Search Results for:

VIPREG2024 1xbet promo code free spins Iraq

Reports of the Death of ISIS Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

…raphic control of the Islamic State has liberated those areas of Syria and Iraq that it held. People who lived in Mosul are able to move freely, but they don’t have anywhere to go. The city is in shambles, and those trying to go elsewhere are herded into massive camps housing tens of thousands of refugees set up by the UN High Commission for Refugees in neighboring Kurdistan. I visited some of these camps in recent months and talked with a group o…

Read More

“What Kind of Islam Is That?”: Talking With Refugees From ISIS

…n an acronym for the Arabic name for the movement, al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham (“the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [wider Syria]”–ISIL or ISIS). By coincidence, the term daesh also means something like the Arabic word for “bullies,” and for that reason ISIS leaders are annoyed by its usage. Probably also for that reason the term persists among those victimized by it. “The Daesh leaders are foreigners,” a Kurdish man from a village…

Read More

Capricology: Tattoos, Blood, Cyber-Dating

…you who study religion may have a good deal to say about the centrality of free will (i.e. law over code) in different religious traditions. One thing that strikes me week by week is how much the show takes as given our understanding of the digital realm: our ability to think in terms of interfaces, memory, avatars, virtual world economies, and the like. I might contrast that with how fundamentally indecipherable a film like Tron was when it was r…

Read More

Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

…nce of an immaterial soul? Science has discovered nothing that contradicts free will. To deny free will’s existence is to deny that our conscious, psychological deliberations—Should I ask my girlfriend to marry me? Should I major in engineering or art?—influence our actions. Such a conclusion flies in the face of common sense. Of course, sometimes we deliberate insincerely, toward a foregone conclusion, or we fail to act upon our resolution. But n…

Read More

How to Prevent Ethnic Cleansing in Syria

…e Mediterranean coastline and some of the inland plains). Meanwhile, as in Iraq, Syria’s Kurds have wrested more sovereignty for themselves, meaning their relationship to Turkey will remain vexing. Syria’s majority Sunnis may be left with what’s in between. Syria would go three ways, like Iraq essentially has. To Intervene or Not Intervene One of the most persuasive arguments against Western intervention in Syria was that neighboring states would…

Read More

Are We Living in a Simulation? Bad Religion, Bad Media Combine in New Doc, ‘A Glitch in the Matrix’

…lation theory Mystwood is playing with—he is the universe, the universe is code, his code is part of the important bit, it’s all a simulation, and he’s ready to play. And, importantly, the rest of us might not matter. The language of programming in A Glitch in the Matrix is compelling and difficult. On the one hand, it is literal computer programming. On the other, intentional or not, the movie invokes the language of “deprogramming” that was comm…

Read More

What is Interfaith Cooperation For?

…ree on abortion continue educating their students together? Shouldn’t anti-Iraq War Sunnis and pro-Iraq War Kurds send their kids to the same Little League baseball camps? Participating in civic activities with people you disagree with on political or theological issues is not, as Hulsether states, “excus(ing) an exceptionalist ideology that deepens ruts in a two-tiered legal system and sanctions US military presence abroad.” It’s being a good cit…

Read More

Right Makes Might: The President as Political Realist

…Obama wants to root himself within the ethical realist tradition embodied by other US presidents, he eventually will acknowledge the moral legacy of his predecessor’s decisions in Afghanistan and, yes, even Iraq. That US national interests were not as imperiled in Iraq as many contended proves the Iraq War something of an outlier. Time will tell, but we should not be surprised by the impact of Saddam Hussein’s ouster as a defining moment in Iraq’…

Read More

Egyptian Da Vinci Code Author Angers Coptic Christians

…of their hatred for our beliefs.” He added that there is “no such thing as freedom of speech when there are blatant attacks against an entire religious community.” Ironically, in an earlier interview, Gobrail spoke out and supported the European cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed wearing a bomb as a turban. He said at the time that freedom of expression “should be upheld no matter what.” These contradictions have left human ri…

Read More

Egypt Goes After Gays to Silence Islamist Critics; South Africa’s ‘Open Mosque’ is Closed; Global LGBT Recap

…ther setback in the struggle for gay rights on the continent. Chad’s penal code is more than half a century old and does not explicitly mention homosexuality. But section 361 of a draft new code states the punishment for anyone who has sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex is 15 to 20 years in jail and a fine of 50,000-500,000 Central African francs (£60-£600), according to a document seen by Agence France-Presse. The cabinet claims that…

Read More