Family sees Jesus in cat fur.

Woman finds Jesus in bag of Cheetos.

Plumber spots Virgin Mary in sink.

Crowd spots Jesus in palm tree.

HT: Museum of Hoaxes

 Asia Times:

To ascribe a special grace to America is outrageous, as outrageous as the idea of special grace itself. Why shouldn’t everyone be saved? Why aren’t all individuals, nations, peoples and cultures equally deserving? History seems awfully unfair: half or more of the world’s 7,000 or so languages will be lost by 2100, linguists warn, and at present fertility rates Italian, German, Ukrainian, Hungarian and a dozen other major languages will die a century or so later. The agony of dying nations rises in reproach to America’s unheeding prosperity.

An old joke divides the world into two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. America is one of the things that sorts the world into polar opposites. To much of the world, America is the Great Satan, the source of the plague of globalization, the bane of the environment, the Grim Reaper of indigenous cultures, the carrier of soulless industrialism, and the perpetrator of imperial adventures. To hundreds of millions of others it is an object of special grace. Whether one subscribes to the concept or not, America’s grace defines one of the world’s great dividing lines, perhaps its most important.

Violent antipathy to America measures the triumph of the American principle, and the ascendance of America’s influence in the world. America’s enemies make more noise than her friends, but her friends are increasing faster than her enemies.

America’s influence in the world leapt as result of her victory in three world wars, including the fall of communism in 1989. Arguably, America is ascending even faster today, despite the reverses in its economic position and the strains on its military resources.

There are nearly a billion more Christians in the world today than in 1970, including a hundred million Chinese, most of whom adhere to the House Church movement on the American evangelical model. Denominations of American origin, notably Pentecostals, led the evangelization of a quarter of a billion Africans in the past generation. There are nearly 100 million additional Latin American Christians, of whom perhaps 40 million belong to Pentecostal or other Protestant denominations centered in the United States.

Daniel Pipes talks the odds. The chance that immigrant Muslims and indigenous Europeans find a way to live in harmony? Five percent, says Pipes. The chance that Europe becomes Eurabian, part of the Muslim world? Forty-seven-and-a-half percent. The chance that Europeans reassert control over the continent? Forty-seven-and-a-half percent, once more — and Pipes says it won’t be pretty.

That describes Chapter 5 of this interview.

To see the video from the beginning, start here.

One Cosmos has some sharp words for Eckhart Tolle:

Eckhart Tolle? What a fount of wisdom! I just looked at one of his books on Amazon. In it, he compares the Roman Catholic church to Nazism, stating that the Inquisition “ranks together with the Holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history.”

Right. The Holocaust resulted in the systematic genocide of six million in a few years, while the entire Inquisition resulted in about 6,000 deaths in 500 years.

What a fool. (Don’t worry — he has no ego, so he cannot be offended by my criticism, no matter how sharp. Realize that my criticism of him is actually a reflection of my own unenlightened state.)

He then goes on to suggest that the Inquisition was motivated by an attack on the “sacred feminine,” and that while Islam does this as well, it is in a “less violent way” than in Christianity.

What an ass. I am reminded of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a book that started the whole “sacred feminine/gaia worship” business. As a result, DDT was banned, causing as many as 50 million deaths due to malaria. Would Tolle then say that radical environmentalism is “one of the darkest chapters in human history?” Doubtful. He wouldn’t want to alienate his target audience.

It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. . . .You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff. . . .

I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep sh-t. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled… It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.

–Bono

Chris Weinkopf writes about Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled:

…a searing satire whose critics have largely failed to recognize it for what it is. Instead, they fume over what they perceive as Stein’s unfair treatment of them.

They resent, for example, that Stein’s movie repeatedly associates the unequivocally godless with images of the Berlin Wall, the USSR and even Josef Stalin. They protest the suggestion that evolutionary absolutism poses a dire threat to America’s most-cherished rights. And they decry Stein’s charge that Darwinist thinking led - and naturally leads - to evils like eugenics and Nazism.

Which is to say, they miss the point.

