A Picture Worth A Thousand Words?

"It's an act of faith" - al-Shaikh, a young British Muslim woman.

In several threads in this blog we have discussed the increasing separation between the Muslim residents of Britain and their Christian and Secular counterparts. One recent example has been the debate in Clitheroe over the conversion of a church to a mosque.

In the June 22, 2007 issue of the NY Times this issue has become a front page lead story under the byline “Muslims’ Veils Test Limits of Britain’s Tolerance” written by Jane Perlez who wrote in part:

Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. On a Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, groups of black-clad Muslim women relaxed on the green baize lawn among the in-line skaters and badminton players. Their appearance, like little else, has unnerved other Britons, testing the limits of tolerance here and fueling the debate over the role of Muslims in British life.

Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. Meanwhile, there are growing efforts to place legal curbs on the full-face Muslim veil, known as the niqab. There have been numerous examples in the past year. A lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her. A teacher wearing a niqab was dismissed from her school. A student who was barred from wearing a niqab took her case to the courts, and lost. In reaction, the British educational authorities are proposing a ban on the niqab in schools altogether. A leading Labor Party politician, Jack Straw, scolded women last year for coming to see him in his district office in the niqab. Prime Minister Tony Blair has called the niqab a “mark of separation.” David Sexton, a columnist for The Evening Standard, wrote recently that the niqab was an affront and that Britain had been “too deferential.”

Although the number of women wearing the niqab has increased in the past several years, only a tiny percentage of women among Britain’s two million Muslims cover themselves completely. “For me it is not just a piece of clothing, it’s an act of faith, it’s solidarity,” said 24-year-old al-Shaikh, “9/11 was a wake-up call for young Muslims.”

She started experimenting with the niqab at Brunel University in West London, a campus of intense Islamic activism. Other Muslims find the practice objectionable, a step backward for a group that is under pressure after the terrorist attack on London’s transit system in July 2005. “After the July 7 attacks, this is not the time to be antagonizing Britain by presenting Muslims as something sinister,” said Imran Ahmad, the author of “Unimagined,” an autobiography about growing up Muslim in Britain, and the leader of British Muslims for Secular Democracy. “The veil is so steeped in subjugation, I find it so offensive someone would want to create such barriers. It’s retrograde.”

Since South Asians started coming to Britain in large numbers in the 1960s, a small group of usually older, undereducated women have worn the niqab. It was most often seen as a sign of subjugation. Many more Muslim women wear the head scarf, called the hijab, covering all or some of their hair. Unlike in France, Turkey and Tunisia, where students in state schools and civil servants are banned from covering their hair, in Britain, Muslim women can wear the head scarf, and indeed the niqab, almost anywhere, for now.

But that tolerance is slowly eroding. Even some who wear the niqab, like Faatema Mayata, a 24-year-old psychology and religious studies teacher, agreed there were limits. “How can you teach when you are covering your face?” she said. The niqab, to her, is about identity. “If I dressed in a Western way I could be a Hindu, I could be anything,” she said. “This way I feel comfortable in my identity as a Muslim woman.”

Some British commentators have complained that mosques encourage women to wear the niqab, a practice they have said should be stopped. At the East London Mosque, the women were crowded into a small windowless room upstairs, away from the main hall for the men. A handful of young women wore the niqab, and they spoke effusively about their reasons. “Wearing the niqab means you will get a good grade and go to paradise,” said Hodo Muse, 19, a Somali woman. “Every day people are giving me dirty looks for wearing it, but when you wear something for God you get a boost.”

One woman, Sajida Khaton, 24, interviewed as she sat discreetly in a Pizza Hut, said she did not wear the veil on the subway, a precaution her husband encourages for safety reasons. “I’m in Pizza Hut with my son,” said Ms. Khaton, nodding at her 4-year-old and speaking in a soft East London accent that bore no hint of her Bangladeshi heritage. “I was born here, I’ve never been to Bangladesh. I certainly don’t feel Bangladeshi. So when they say, ‘Go back home,’ where should I go?”

Is this picture worth a thousand words?

Posted June 22, 2007

A Price Tag On Death?

"It's a very black thing to talk about," - Economist Andrew Oswald

In a June 05, 2007 article in Scientific American JR Minkel asks:

If money could buy happiness, how much would it take to bring it back after the death of a partner, child or spouse? Two economists have attached dollar values to deaths by comparing the way that lost loved ones lower scores on happiness surveys with the way that greater incomes boost scores.

