BBC News: Iranian insults against Bruni ‘unacceptable’.
“On Tuesday, Kayhan, which acts as a mouthpiece for Iran’s conservative Islamic leadership, reiterated its attack, adding that the Italian-born French first lady deserved to die for supporting her.” Once supposes France will turn a jaundiced eye on further nuclear program developments from Iran, both in direct relations and via the U.N.
Discover Magazine: When the ancients were wise.
“The Renaissance had been an efflorescence of learning, but it had been retarded in its progress in some ways because of the reverence for ancient precedents. This is most evident in medicine and physics, where Galen and Aristotle led scientists astray. There are some domains where the ancients still hold sway today. Religion is one.”
Big Questions Online: SETI’s Challenge to Religion.
”This awkward conundrum was confronted head-on by theologians several centuries ago, resulting in a lively debate. Some advocated multiple incarnations scattered around the universe; others insisted that the Word was delivered to humans alone and that it is our cosmic destiny to spread it to other planets, even if the aliens are incomparably wiser than we are.” Nothing earthshattering here, but worth a skim nonetheless.
CJR: Obama Not Muslim, Islam Not Bad.
Yes, well ... popular opinion forced our most famous Presidential deist, Thomas Jefferson, to attend weekly services in the House of Representatives so as not to give the opposition an easy target. I suppose some right-wing journalist will scope out the carpet in the Oval Office and look for parallel wear-patterns that point to Mecca. Remove all the East-West oriented rocking chairs, Mr President.
Peaceful Tomorrows: 9/11 Families Applaud President Obama’s Support of Religious Freedom.
The media’s covering one widow and her right-wing organization as if they speak for all ‘9/11 widows’; the bulk of 9/11 families support the community center.
Salon: Iran was not Jimmy Carter’s fault.
”If we want to blame someone for this “mad regime” why not Dwight Eisenhower, who was president in 1953 when a U.S-British backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh?” Read ’Rooftops of Tehran‘, by Mahbod Seraji, for the counterpoint to any pro-Shah sentiments, and see what the Iranian people actually believed. A work of fiction, but congruent with what I know through friends and acquaintances.
ProPublica: Experts: Argue All You Want, Mosque Project on Firm Legal Ground.
“Focus for a moment on basic rule of law: 45 Park Place is located in a C6-4 zoning classification (’General Central Commercial’) where houses of worship are allowed ‘as of right.’ Assuming that this particular proposed house of worship meets the setback, height, and bulk requirements of the Lower Manhattan special zoning district, the city’s denial of a zoning compliance permit would be flagrantly ultra vires: Building inspectors, after all, cannot simply fabricate a new ‘honor-the-9/11-dead” zoning district on the spot’.”
365/227.
St. Francis, doing the hula (click to see what was really going on).
WSJ: Bulgaria Looks to John the Baptist to Resurrect Flagging Economy.
”… they lack the ‘box-office draw’ of better-known religious attractions such as the Shroud, which believers say is Christ’s burial cloth.” Don’t know about that. When I linked the previous article, MSN picked up my link, and my traffic blew through the stratosphere.
NY Times: Philosophy and Faith.
The Atlantic: Mayor Bloomberg Suddenly Gets Religion on Private Property.
”… I’m glad to hear that Michael Bloomberg has suddenly discovered that there are some restrictions on the government’s ability to dictate the uses of private property.” Freedom of religion is a Constitutional guarantee; end of story, really. To oppose that fact is to disrespect the Constitution and the Founders. You’d think authentic ‘conservatives’ would realize that - but no, some are using this issue to push their bigoted agenda.
the sofia echo: Remains of John the Baptist found in Bulgaria.
More accurate to say ancient relics of St. John the Baptist were found.
BBC News: Vatican paper dismisses own Caravaggio claims.
”The quality isn’t there whereas, in a Caravaggio, it always is.” That puts ‘paid’ on that account, then.
NY Times: Museum’s Display of Remains Reflects Latest Chapter in Galileo’s Legacy.
“Now a particularly enduring Catholic practice is on prominent display in, of all places, Florence’s history of science museum, recently renovated and renamed to honor Galileo: Modern-day supporters of the famous heretic are exhibiting newly recovered bits of his body — three fingers and a gnarly molar sliced from his corpse nearly a century after he died — as if they were the relics of an actual saint.”
Comics Alliance: Super Heroes vs. the Westboro Baptist Church.
Washington Times: Egyptian leader’s health on radar of U.S.
It came to me the other week, that we hadn’t seen Mubarak in public for a long time. If it’s pancreas, I give him six months. Hope it’s a peaceful transition, but that seems to never play out at those longitudes.
Buzz Beast: Dagger Rosary by Pamela Love.
I suppose this is for those who have a love/hate relationship with Catholicism?
NY Times: Evangelicals Are Joining Obama on Immigration Overhaul.
”‘My message to Republican leaders,’ said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the evangelical National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and one of the leaders who engaged his non-Hispanic peers, ‘is if you’re anti-immigration reform, you’re anti-Latino, and if you’re anti-Latino, you are anti-Christian church in America, and you are anti-evangelical.’” Excommunication used to be the political tool of choice in the olden days. Nice to see we’ve come so far.
New Scientist: Pope’s astronomer: ‘Science helps me be a priest.’
”So, for example, you cannot use science to deny the existence of God. You can believe whatever you want but you cannot use science to prove that God does not exist.” Flip this around, some are using the ‘existence of God’ to deny good science. God can’t be made an excuse for returning us to a modern version of spontaneous generation. I think more highly of God than that — he gave us brains, and the wit to use them.
SF New Mexican: Community restores a symbol of faith.
”Hundreds of parishioners gathered over two weeks under the summer sun to plaster the thick walls of the San Francisco de Asis Church with a fresh coat of mud, from the massive buttresses at the back of the fortress-like church to the courtyard walls and the tops of the bell towers.” It takes a close-knit community to keep a church living and breathing.
Dailly Mail.UK: World’s first illustrated Christian bible is discovered at Ethiopian monastery.
There are likely many historical Christian treasures hidden away in Ethiopia. Even the Ark.
New Scientist CultureLab: Decoding the ancient Egyptians’ stone sky map.
Buzz Beast: Spirito Martini Lounge.
From Anglican Church to drinking establishment. As a former coworker used to say in jest, “Now I know you goin’ to hell with your shoes on backwards!”
Miller-McCune Online: And God Said, ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’.
”The biggest question remains unanswered: Is there a way of living comfortably in uncertainty?” Ask a physicist.