Stein’s film is part parody of, part rebuttal to, the crusading atheists who have risen to prominence in recent years - such as Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. And it employs the same nasty tactics they have perfected.Is it unfair to liken all Darwinists to communists? Of course, but no less so than likening all believers to al-Qaida and the Taliban - a popular trope among the New Atheists.

Is it a stretch to argue that academia’s hostility toward skepticism about the Gospel of Darwin imminently imperils freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom itself? Certainly. So is the claim that scientists who detect hints of design in their research are “anti-science,” and that those who resent the teaching of atheist dogma as fact in public schools are attempting to impose a “theocracy” on us all.

And yes, it’s a cheap shot to pin the wickedness of Adolf Hitler on Charles Darwin’s writings from a century earlier. But, then, so is blaming every abuse committed in the name of God on religion itself.

For 90 minutes, “Expelled” puts its targets in the same uncomfortable, unfair position in which believers have long found themselves in academia and the media. In turning the tables this way, the movie reveals, cleverly and amusingly, that you don’t need to believe in God to be a zealot.

And zealots of any stripe cannot tolerate mockery, nor do they understand when they’re being satirized. 

 Times of London

As Prime Minister, faith was an issue he talked about rarely — it was not going to give him answers about public-service reform, he explained.

This was summed up by Alastair Campbell, his press secretary, who famously said: “We don’t do God.” It is clear now though, that freed from the burdens of office, Mr Blair does God very publicly.

“If you are somebody of faith it affects your politics, it affects everything that you do,” he said. “But when I was Prime Minister, if I was to give interviews on faith, I’d just have ended up with a great load of trouble.”

Issues of faith have clearly been consuming Mr Blair. Since leaving office, he has converted to Roman Catholicism. This requires much thought and reflection. After confessing serious sins, a convert must make the “Rite of Reception”, including saying that: “I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.” To have come to that conclusion, surely Mr Blair must have decided there was something wrong with the Church of England’s conception of God?

“At the time I made the change, I said that I did so making no criticism of Church of England. I’d been attending Mass for 20 years with my family. I can’t take Communion in a Catholic church without being a Catholic. For me, it was a personal decision strongly influenced by family.”

Surely Mr Blair converted to do more than end an awkward moment on Sundays? Though he intends to engage others in questions of faith, he seems awkward about some aspects of his beliefs and wants to avoid an evangelical posture. For example, when asked whether he thought a person would be better off believing that Jesus was the Son of God, he said: “I believe in and I hold the doctrines of the Christian faith. But I think that when you start to engage in that type of thing — that actually you’d be better off if you converted to my faith — if you’re not incredibly careful about how you approach that conversation — that’s actually what leads to a lot of confrontation and difficulty.”

This answer tells you something important about his Faith Foundation. While Mr Blair may have changed the subject to talk about religion, he remains to his fingertips a politician. He knows that, while the fact of his religious faith is essential to making his initiative work, the content of it might get in the way.

I guess if you’re black you’re entitled to your own “facts.”

After telling its parishioners that AIDS was invented by white people to kill black people and that cocaine was a plot to destroy inner cities, the new pastor of Obama’s church reacted to criticism by

…accusing the media of character assassination and “crucifixion.”

Otis Moss III, the current pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, used his pulpit to defend his congregation and its past minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., from a wave of controversy stemming from inflammatory statements made by Wright.

“We have listened and watched as the wonderful work of our church has been vilified this week,” he told about 3,000 congregants on Palm Sunday morning. “This week should be special for us because I guess we know a little something about crucifixion.”

Or self-pity. Now get this:

The church also released a statement that began: “Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.”

What cheap rhetoric, equating the murder of Martin Luther King with legitimate criticism of a paranoid, victicrat  — and yes, black racist — theology.

Video here.

