Mapping religious persecution

Brian Grim of the Pew Research Center and Roger Finke of Pennsylvania State University have a new book, The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century. Guess which religion plays the starring role.

Writing about Islam in today’s politically charged climate is difficult, Grim and Finke admit. Many commentators, they say, tend to be either overly critical or timidly uncritical.

The thinly-veiled xenophobes on one end and the overcompensaters on the other. [Read more…]

Secularism on trial

The European Court of Human Rights is hearing the cases of four British Christians who claim they were fired because of discrimination against their religious beliefs. You remember them. The two Christian women who insisted on wearing necklaces with a cross attached when their jobs required no jewelry. (Here’s a thing, which I hadn’t noticed before. Two women. Necklaces. This doesn’t come up with men. So in fact…it really is a matter of jewelry, not religious belief. [Read more…]

Speed marrying

Lots of people gather in a ballroom at a Washington DC hotel for the the Matrimonial Banquet, a fun evening of speed dating and socializing with semi-arranged marriage as the goal. It’s part of the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, and it is in no way to be confused with a livestock market.

…in recent years, the demand for such banquets has increased, and the society plans to hold them more frequently. More Muslims are embracing them as an acceptable alternative to arranged marriages and the vagaries of 21st-century, American-style dating. Online matchmaking is also popular, but some prefer to meet in person. Saturday night’s banquet was sold out, as was a second one scheduled for Sunday.

Speed spouse-hunting; sounds fabulous.

Raza said he wanted to ask the women whether they wanted to keep working after starting a family, not so much because he had a staunch preference, but to gauge her reaction. “I want to see flexibility,” he said. “Is she angry when I ask? Does she look at me like, ‘You’re so stupid?’ If so, it’s not the right person.”

Aha. If she gives him a funny look on account of how it’s a sinister question, she’s not the right person. (But then would such a person be at a Matrimonial Banquet in the first place?)

 

 

 

I want to walk safely and like a human being

The BBC looks at the joys of being a woman in Cairo.

Said Sadek, a sociologist from the American University in Cairo, says that the problem is deeply rooted in Egyptian society: a mixture of what he calls increasing Islamic conservatism, on the rise since the late 1960s, and old patriarchal attitudes.

“Religious fundamentalism arose, and they began to target women. They want women to go back to the home and not work. [Read more…]

Whose spit, which venom?

I wasn’t going to say anything about this (because it’s too goofy), but other people are, so I will after all, because it’s there – the Comment is Free piece on Atheism+.

First, before we even get to the article – there’s the subhead, and the url. The subhead says

A new movement, Atheism+, has prompted non-believers to spit venom at one another rather than at true believers

And the url obligingly includes the words “spit” and “venom” – and yet Peter McGrath did not use the word “spit” in the article. Venom, yes, but spit, no. [Read more…]

The bible is a fantastic marriage manual

Ah the supposedly “liberal” Anglican church.

Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, is not “liberal.” He demonstrates this in his explanation of the Anglican demand for wifely sumbission in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Many of our young people want to be ”wives and husbands” rather than simply  ”partners” and in their weddings they come as ”bride and groom” rather than  simply two individuals.  They believe that expressing these differences,  including different responsibilities, makes for a better marriage. [Read more…]

Destroying the joint

Jane Caro is feeling sympathetic toward men. It must be embarrassing “to see your normally rather pleasant and decorative gender being represented by such a pack of loudmouthed fools.”

Men like Todd Akin for instance. Or the Anglicans.

In what they clearly regarded as a great leap forward into the 15th century, the Sydney Anglicans triumphantly announced that they had changed the female version of their wedding vows so that women no longer promised to obey, but merely to  submit. [Read more…]

I shouldn’t laugh, but…

But the headline alone is funny enough –

Lost Lake District fell walkers rescued twice

What, I thought, they were rescued and then ran away and got lost again? And the answer is yes.

Volunteers from three rescue teams were call on Friday when a man aged 73 and his daughter in her 50s failed to turn up at accommodation near Keswick.

Rescuers were called the next night to search for the same man, who had been joined by a second daughter.

Team leader Mike Park said the group lacked basic equipment like maps.

Did they think that’s just how  fell walking is done? You tramp along, you get lost, you get rescued, you have a good sleep, you do it all again the next day?

Apparently, yes.

Mr Park, who leads the Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team, said: “After dealing with these people on Friday we thought they would have learned their lesson and perhaps not continue with their planned walk, especially as the elderly man had sustained an ankle injury.

“But unfortunately we got a call at 10.30pm on Saturday to say they had not turned up at their next accommodation in Grasmere.

“We eventually found them at 2am on Sunday off their planned route, but otherwise uninjured.”

I wonder where they are now…