"It's a very black thing to talk about," says economist Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England, but courts regularly award damages to bereaved survivors after the death of a loved one. Such awards, however, are not necessarily based on well considered rules. In the U.K., the 1976 Fatal Accidents Act provides for a lump sum of $20,000 to a surviving spouse or the parents of a minor. Recent U.S. court cases have valued life at as much as $18 million or as little as $10,000, according to a 2005 study.

Looking for a more equitable way to assign damages, Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee of the University of London reviewed data collected from 10,000 Britons tracked by the British Household Panel Survey, begun in 1991, which records major life events and includes questions designed to gauge overall mental health. They identified the amount of money, on average, that raised a person's mental health score by the same amount that a loved one's death lowered it.

They calculated that it would take $220,000 annually to raise someone's happiness to pre-death levels after a spouse dies, $118,000 for a child, $28,000 for a parent, $16,000 for a friend and only $2,000 for a sibling. Taking into account that some people might be harder hit than others could as much as double those amounts, Oswald and Powdthavee wrote in paper reported at a conference held last week on happiness research, law and policy at the University of Chicago (UC). Oswald agrees that more research is needed before the findings should influence policy, but he stands by the concept. "Just because it's hard to value this subtle thing is no reason not to try to do the best in being fair to victim," he says. "We're trying to make it logical instead of random."

Is this a logical way to compensate for the loss of a loved one?

Posted June 06, 2007

A Republican Speaks Of Evolution

"I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose." - Sam Brownback, Republican candidate for President of the U.S.A.

In the NY Times edition of May 31, 2007 Sam Brownback, a Republican senator from Kansas who is a candidate for the Presidency of the USA commented on a recent question about evolution that he and other Republican candidates were asked concerning their ‘belief’ in evolution. Brownback wrote in an op-ed piece entitled “What I Think About Evolution” as follows:

In our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate, the candidates on stage were asked to raise their hands if they did not “believe” in evolution. As one of those who raised his hand, I think it would be helpful to discuss the issue in a bit more detail and with the seriousness it demands.

The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and reason. The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.

People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.

The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it. There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today. Many questions raised by evolutionary theory — like whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations — go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology.

The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many believers — myself included — reject arguments for evolution that dismiss the possibility of divine causality. Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

Biologists will have their debates about man’s origins, but people of faith can also bring a great deal to the table. For this reason, I oppose the exclusion of either faith or reason from the discussion. An attempt by either to seek a monopoly on these questions would be wrong-headed. As science continues to explore the details of man’s origin, faith can do its part as well. The fundamental question for me is how these theories affect our understanding of the human person. The unique and special place of each and every person in creation is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and intended place in the cosmos. I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose. While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that.

Are you happy to raise your hand to that?

Posted May 31, 2007

What Should Atheists and Humanists Stand For?

"Is Atheism Just a Rant Against Religion?" - Benedicta Cipolla, Religion News Service Saturday, Washington Post, May 26, 2007

Benedicta Cipolla writes: Despite its minority status, atheism has enjoyed the spotlight of late, with several books that feature vehement arguments against religion topping the bestseller lists. But some now say secularists should embrace more than the strident rhetoric poured out in such books as "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris.

At a recent conference marking the 30th anniversary of Harvard's humanist chaplaincy, organizers sought to distance the "new humanism" from the "new atheism." Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein said "At times they've made statements that sound really problematic, and when Sam Harris says science must destroy religion, to me that sounds dangerously close to fundamentalism," Epstein said in an interview after the meeting. "What we need now is a voice that says, 'That is not all there is to atheism.'"

"Atheists are somewhat focused on the one issue of atheism, not looking at how to move forward," said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the Washington-based American Humanist Association. While he appreciates the way the new atheists have raised the profile of nonbelievers, he said humanists differ by their willingness to collaborate with religious leaders on various issues. "Working with religion," he said, "is not what [atheists] are about." Even as he complimented the "military wing of secularism" for combating the intrusion of dogma into political and private life, he told his audience that religious people "are more likely to pay attention to that hand of friendship offered to them . . . than to have suggested to them, let us say, Richard Dawkins's 'The God Delusion,' which sets out to carpet-bomb all religion."

The suggestion that atheists may be fundamentalists in their own right has, unsurprisingly, ruffled feathers."We're not a unified group," said Christopher Hitchens, author of the latest atheist bestseller, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." "But we're of one mind on this: The only thing that counts is free inquiry, science, research, the testing of evidence, the uses of reason, irony, humor and literature, things of this kind. Just because we hold these convictions rather strongly does not mean this attitude can be classified as fundamentalist," Hitchens said.

The humanists are taking advantage of renewed interest in atheism -- in effect riding the coattails of Dawkins and Harris into the mainstream -- to gain attention for their big-tent model. While only a small portion of the nearly 30 million "unaffiliateds" might describe themselves as atheist, Epstein, from Harvard, sees humanism appealing to skeptics, agnostics and those who maintain only cultural aspects of religion.