Hilarious:

An Archbishop of Canterbury Tale

With apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer

1  Whan in Februar, withe hise global warmynge

2  Midst unseasonabyl rain and stormynge

3  Gaia in hyr heat encourages

4  Englande folke to goon pilgrimages.

5  Frome everiches farme and shire

6  Frome London Towne and Lancanshire

7  The pilgryms toward Canterbury wended

8  Wyth fyve weke holiday leave extended

9  In hybryd Prius and Subaru

10  Off the Boughton Bypasse, east on M2.

11  Fouer and Twyntie theye came to seke

12  The Arche-Bishop, wyse and meke

Read it all.

by J.C. Phillips 

There is an old joke that everyone talks to God, but only crazy people hear God answering them. What then is one to make of television evangelist Pat Robertson and his annual end-of-the-year chats with our maker? It has become something of a New Year’s tradition that at the end of every year, the founder of the 700 Club retreats into prayer, returning New Year’s Day to share the substance of his conversation with his congregation and viewers around the world. 

Call me a skeptic. I have long suspected that the only difference between men like Robertson and the guys that used to stand on the corner of 45th and Broadway talking to God was that the guys on the corner actually believed the Lord was speaking to them. Age has mellowed me a bit and while I continue to be skeptical, I am now a tad more generous. I have never doubted that Robertson is speaking to God. In fact, the older I get the more I speak to God. Moreover, my understanding of prayer is that it is supposed to be a dialogue so a response from God shouldn’t be all that unusual. However, judging from Robertson’s recent conversations, it may just be that God has run out of substantive things to say. 

This year Robertson emerged from his annual tête-à-tête offering predictions of rising prices in the commodities markets — specifically oil and gold and falling stock markets. He even claimed to know the result of the upcoming presidential election – information he chose to keep to himself.

Skepticism about God speaking to people is not new. It has in fact been around as long as, well, as long as folks have been talking to God. When the Lord informed Moses that he had been chosen to return to Egypt to free the children of Israel, he was especially concerned not merely that the Egyptians would beat the snot out of him before laughing him all the way back to the sheep herds, but that the Hebrews would think he was a crackpot. God just doesn’t talk to people. It’s just not done! So Moses asks, “Who should I say sent me?” The Lord famously replies, “Tell them I Am has sent you.” I can just see Moses face. “I Am? What kind of blankety blank is that?” No doubt God understood his concern, which is why he loaded Moses up with miraculous signs in order to prove to the masses that he was in touch with the Almighty. I imagine it was the latter day version of Yo Yo’s “You betta Ask somebody!”

Part of our skepticism may be based in jealousy. Many of us want so badly to connect with the Lord, want to feel his warmth and the soft whisper of his breath in our ear. As a Christian, I know I want nothing more than to be transported to that place that is above all and within all, of knowing that I am protected and cared for by the heavenly father. As I understand it, that is the purpose of prayer: to lead one to a greater communion with God and a greater understanding of His will. 

This is, alas, where false prophets always get hung up. They invite disbelief because the messages they deliver from God are so insubstantial. Imagine emerging from a conversation with the maker of all things and having only the results of the 2008 presidential election to show for it. Is it any wonder we skeptics ask for the name of he from whom they are sent. 

When Moses descended from the mountain top, he brought with him the seeds of law, compassion and private property rights. Robertson comes back with stock tips. Moses introduced the concept of history and the building blocks of literacy while Robertson offers this year’s new fashion trends. I have it on good authority that God doesn’t give a wit about gold prices, the stock market or the American economy. That authority of course is scripture which is remarkably clear on the things God is concerned with, namely our love for Him and our love for each other. 

Robertson isn’t crazy. It may be that he does spend each New Years speaking to God (though what is unclear is of what significance the God of the infinite universe finds in the beginning of our calendar year), and God may even answer him. It may simply be that the good minister has fumbled the message. 

Bruce S. Thornton, City Journal 

On November 18, the New York Times ran a full-page ad entitled “A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You.” A Common Word is an October letter from 138 Muslim scholars and clerics “to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere.”

It reads like an invitation to ecumenical tolerance and “peace and understanding” based on “the very foundational principles of both faiths”: “The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity.” Over 300 Christian theologians and church leaders signed the “Christian Response,” including the heads of some of the nation’s most prestigious seminaries and theological schools. But if it accurately represents the thinking of mainstream Christian leadership, then Christianity in America is in deep trouble.

