearly no guard against bad behavior, but no one – well, no one sane – has argued that it is.

And some of is is mystifying, for example:

Atheists, even if you reject the idea of God completely and claim to live according only to the cold logic of the physical sciences, you all still live as if the absolute morality of some magical lawgiver were true.

Do what, now?

Sorry, that’s the southern expression of male bafflement. Have I actually claimed to live only by “cold logic”? I’ve got a microwave, I could warm it up. And the idea of dedicating oneself to living within the physical sciences is just … odd. “With the FSM as my witness, I shall always obey the laws of thermodynamics!” … yeah.

But the most painful part is the confusion of categories implied by his statement “absolute morality.” In this, and later paragraphs, he seems to be saying that if you don’t have God, you don’t have a basis for declaring anything morally good or bad. Thousands of years of thought into the matter of morality and ethics just … gone. You need a God or you got nothing.

Over at Religion in American history, Michael Altman has some reaction to an interview with Bear Grylls, star of the Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild. When Grylls claims to be non-religious, but gets effusive about Jesus, Altman reflects:

This split between Jesus and religion fascinates me. In the early 19th century American Christians tended to think of “religion” in terms of “true Religion” (Christianity) and the rest–usually four groups (Muslims, Jews, and Pagans/Heathens). By the early 20th century “religion” was a category within which Christianity fell alongside another ten to half-dozen religions (suddenly we have Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto etc.) Now, in the early 21st century I hear more and more (usually evangelical) Christians claiming that Jesus wasn’t religious at all–in fact true Christianity isn’t about religion–it’s about a relationship with Jesus. I’m not spiritual, or religious, I’m with Jesus.

I think he’s on to something there: the “spiritual but no religious” movement is, in part, an attempt to distinguish an individual’s Christianity from the growing mass of other religions – and the growing mass of Christian denominations. It’s a way to stand out and appear exceptional, now that Christianity is starting to look like just one of many religions.

The whole Gryll’s article is a stream with flows from Transcendentalism, Evangelicalism, Promise Keepers, muscular Christianity, and Graham’s “Make a decision for Christ today” revivalism.
[...]
This is a confluence that isn’t necessarily fully thought out or self-selected. I don’t think Grylls went out and thought about becoming this sort of masculine Christian, nor do I think Relevant sought to portray him this way. This isn’t Sheila-ism. It’s something more organic and more accidental. It’s like religious run-off making its way into a creek of spirituality and carrying all sorts of cultural flotsam with it. What to call it, though? Perhaps Bear-ism?

I like the metaphor of the stream. You can imagine the religion as the stream, and the culture as the stream bed. Both shape each other, and you can’t really understand until you look at both.

Bishop Broadhurst, who is the chairman of the Forward in Faith organisation, declined to say whether he would leave the Church of England, because he said he needed time to talk to the priests under his pastoral care.

“My organisation has 1,000 priests and about 8,000 lay people in it. None of those priests are happy,” he said.

“Now people have to decide whether they will knuckle under – if they do, that is not a very happy situation for them or the Church – or whether they’ll go, or whether they’ll just defy it, and I can see that happening with many people.”

Part of me finds it hard to suppress a little soupçon of glee over this; as an atheist it confirms some of my opinions of religion in general so very nicely – particularly that some people simply use religion as a cloak for bigotry and that their bigotry is far more important to them than any faith they might profess. Most of me, however, finds it deeply sad that the laws of my country still permit exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation on religious grounds, effectively allowing organisations like the CofE to remain decades behind the rest of society in their attitudes towards equality and fairness.

Background story from the BBC.
Main story from the BBC.