Prof. Pam's Religion Blog

Dawkins and Free Speech

Richard Dawkins is dealing with a backlash. This time it isn’t from theists. The prominent atheist faced a torrent of abuse from outraged fans after he announced that all further postings to the discussion forum on his website would be tightly moderated to ward off what he called “something rotten” [...]

Context is key!

Thanks Jason! Share/Bookmark

Update: Iraqi Elections

Super good news re Iraqi March election: Sunni leader *will* participate. NY Times: http://nyti.ms/cC43bE Share/Bookmark

Could Francis make a Middle East comeback?

So many links! So little time! This is from December, 2009, but still relevant. Where are the King’s? The Gandhi’s? The St. Francis’? St. Francis? Yes. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s on my list, Paul Moses’ book, The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace. In [...]

Neda, dictatorship and Iran

Today a student objected to my calling Iran a dictatorship. “It is a democracy,” he said. He did have a point. There are plenty of other places worse than Iran. Travel plans? Nope. I’ll stay right here in greatly flawed California, in the equally “challenged” US of A. There doesn’t seem to be any question [...]

More religious strife in Iraq

It’s sad that there’s been an uptick in suicide bombings and the like in Iraq. This was from earlier this month from the BBC: On Monday a female suicide bomber killed at least 41 and wounded more than 100 people in north-east Baghdad. The pilgrims were making their way to the Imam Hussein shrine in the city [...]

You bet your life!

One of the questions I ask my Intro to Philosophy students is this: If you felt called to do something but knew it would cost you your life, would you not do it and live? Or would you do it and die? The question is prompted by Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr. Would you continue [...]

A cry for help

Daigan pointed me to this Special Comment by Keith Olbermann. It isn’t a rant. It is powerful, though. You just may want to grab some tissues. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Share/Bookmark

Chesterton and Macdonald

I’m not sure I would have liked Chesterton, the person. But I sure do like his writing. I found this little piece he wrote about George Macdonald. Now George is someone I truly believe would be great to pal around with. At least I think so. Carlyle could never have said anything so subtle and simple [...]

New Orleans Rockin’ Funeral

Check out the “rockin’ casket Share/Bookmark