The response opens on a familiar self-loathing note, in the therapeutic style that has convinced jihadists that Christianity in the West is an empty shell, a mere lifestyle choice. Noting that Muslim and Christian “relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility,” the letter professes “that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the ‘war on terror’) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors,” and so “we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

The groveling self-abasement of this language, particularly its begging forgiveness of Allah, is matched only by its remarkable historical ignorance. “Outright hostility” has indeed existed between Muslims and Christians, for the simple reason that for 13 centuries Islam grew and spread by war, plunder, rapine, and enslavement throughout the Christian Middle East.

Someone who really believes Islam is a religion of peace.

Moez Masoud is a Muslim televangelist, 29, who preaches about Islam in youthful Arabic slang. He says imams who outlawed art and music are misinterpreting their faith. He talks about love and relationships, the need to be compassionate toward homosexuals and tolerant of non-Muslims.

Television preaching in the Middle East was once largely limited to elderly scholars in white robes reading holy texts from behind a desk and sometimes inciting violence against nonbelievers. But as TV has evolved from one or two heavily controlled state channels to hundreds of diverse, private satellite offerings, Masoud and perhaps a dozen others have emerged as increasingly popular alternatives.

Masoud is fast becoming an influential star among youth. And as a product of American-founded schools in the region, Masoud is able to speak with authority about Western values in a way many others can’t. His most recent show, a 20-part series that aired this fall on Iqra, one of the region’s leading religious channels, attracted millions of viewers from Syria to Morocco.

The new Muslim televangelists are riding a satellite TV boom that began after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, when the region’s elites were shocked by the power of CNN. The Middle East now has at least 370 satellite channels, nearly triple the number three years ago. Among them are 27 dedicated to Islamic religious programming, up from five two years ago.

On a recent Monday night in Alexandria, the ancient Mediterranean city on Egypt’s north coast, more than 1,500 people poured into a huge hall to hear Masoud speak. The crowd divided by sex, as is customary in much of the Muslim world. They were mostly in their late teens or 20s, university students or young professionals.

Masoud, tall and trim, wearing corduroy pants and a maroon, open-necked shirt, descended stairs at the back of the stage to loud applause. “Salaam aleikum,” he said, urging his audience to bow their heads for an opening prayer. For the next 90 minutes, Masoud worked the stage like a seasoned performer, his voice rising and then falling to a whisper, mixing Koranic verses with jokes and parables.

“We will be responsible to God on Judgment Day,” he said, arguing that violence against non-Muslims violates God’s will. “He will ask: Did you represent our religion correctly? If you feel happy that non-Muslims are being killed, this is wrong. They are our brothers.”

From Britain and America:

Skeptics at home and abroad are carping about Mitt Romney’s first major speech on religion. They should stop huffing and hyperventilating long enough to actually read it—a text that ranks as the most sober, sane, and historically informed view of religion and American democracy delivered thus far in the presidential campaign.

Many have tried to coax Mr. Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, to explain and defend his Mormon beliefs. Yesterday he declined the invitation. “To do so would enable the very religious test the Founders prohibited in the Constitution,” he said. “No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.”

That welcome answer—the American solution to the question of religion and government—goes to heart of the American Creed. The driving aim of the separation of church and state is not to quarantine religion from public life, but to protect religious liberty for people of all faiths, or of no faith. Mr. Romney’s answer is anchored in the concepts of equality and the inalienable rights of conscience. It is established by the original text of the Constitution, in Article VI (“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust”) and by the lead-off amendment to that text, the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”).

Mr. Romney’s answer is also long overdue. For years now most conservatives have kept their mouths shut as politicians or presidential advisors have played the religion card for Christian audiences—a disgraceful game I’ve witnessed up close. It has inflicted untold damage to the public understanding of America’s democratic heritage. In the recent YouTube campaign debate, for example, the Republican candidates were asked if they viewed the Bible as the word of God. Predictably, and pathetically, none of them appealed to this bedrock political doctrine: no religious test for public office.

