Daylight Atheism » Foreign Affairs

Theocracy Causes Famine

Ebonmuse — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:55:43 +0000

Recently, I got an e-mail from the Foundation Beyond Belief, which is working with USAID to raise awareness of the continuing drought and famine in the Horn of Africa. The toll in lives is already appalling, including over 29,000 deaths from starvation and outbreaks of measles and cholera, and hundreds more dying every day. The crisis has ... [visit site to read more]

Photo Sunday: Madrid

Ebonmuse — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:09:19 +0000

As I've mentioned, my wife and I took a trip to Spain last month to celebrate our first anniversary. I'm not going to inflict all my vacation photos on you, but we did see some sights that are relevant to the kind of thing I usually write about on Daylight Atheism. If you're interested in seeing more, click through to view the rest of the post.

... [visit site to read more]

Free Speech Still Under Attack

Ebonmuse — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:00:12 +0000

Free speech is always and everywhere under attack in the world, and as depressing as it is to have to keep pointing that out, I think it's vital to highlight it when it happens so that this human right is never taken for granted. Unfortunately, these past few weeks have offered a surfeit of examples.

First, there's India, whose government has quietly issued new rules allowing for the censorship of any internet content ... [visit site to read more]

Open Thread: We Got Him!

Ebonmuse — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:34:54 +0000

I had a post about marriage equality I was going to put up today, but instead, let me just say this:

Holy shit, we killed Osama bin Laden.

I'm still speechless - this doesn't seem real. My reactions, more or less in order:

(1) When I opened my news reader this morning, the first headline was a story from CNN, "Stocks set for higher open after death of Osama bin ... [visit site to read more]

Marching for Oppression

Ebonmuse — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:35:08 +0000

Over the past few months, we've seen amazing and inspiring demonstrations of people power erupting across the Middle East, toppling dictatorships that have been in place for decades. It's far too soon to say what form of government will emerge from these movements - whether they'll give rise to true democracies, or whether new dictatorships will replace the old - and the unwelcome news that Egypt's ... [visit site to read more]

What Comes Next For the Middle East?

Ebonmuse — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:52:30 +0000

The last few weeks in the Middle East have been a story of extraordinary courage and heroism. With dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia lying in ruins and the democratic revolt now spreading to Yemen, Bahrain and Libya, it's not too early to start thinking about what will come next.

The omnipresent fear in Western media is that the newly free countries will be taken over by an Islamist majority. This isn't an unreasonable concern (although it hardly justifies the West's decades of supporting ... [visit site to read more]

Wednesday Link Roundup

Ebonmuse — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:45:19 +0000

I may write more about some of these stories over the weekend, but in the meantime, I just had to make quick mention of them:

• Prominent evangelical pastor John MacArthur, whom Daylight Atheism readers have heard about before, has a visit site to read more]

Women Take the Helm in Egypt

Ebonmuse — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:42:19 +0000

I wrote about the massive uprising in Egypt earlier this week, but events are moving so fast that I have to write again, and by the time you read this post, it may well be outdated. The latest development is that the Mubarak administration is apparently sending armed and organized gangs of thugs out onto the streets to masquerade as counter-protesters, probably in the hopes of provoking a violent confrontation that ... [visit site to read more]

The Beginnings of an Arab Enlightenment?

Ebonmuse — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:42:36 +0000

I've written recently about the vicious, dispiriting murders of human-rights advocates in Pakistan and Uganda. I'm an optimist by temperament, but stories like these are enough to drive me to the edge of despair. In my worst moments, it makes me wonder: is it possible for liberal, secular democracies to survive over the ... [visit site to read more]

Darkness Gathers Over Pakistan

Ebonmuse — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:38:45 +0000

"When we consider the founders of our nation - Jefferson, Washington, Samuel and John Adams, Madison and Monroe, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine and many others - we have before us a list of at least ten and maybe even dozens of great political leaders. They were well-educated. Products of the European Enlightenment, they were students of history. They knew human fallibility and weakness and corruptibility... They attempted to set a course for the United ... [visit site to read more]

Atheists Haven't Forgotten Poland

Ebonmuse — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:00:12 +0000

I've mentioned in the past that as the Catholic church dwindles and ages, it's increasingly having trouble finding enough people who want to join the priesthood, and it's relying heavily on the few Catholic-majority countries remaining, such as Poland, that are net exporters of priests. At the time, I mused:

Even former Catholic strongholds such as Italy and Spain, the article points out, have only a ... [visit site to read more]

Atheists Don't Debate (Except When We Do)

Ebonmuse — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:52:08 +0000

A Review of When Atheism Becomes Religion, Part II

In chapter 3, Hedges gives a two-and-a-half-page-long excerpt of a debate he had with Sam Harris at UCLA in May 2007, moderated by the columnist Robert Scheer, about whether Islam encourages suicide bombing:

HARRIS: OK, well, let me deal with your taking the measure of the Muslim world. Happily we do not assess public opinion by having New York Times journalists go out and live in the Muslim world and make friends and ... [visit site to read more]