Dawkins : "I'm a cultural Christian".

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Professor Richard Dawkins has said the he is ' A Cultural Christian'.
In a news story on the BBC website, he declared that he has no wish to see Christmas cancelled, or see Britain lose any part of it's Christian heritage. This may come as a surprise to some, but his website tends to direct its venom towards the more negative aspects of religious belief.

These include the Catholic Church's stance on child molesting priests, it's opposition to contraception, and its condemnation of gay people. Yet Protestant believers come in for criticism too. It isn't simply a belief in Adam and Eve that Dawkins criticises, it's the Old Testament's account of Joshua's conquests, the concept of Hell and the moral standards taught in the O.T. that also provoke his ire.

Well, my take on it is as follows -
the Jews didn't really do the conquest of Canaan like the Bible says,in fact they didn't conquer Canaan at all - Joshua's campaign was largely a propaganda exercise done in a later period;
the concept of Hell as a place of eternal torment rests upon misinterpretation and misunderstanding of certain Biblical passages, as well as a certain amount of Hellenistic influence;
the sexism, racism and homophobia are all there in the Torah, but the Jews themselves got over a lot of it before Jesus came along and finished the job.

If we were to teach History in school and pay more attention to events in the Levant around the Bronze Age, it would do a lot to dispel the negative influence that religious mythology still has on society. We can dump all that stuff and still have a version of Christianity that is different from Atheism. And, yes, I would be happy to explain the specifics in the comments - if I get any:)

What do Muslims really think?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I've seen it said around the traps (including here) over the last few days this idea that Muslims don't do enough to disavow terrorism or that their beliefs are incompatible with Western society. I've never quite understood this idea, given that I pretty much ignore most things that the media has to say about them in this country, as it's usually the same old racist rhetoric, and that my experience with Muslims in Australia has been distinctly different. Most of the Muslims I know are through university, so it's admittedly not a complete cross section.
( Enter into the black hole of rationality that is Australian race relations )

In conclusion, yes, there are some dickheads in the Muslim community. Some people with views and opinions that are reprehensible to modern Western society. Mostly though, they're pretty sane, reasonable people with the same hopes and dreams as the rest of us. Indeed, if there *wasn't* a group of misogynistic, violent douchecanoes speaking crap and getting into fights then they really would be different to the rest of the country. The real issue comes to media access: Muslims have no power in the media, whilst those with an agenda against them own nearly all of it (seriously, Murdoch owns 70% of the newspapers, and the knobjockey deluxe Alan Jones isn't even on his payrole).

So when you ask "why don't Muslims condemn terrorism" perhaps you should be asking yourself "why aren't I hearing Muslims condemn terrorism". When you think "Muslims don't fit in", perhaps you should be thinking "Muslims, like any group, sure do have some fucktards amongst them".

Xposted to my journal.