Peggy Noonan thinks that Romney did…

Very, very well. He made himself some history. The words he said will likely have a real and positive impact on his fortunes. The speech’s main and immediate achievement is that foes of his faith will now have to defend their thinking, in public. But what can they say to counter his high-minded arguments? “Mormons have cooties”?

Romney reintroduced himself to a distracted country–Who is that handsome man saying those nice things?–while defending principles we all, actually, hold close, and hold high.

His text was warmly cool. It covered a lot of ground briskly, in less than 25 minutes. His approach was calm, logical, with an emphasis on clarity. It wasn’t blowhardy, and it wasn’t fancy. The only groaner was, “We do not insist on a single strain of religion–rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith.” It is a great tragedy that there is no replacement for that signal phrase of the 1980s, “Gag me with a spoon.”

Beyond that, the speech was marked by the simplicity that accompanies intellectual confidence.

The Anchoress doesn’t think Romney’s speech will achieve its goal, which is to neutralize his Mormonism.

As far back as 2005, blogger Betsy Newmark was sounding the warning bell on Romney’s difficulties:

I have had a vision of what would happen if Romney were the Republican candidate. No one would attack him explicitly on his religion. That would be too crass. Instead, the media would run human interest stories on the history of the Mormon church, warts and all. We’d read again about Joseph Smith getting the word from the Angel Moroni with the Book of Mormon on golden plates. We’d learn about the persecution suffered by the early Mormons and the assassination of Joseph Smith and how Brigham Young led the Mormons across the country to Utah.

Vivid stories of the Mountain Meadow Massacre would appear on the History Channel. The history of Mormons and polygamy would be introduced in segments on the evening news as well as the fact that the Mormons allowed black ministers only in 1978 and women in 1984. Newsweek and Time would have cover stories looking at the tenets of the Mormon religion with special attention to baptism of dead ancestors, their lack of belief in the Trinity, their conviction that God has a physical body, and their condemnation of homosexuality.

Newmark was prescient. CNN managed to split-screen Romney so that even as he sought to re-assure voters, those watching were being treated to “red-meat –to-the-Evangelicals” (and fodder-for-the-secularists) informational LDS “church history” sidebars reading,

· Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in 1844
· Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God
· They accept the Bible as scripture but not as final authority
· Smith claimed God told him Mormons should have more than one wife
· For years Mormon Church did not admit blacks to the priesthood

I’m sure that, given time, someone at CNN would have dug up the fact that Mormons – in opposition to Christian scripture – believe that marriages exist in heaven and throughout eternity, and thrown that out there to upset Evangelical Christians. The press knows it need not examine the LDS church too closely until such time as Romney seals the nomination – but CNN’s display came off like a warning shot across a bow. Romney has not taken his religion off the table.

Shrinkwrapped writes about a particular patient and her treatment, which leads to this:

Whenever I read someone who soft-pedals the risk from Islamic terrorists, or from radical Islam, whenever I contemplate such exercises in appeasement as the Annapolis conference, or the muted reaction of Western officialdom to such outrages as an English woman/teacher being threatened with jail and 40 lashes for naming a teddy bear “Mohamed”, or a 19 year old Saudi rape victim receiving 200 lashes for being responsible for her own rape, I consider the likely outcome of avoiding the paranoid rage that is always lurking just below the surface of public Islam. 

This is not to re-engage the question of Moderate Islam; in point of fact if the public face of Islam is rage and it is constantly amplified by the MSM and official government actions (both in the Muslim world and in the West), the existence of a significant Moderate Muslim cohort becomes mooted.  The important point from my work is that rage avoided is rage that can only grow; rage that is confronted and dealt with can be understood, channeled, and contained.

We do neither the Muslim world nor the West any favors by behaving as if their rage is so terrifying that we must avoid it at all costs.  If we do not vocally address and confront the rage and its derivatives, we will  one day, once again be forced to confront its violent fruition.

