Reading Time: 4 minutes Critics of Islam love the Sword Verse. It’s Koran 9:5, or the fifth verse of the ninth Surah, At-Tawbah, “The Repentance”. The bit they like says, “Kill the pagans wherever you find them.” The charge is often applied that Muslims are being instructed by Allah to murder everyone who does not share their religion. At […]
Religious Violence
Posted inFree Expression
The word and the knife
Reading Time: 4 minutes The attack on Salman Rushdie is the latest clash in the battle of the ages: peaceful speech versus those who want to control everyone’s thoughts with violence.
Posted inCritical thinking
Weaponized rosaries: Humanist lessons from The Atlantic’s latest misfire
Reading Time: 6 minutes There is a long and storied history of religion being weaponized to spread fear and rally followers into violence. The KKK burned crosses. The Wehrmacht, like preceding German military forces, wore belts with buckles that read “Gott mit uns”, “God with us”. In India today, saffron, a color strongly associated with Hinduism, is used by […]
Posted inHistory
Fascism in India: Who’s ‘in charge’ of 1.4 billion?
Reading Time: 9 minutes There’s something fascinating, if also disturbing, about Western incuriosity around the world’s largest democracy. 1.4 billion of our world’s 7.8 live in India, a country a third the size of the US, which has under a quarter of India’s population. How can the fortunes of so many mean so little? Nevertheless, India exists in the […]
Posted inReligion
Beautiful ideas, beautiful buildings, terrible evils
Reading Time: 5 minutes Religion exemplifies the dichotomy of the human spirit: the same churches that gave birth to uplifting philosophies and great works of art are also guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity.
Posted inGeneral
Hurrah for Liberals: Free Speech and Free Press
Reading Time: 6 minutes By James A. Haught Many atheists also are progressive “social justice warriors” striving to make life better and more equal for everyone. They include Daylight Atheism contributor James Haught. Here’s a chapter from his 2016 book, Hurrah for Liberals. Free speech and free press mean the same thing: the right to voice any beliefs or […]
Posted inUncategorized
Hurrah for Liberals: Free Speech and Free Press
Reading Time: 6 minutes By James A. Haught Many atheists also are progressive “social justice warriors” striving to make life better and more equal for everyone. They include Daylight Atheism contributor James Haught. Here’s a chapter from his 2016 book, Hurrah for Liberals. Free speech and free press mean the same thing: the right to voice any beliefs or […]
Posted inGeneral
September 11 – A Day of Warning
Reading Time: 3 minutes By James A. Haught September 11 is approaching – the 20th anniversary of the most startling event in the lifetime of most adults. The notorious Muslim suicide terror attack of September 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 Americans and horrified the world. Nineteen young male fanatics, armed only with boxcutters, hijacked four airliners and flew them […]
Posted inGeneral
Only Religious War Remains
Reading Time: 2 minutes By James A. Haught The Taliban seizure of Afghanistan underscores an ugly 21st century fact: Religion-based warfare remains the world’s worst type of armed conflict, and the “holy warriors” display barbaric cruelty. After the CIA under President Reagan helped Muslim tribal warlords drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, the victorious warlords fell into conflict […]
Posted inGeneral
The Kamloops School: Christianity’s Cultural Genocide
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the name of Christianity, Canada’s residential schools committed a catalog of atrocities against native people.