The Christian Science Monitor reports that Uncle Sam wants US Muslims to serve and is taking positive steps to make them feel welcome in our armed services. We should do this simply because we are a society that values freedom of religion. But there is a practical side, indicated in the article–Muslims in [...]
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This morning I awoke to start my early morning blog and e-mail work only to find that co.mments.com had supplied me (at my request) with seven messages alerting me to comments on Ed Brayton’s most recent blog entry on the Richard Dawkins petition debate, representing 27 comments. I only worked my way through [...] John Meunier (Trouble Enough) has been reading William Abraham’s book Waking From Doctrinal Amnesia and making a few comments. Since the Wesleyan Quadrilateral was one of the things that attracted me to the United Methodist Church in the first place, I’m not sure that this is an amnesia I’d like us to wake [...] In the course of the discussion of typology of ID opponents the topic of Richard Dawkins and his claim that religious indoctrination is a form of child abuse came up. Now since I’m a religious educator, and particular one who works in churches and other voluntary organizations, you can imagine that my response to Dawkins and to the petition referenced in Ed’s post, is not positive. I agree fully with Ed that this is not an area for governmental regulation. I also understand the difference between the British system and ours here in the United States. Thus I would support any effort to remove government support from religious education, while opposing any attempt for the government to regulate what is done in private. Update: Richard Dawkins has repudiated the signature on that petition. See post here with a link to the comment in which Dawkins repudiates it. . . . and how I oppose it. There has been an interesting flap that started when MikeGene at Telic Thoughts proposed a typology of ID critics, and Ed Brayton responded, with further response again from MikeGene. I think most of what needs to be said has already been said in those posts and the comments attached to them. I have to note that while I find Telic Thoughts a much more thoughtful and useful blog to read than Uncommon Descent (Translation: I now read the former, but not the latter!), my initial reaction to the typology was much less positive than Ed’s. There is, however, a point to the whole thing, which MikeGene makes. After quoting the following from Ed’s post:
He then says:
There is a good point here, but it is one that is not carried through. Nations welcome, condemn Saddam execution says the MSNBC.com headline, and the story reflects that dual reaction. There’s a large part of the world that believes Saddam Hussein is certainly deserving of punishment, but who condemn all instances of the death penalty. As an opponent of this war from before it started, I’ve found it interesting to hear what war proponents say about me and about other opponents of the war. Some have suggested that I’m some sort of apologist for Saddam Hussein and for his regime. The one sense in which I might approach this is in saying that under Hussein, Iraq and Iran tended to neutralize one another. Both were ruled by brutal regimes, yet the rest of the world got some peace because they had to watch one another so closely. Yet I think that the one clear thing in this war is that removing Saddam from power was justified–in a vacuum–and that allowing him to be executed was appropriate, in the context of the war as it has developed. In terms of results, there will probably be an upsurge of violence at the execution of Saddam, but I really doubt it will make the situation substantially worse. There were no terrorists just biding their time until Saddam was executed, saying, “We’ll leave them alone unless they execute him!” They already hate us and already want to blow us up. In the end, though I think it was justified, I don’t think this execution is going to make much difference. But outside of that vacuum, it doesn’t justify the war. Via the Christian Blog Carnival I found this article on hell with some discussion of various views held by Christians. I’ve just added Kouya Chronicle to the aggregator and blogroll. Kouya Chronicle is written by Eddie and Sue Arthur, who have some interesting involvement in Bible translation. I welcome them to the moderate Christian blogroll. OK, this is getting regular, which I know is contrary to my personality, but here comes another roundup of the http://www.moderatechristian.com”>Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator. I’m seeing a lot of good posts on the blogs covered by the aggregator and would like to help see them get some more attention, so here goes. Note [...] The Christian Carnival CLIV has been posted at From the Anchor Hold. It’s another nice selection and a good job by the host. I didn’t get a submission in because I was out of town and away from a good internet connection, but I hope to have time to call attention to some [...] |
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