As a non-religious, non-atheist person, I’m fascinated by those who are adamantly certain, to the point of getting religious about it, that god does not exist.

Richard Dawkins, atheist hero of the Left, thinks they need to organize:

When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.

That ole Jewish lobby again, such monopolists!

I love the qualifier “as far as many people can see.” It can be quite useful. For example, “Richard Dawkins is an ignorant anti-Semite as far as many people can see.”

Anyway, he’s ministering to his flock starting a movement.

His organisation, established two months ago, complete with T-shirts bearing a large red A, is the Out Campaign. “It does not mean outing, definitely not … we want to encourage people to come out because there is a big closet population of atheists who need to come out.”

His estimates, which square broadly with official data, show that atheists in the US account for about 10% of the population. “I have had many letters from people saying ‘I don’t dare give my opinions. I am afraid of my family. I am afraid of my wife, I am afraid of my husband. I am afraid of my work people. I am afraid of being fired’.”

Prof Dawkins appeared as one of the stars of the Atheist Alliance convention in Crystal City, Virginia, at the weekend.

He admitted he was “a little bit hesitant” about being an Englishman talking to Americans and he showed “a certain amount of deference” when asked about US politics. “But I think that this country is so powerful and what goes on politically here is so enormously influential, the rest of the world is entitled to have a say. We don’t get the vote here but I think people are entitled to express an opinion.”

Hey, Richard: God spelled backwards is “dog.” And atheist pulled apart is “at heist.” As far as many people can see.

One Cosmos:

There is nothing you can say about anything that isn’t laden with implicit or explicit metaphors, which is one of the reasons why it is so absurd for the materialist to object to spirituality, since the idea of solid matter is itself a sort of airy metaphor, just a fanciful concept based upon the illusions of our nervous system, illusions like “solidity” or unambiguous “place.” Scientists often conflate the abstract and the concrete, and essentially extend the concretions of the nervous system into an abstract worldview. Which is fine, so long as you don’t confuse them with metaphysical truth, or with the Ultimate Real.

For their part, so-called fundamentalist religionists often do the reverse, which is to say, concretize the abstract. But only God can really do that, since the cosmos itself is none other than a concretion in a small corner of the Divine Mind. As mentioned a couple of days ago, one of the purposes of scripture — which employs countless metaphors and other seemingly concrete images — is to follow it back upstream to its hidden source, the “place” from which revelation perpetually flows like a spring from the ground. Indeed, the place from which language itself flows.

That’s just a short excerpt from a long post. Read it all.

MALAYSIA has come up with the world’s first comprehensive guidebook for Muslims in space as its first astronaut prepares to go into orbit next week.The book, Guidelines for Performing Islamic Rites at the International Space Station, teaches the Muslim astronaut how to perform ablutions, determine the location of Mecca when praying, prayer times, and how to fast in space, the Star

“The reason we formulated guidelines for Muslims in space is because we wanted to ensure our astronaut could fully concentrate on his mission, without having to worry about how he should perform his religious obligations in space,” Abdullah Md Zin, a minister for religious affairs, was said.

The 18-page guidebook will be translated into English, Russian, Arabic and possibly more languages for the benefit of future Muslim astronauts, he said.

Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman, who was the first Muslim in space, had said that although he managed to pray and fast, he was not able to face towards Mecca and could not fully kneel on the ground.

 This is no surprise:

A just published study that looked at the religious beliefs of different types of medical doctors in the US has found that psychiatrists are the least religious among the medical specialities.

The study also found that non-psychiatrist physicians who were religious, were least likely to refer a patient with symptoms of mental illness to a psychologist or psychiatrist, and were more likely to refer them to a member of the clergy or religious counsellors.

There’s also a few interesting facts about the demographics of US psychiatrists:

Compared with other physicians, psychiatrists were more likely to be Jewish (29% versus 13%) or without a religious affiliation (17% versus 10%), less likely to be Protestant (27% versus 39%) or Catholic (10% versus 22%), less likely to be religious in general, and more likely to consider themselves spiritual but not religious (33% versus 19%).

