Monthly Archive for November, 2010

Oklahoma’s Faith-baiting Initiative

Published on November 20, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

By Michael Gerson, in The Washington Post

Just to be on the safe side, voters in Oklahoma this month overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that prevents the Talibanization of the Sooner State. Henceforth, there will be no public stonings in Ponca City, no forced burqa wearing in Bartlesville, no sharia law in Lawton.

Even supporters of the referendum – which forbade state courts from considering sharia in their deliberations – admitted that the threat from Oklahoma’s 30,000 Muslims couldn’t be called “imminent.”

“It’s not a problem and we want to keep it that way,” explains state Sen. Anthony Sykes. Sharia law, according to state Rep. Rex Duncan, is a “cancer that must be removed with a preemptive strike.”

This is a novel use of American law – not to actually address a public problem but to taunt a religious minority. The Oklahoma amendment purports to “Save Our State” from disputed practices and beliefs within Islam. But the precedent reaches more broadly. Perhaps San Francisco could declare itself a “crusade-free zone,” just in case some of those intolerant Catholics are reading Urban II. If they resist being singled out, they must be pro-crusade. Or maybe Congress should pass a constitutional amendment forbidding suttee – the historical practice of widow burning – just to put Hindus on notice. It’s not a problem, but, hey, we want to keep it that way.

To read more…

Wendy Doniger to Speak at 2011 Religion and Spirituality Conference

Published on November 19, 2010 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

donigerWe are very pleased to welcome the participation of Wendy Doniger, University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, USA to the 2011 Religion and Spirituality in Society Conference as a keynote speaker.

Wendy Doniger

Wendy Doniger’s research and teaching interests revolve around two basic areas, Hinduism and mythology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her courses in mythology address themes in cross-cultural expanses; her courses in Hinduism cover a broad spectrum that, in addition to mythology, considers literature, law, gender, and ecology. Cross-cultural offerings have included courses about death, dreams, evil, horses, sex, and women.

Among her many books published under the name Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty are three Penguin Classics: Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook, Translated from the Sanskrit; The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit; and The Laws of Manu (with Brian K. Smith). She has also published Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; and several books with the University of Chicago Press: Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities; Tales of Sex and Violence: Folklore, Sacrifice, and Danger in the Jaiminiya Brahmaṇa; and Other Peoples’ Myths: The Cave of Echoes. Under the name Wendy Doniger, she has published Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India; The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade; The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth; a new translation of the Kamasutra (with Sudhir Kakar); The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was; and The Hindus: An Alternative History. In progress are Hinduism, for the Norton Anthology of World Religions (2011); Faking It: Narratives of Circular Jewelry and Deceptive Women; Horses for Lovers, Dogs for Husbands (a novel); and a memoir.

For updates and more information about our plenary speakers, please visit our conference website.

Making Muslim Democracies

Published on November 14, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Jan-Werner Müller, in Boston Review

In the summer of 2008, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or AKP) narrowly escaped being banned by the country’s constitutional court. State prosecutors had alleged that the party which is officially committed to economic modernization, conservative moral values, and Turkey’s admission to the European Union was trying to breach the country’s notoriously strict separation of religion and politics, slowly Islamicize the state, and ultimately introduce theocracy.

Many local supporters of the AKP breathed a sigh of relief after the decision, as did non-Muslims who see the AKP as the prototype of a Muslim Democratic  party that can appeal to believers while being fully committed to the rules (and values) of the democratic game.

Read more…

Consider Humanism: The Largest Atheist Ad Campaign in History

Published on November 10, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

considerhumanismFrom Hemant Mehta, in Friendly Atheist

Today, the American Humanist Association is launching the largest atheist ad campaign in history. It challenges Biblical morality and fundamentalist Christianity and it’s bound to get a lot of attention.

There will be a TV commercial during Dateline NBC this Friday night.

There will be billboards in Idaho and Philadelphia and bus ads in Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

There will be ads on cable TV, ads in magazines like Reason and The Progressive, and ads in newspapers in places like USA Today, the Seattle Times, and the Village Voice all “demonstrating that secular humanist values are consistent with mainstream America and that fundamentalist religion has no right to claim the moral high ground.”

To read more…

Religion as a Catalyst of Rationalization

Published on November 6, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

religion-as-catalyst-for-rationalizationFrom 3 Quarks Daily

The centrality of religion to social theory in general and philosophy in particular explains why Jürgen Habermas has dealt with it, in both substantive and creative ways, in all of his work. Indeed, religion can be used as a lens through which to glimpse both the coherence and the transformation of his distinctive theories of social development and his rethinking of the philosophy of reason as a theory of social rationalization.

For Habermas, religion has been a continuous concern precisely because it is related to both the emergence of reason and the development of a public space of reason-giving. Religious ideas, according to Habermas, are never mere irrational speculation. Rather, they possess a form, a grammar or syntax, that unleashes rational insights, even arguments; they contain, not just specific semantic contents about God, but also a particular structure that catalyzes rational argumentation.

To read more…