A common critique of the new atheism is that it conflates belief with religiosity. In his research, Zuckerman has found that people may be outwardly religious not simply because they believe, but also because they're looking for community and solace within congregations. More than a kinder, gentler strain of atheism, humanism seeks to propose a more expansive worldview. "Atheists don't really ask the question, what are the vital needs that religion meets? They give you the sense that religion is the enemy, which is absurd," said Ronald Aronson, professor of humanities at Wayne State University in Detroit.

"There are some questions we secularists have to answer: Who am I, what am I, what can I know? Unless we can answer these questions adequately for ourselves and for others, we can't expect people to even begin to be interested in living without God."

Atheists and Secular Humanists: Who are they, what are they, what can they know?

Posted May 26, 2007

London Bridge Is Falling Down

"Who says you own Britain anyway? Britain belongs to Allah" - Muslim activist Anjem Choudary who praised the 9/11 attack as "magnificent".

In the June 2007 issue of Vainty Fair Christopher Hitchens revisited the neighborhood of his youth, Finsbury Park, London. He writes that it has now become one of the breeding grounds for a new phenomenon - the British jihadist - and he asks how did a nation move from cricket and fish-and-chips to burkas and shoe-bombers in a single generation? Hitchens goes on to say:

Until he was jailed last year on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, a man known to the police of several countries as Abu Hamza al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque. Overnight guests at his mosque's sleeping quarters have included Richard Reid, the man in whose honor we now all have to take off our shoes at the airport, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the missing team member of September 11, 2001. Other visitors included Ahmed Ressam, arrested for trying to blow up LAX for the millennium, and Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian who planned to don an explosive vest and penetrate the American Embassy in Paris. On July 7, 2005 ("7/7," as the British call it), a clutch of bombs exploded in London's transport system. It emerged that one of the suicide murderers had been influenced by the preachings of Abu Hamza, as had two of those attempting to replicate the mission two weeks later. Britain's former head of domestic intelligence, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said "over 100,000 of our citizens consider the July 2005 attacks in London justified." I find myself haunted by a challenge that was offered on the BBC by a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary: a man who has praised the 9/11 murders as "magnificent" and proclaimed that "Britain belongs to Allah." When asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Shari'a, he replied: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" A question that will have to be answered one way or another.

What Hitchens is saying should come as no surprise to anyone. In November 1995 the Electronic Telegraph World News reported that a British-educated economics lecturer, Ramadan Shallah, became the leader of the militant Islamic Jihad movement. In March 1996 the same organization reported that Britain had become the undisputed overseas fund-raising and educational headquarters for Hamas. In August 1997 an Israeli security chief flew to London to investigate claims that suicide bombings in Jerusalem were planned in Britain. This was following reports that the terrorists had entered Israel on British passports. Israeli officials were said to have become increasingly frustrated by what they saw as British foot-dragging in curbing the activities of Palestinian hard-liners and the Israeli government made repeated calls for action to be taken against militants, said to be operating freely in the British capital.

After the massacre in Luxor Jack Straw promised new laws to curb the activities of international terror organisations based in Britain. At that time Britain had become the international centre for Islamic militancy on a huge scale. More Arab newspapers were published in London than anywhere else in the world and the capital had become home to a bewildering variety of radical Islamic fundamentalist movements, many of which made no secret of their commitment to violence and terrorism to achieve their goals.

On February 21, 2001 months before the 911 attacks the NY Times reported: Spurred by growing international alarm about Osama bin Laden's militant networks, the police in Britain and Germany have recently arrested more than a dozen Islamic radicals. American officials say some of those arrested were plotting terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere. American and foreign officials said the arrests were part of an intensified effort to crack down on a network with ties to Mr. bin Laden.” The United States and several of its Arab allies have complained that Britain offers a haven to groups plotting violence in their countries.

After the London 7/7 attack Peter Bergen published an article in the July 8 2005 edition of The New York Times entitled: Our Ally, Our Problem. He wrote: As the shock waves from yesterday's terrorist attacks in London reverberate across the Atlantic, a grim truth should become increasingly clear: one of the greatest terrorist threats to the United States emanates not from domestic sleeper cells or, as is popularly imagined, from the graduates of Middle Eastern madrassas, but from some of the citizens of its closest ally, Britain. Richard C. Reid, the "shoe bomber" who tried to blow up an American Airlines jet flying between Paris and Miami in 2001, is British. So is Saajid Badat, who pled guilty in London four months ago to plotting to use a shoe bomb similar to Mr. Reid's to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001. And Ahmed Omar Sheik, who orchestrated the 2002 kidnapping-murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, is a British citizen of Pakistani descent who graduated from the London School of Economics.

