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Mubarak Steps Down; The Birth of a New Egyptian State

By Zaid Hassan

…t for a tiny moment, suspend the dominant fear of religion coming from the West, what do we hope for? If we stop operating from a place of fear and start operating from a place of imagination and possibility, then what can a new Egypt look like? Is it possible to start looking for signs of the truly new? Can we protect these seeds and then start to nurture and grow them in the coming months and years? Can Egypt forge an evolutionary leap when it c…

Does American Zen Need Reform?

By Lisa Webster

…orlie has written a strong critique of the unexamined aspects of the east-west teacher-student relationship, while lamenting this “old and discouraging story.” In forty-six years of Zen practice I’ve observed Asian (and now Western) swamis, tulkus, roshis, rishis, dharma heirs, lineage holders, and masters of various stripes, as well as their disciples, explain that the master’s fiscal extravagance, alcoholism, cruelty, sex addiction, violence, a…

Kosher Nukes: Israeli PM Consults with Radical Rabbi on Iran Strike

By Shalom Goldman

…el’s intention to bomb Iran, or yet another bluff in a campaign to get the West to further tighten sanctions on Tehran. The Israeli government, in this view, has no intention of attacking Iran and starting another Middle East war, but it is willing to go to the brink to get the U.S. to act—and to act before the November elections. The Rabbinic consultation story broke over the weekend when a reporter for an Orthodox Jewish website Kikar HaShabbat…

Why Conservatives are Turning on Beck

By Sarah Posner

…e of those groups shares its supposed goal of imposing shari’ah law in the west. “They want shari’ah law where they’re able to install it in America,” Jasser told me, “in enclaves and court systems.” These groups believe, he insisted, that “the construct of government isn’t based on natural law and reason, but the construct is that the Qu’ran is the constitution and the clerics rule through oligarchy and lay Muslims have to abide by the clerical i…

An Agnostic Biography of the Prophet Muhammad

By Lesley Hazleton

…se I was also impelled by a certain dismay at how little most of us in the West know about Muhammad, especially when Islam is so often in the headlines and there are so many competing claims to “the truth about Islam.” This one man radically changed his world—indeed he’s still changing ours—so it seemed to me vitally important that we be able to get beyond stereotypes and see who he really was. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about Muh…

King Undeterred on Hearings while Shari’ah Law Bans Abound in States

By Sarah Posner

…ings from retired miltary brass and scholars at esteemed institutions like West Point that anti-Muslim rhetoric “feeds into the messages of al Qaeda propagandists,” insists that “the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11 and the ongoing threat to our nation from Islamic jihad were uniquely diabolical and threatening to America’s security, both overseas and in our homeland.” As a result, he rejected both Thompson’s request and the warnings about his hearings be…

Because God Tells Me So; Do Jews Have a “Historic Right” to Israel?

By Shaul Magid

…el in that it would geographically make a two-state solution (with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital) impossible. Back in November, in a Times of Israel blog post, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Gordis, Senior Vice-president of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and self-appointed “defender of Israel,” penned a scathing critique of a letter written by Rabbi Sharon Brous to her congregation IKAR in Los Angeles. Brous, Gordis’ former student, had “dared” to e…

Politics in a Time of Crisis: Sandy? Blame Socialism

By Haroon Moghul

…eave us billions of dollars in the hole, potentially year after year. Even West Virginia, the state probably most associated with American coal, experienced a late-October blizzard that paralyzed much of the state and cost loss of life; a weird consequence of the confluence of weather systems that produced this frankenstorm. We cannot of course trace any single weather event to climate change, but we can be left with certain critical impressions t…

Seven Years After Hurricane Katrina, Reflecting on the Fallacy of Divine Retribution

By The Editors

…rnadoes and other clearly natural disasters, because fires in the American West are necessary, inevitable, and healthy; an ecologically-cleansing process allowing for the renewal of natural lands. And fires such as Colorado Springs just experienced, while certainly natural disasters to a degree, are also man-made disasters, like the destruction leveled in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It’s just that our religious platitudes of God’s wrath, and Go…

Not God’s Army: The Front Lines of the Fight Against Proselytizing in the U.S. Military

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…active duty U.S. Marines, sailors, soldiers, airmen, cadets, midshipman at West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, National Guard, reservists, Coast Guard, and veterans. Around 96% of our clients are practicing Protestants or Roman Catholics. About three-fourths are Protestants of almost every denomination including 21 different variety of Baptists alone. The other one-fourth are Roman Catholic. The other 4% that we represent are Hindu, J…