The fearless Washington Post won’t run cartoons poking fun at Islam. See what scared them here.

Several years ago I wrote Bill Moyers to complain about a biased PBS story he had done. He wrote back — this was pre-email days — and defended himself. He seemed to a bit thin skinned, not the drawling avuncular guy you see on TV.

Anyway, this came to mind after seeing this bit:

Orrin Judd:

It must be the end of secularism (Spengler, 8/21/07, Asia Times)

Secular liberalism stands helpless before a new century of religious wars, Columbia University Professor Mark Lilla concedes in “The politics of God“, a despairing vision of the political future published in the August 19 New York Times Magazine. It is one of those important statements, like the “end of history”, that will repeat on us indefinitely, like a bad curry. It comprises most of the Times weekend magazine, presented with all the pomposity the newspaper can summon.For the few of us who asked not how to avoid religious war, but rather how best to fight it, Lilla’s essay provides double validation. Not only does he admit that the foundation has crumbled beneath the secular-liberal position but, even better, he lays bare the rank hypocrisy that infected this position from the beginning. Lilla does not love Reason; he merely hates Christianity. He is beaten, and knows he is beaten, but cannot bear to surrender to Western Christians; instead, he proposes to surrender to the Muslims, particularly to Professor Tariq Ramadan. If that sounds strange, it is not my fault. […]

Never mind that the United States, which defined the modern democratic state, was founded by radical Protestant refugees from Europe who set out to build a New Jerusalem, and that impassioned religious faith has characterized American discourse from its founding. Lilla desires us to believe that an elite of political scientists much like himself managed to re-engineer the social order during the 18th century, before those awful fanatics came back. He reminds one of the scientists on the flying island of Laputa in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, who wander with their noses in the air and must be hit on the nose with inflated pig’s bladders to prevent them falling over the edge.

Such, of course, is a main source of the intellectuals particular hatred of America and estrangement from the Anglosphere generally, that we never made the Rationalist error in the first place. Because we rejected their ideas grom the git-go, and held them in contempt throughout, they can’t pretend that no one could have known better.

As members of that other ancient civilization would say, oy veh!

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.

 It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.

No central authority controls doctrine in Islam, one of the world’s great religions. The result? A proliferation of bizarre religious edicts against targets ranging from Salman Rushdie to polio vaccinations. FP collects some of the worst examples here.

HT: Betsy’s Page

As a non-religous person, but one who acknowledges the good that religion can do, I watch the cultural battles over church-state issues with fascination.

Read this lede:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that ordinary taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money.

The 5-4 decision blocks a lawsuit by a group of atheists and agnostics against eight Bush administration officials including the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The Left is going to have a cow. They’re also going to use this for fundraising, pointing to the Bush court with horror.

Of course, their aversion to mixing politics and religion evaporates when it comes to the Reverend Jesse Jackson or the Reverend Al Sharpton. Come to think of it, wasn’t Martin Luther King a reverend, too?

Bush’s “faith-based initiative” always struck me as more practical than ideological. Church-based groups know their communities better than bureaucrats, so why not give them funding to effect social change? It’s not as if the War on Poverty was won by the government.

What, you can be religious and scientific? Lawdy, lawdy.

Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history’s greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law — even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters — and combing the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel for clues about the world’s end.

Do you know which President delivered this speech to the American people?

…in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

It was FDR, delivered on D-Day, June 6th 1944.

If George W. Bush spoke two sentences of that speech, he’d be condemned for tearing down the wall between church and state.

And FDR, the god of modern liberalism, always wanted to be a minister and reveled at opportunities to deliver a sermon.

Breastfeed your coworker?

The head of the Hadith Department in Al-AzharUniversity [in Egypt], Dr. Izzat Atiyya, recently issued a controversial fatwa dealing with breastfeeding of adults. The fatwa stated that a woman who is required to work in private with a man not of her immediate family - a situation that is forbidden by Islamic law - can resolve the problem by breastfeeding the man, which, according to shari’a, turns him into a member of her immediate family.

Oh, Miss Haddad, I’m ready for my coffee break.