Why have so many of these terrorists come from Britain? Many British Muslims are young and poorly integrated into society and therefore vulnerable to extremism. In fact, Muslims have the youngest age profile of any religious group in Britain; around a third are under the age of 16. The unemployment rate among British Muslims runs almost 10 percentage points above the national average of about 5 percent. In the case of 16- to 24-year-old Muslim men, the unemployment rate is 22 percent. Not surprisingly, polls of British Muslims show a considerable sense of anger. Eight out of 10 believe that the war on terrorism is a war on Islam, while a poll conducted last year, under the auspices of the Guardian newspaper, found a surprising 13 percent who said that further attacks by Al Qaeda or a similar organization on the United States would be justified. British authorities believe that between 300 and 600 British citizens were trained in Qaeda and Taliban camps in Afghanistan. For this reason, and because of Britain's relatively permissive asylum laws, Arab militants living in London sometimes jokingly refer to their hometown as Londonistan.

For more details see London Bridge Is Falling Down and A Muslim Britain.

Is the problem of muslim fundamentalism improving in Britain?

Posted May 22, 2007

Whatever Happened to Sin?

For very practical reasons, I favor letting go of sin as the umbrella description for the human problem - Marcus Borg

In an interesting series of articles, Byron Barlowe, Editor/Webmaster, Leadership University, writes: According to Barna Research Online, "Four out of every ten adults (40%) attend a church service on a typical Sunday. That figure is a significant decline from the early Nineties, when close to half of all adults were found in churches on Sunday...." Not surprisingly, attitudes toward sin seem to have changed and it has become less common--even laughable--as a topic. Do we really still believe in sin or are there psychological and emotional causes to behavior that mitigate our so-called guilt? Of course, the belief system of the atheist doesn't even allow for sin. And, if people are simply products of their environment, as behaviorists/determinists believe, then what point is there in discussing one's culpability for transgressing moral law? After all, as the relativist/Postmodern would ask, "Who's version of 'truth' or morality shall we hold people to?"

Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity believes that although “Disobeying God’s laws” is the most popular meaning of ‘sin’ there are other more important meanings and we should perhaps use multiple images to speak about what is wrong in our societies. For example, he indicates that some of us are blind to the needs and feelings of others, some like the Virginia Tech shooter are in exile, some in Dafur are in bondage. Many of us have closed hearts; we hunger and thirst for new houses or new cars; we are lost in our careers or in our relationships.

Borg believes that each image of sin implies a different solution. Unfortunately with the common understanding of ‘sin’ the solution becomes ‘forgiveness’. But if we’re blind, we need sight, not forgiveness. If we are enslaved, we need liberation, not forgiveness. If we have closed hearts, we need to have our hearts opened, not forgiveness for having closed hearts. Although ‘sin’ is often involved in our human condition, our sad state is not always because of our deeds. Closed hearts are a natural, inevitable result of growing up. We can be in bondage through no fault of our own. Even stronger: we cannot avoid bondage itself, exile, blindness, or developing closed hearts. The message of ‘sin and forgiveness’ doesn’t address these problems well. The use of the word ‘sin’ today usually focuses on an individual’s actions and obscures the reality of ‘social sin’ — much of human suffering and misery is due to collective sin, the political systems of our world. Borg emphasizes that we need to enrich our understanding of the condition from which we need deliverance.

Is 'sin' the best way to name things which may be wrong in the world or is the word too loaded with misunderstanding to be useful?

Posted April 21, 2007

Virginia Tech - Guns, Videos, Mental Health

The windy evening caused the small candles that were handed out to extinguish, so students improvised with their cell phones while singing amazing grace.
George Washington University's vigil for the students of Virginia Tech - The Daily Colonial

Cho Seung-Hui, who shot thirty-two people at Virginia Tech, before taking his own life was severely mentally disturbed. Over seventeen months ago it was known to students, police, school authorities, and mental health experts that he was in need of prolonged mental health care. Despite this, perhaps from fear of lawsuits if action was taken to remove him from school or hospitalize him against his will, he was left to sink deeper into mental illness and delusional behavior.

Several commentators have point out the role played by violent video games in these major mass killings by young people. Games such as Counter-Strike and Super Columbine Massacre are sold to teenagers who can practice, in the same format as U.S. Army soldiers are trained, how to kill numerous people in the shortest possible time while keeping one's heart rate at or below normal levels. The Columbine school teenage shooters trained on such videos as did 16-year-old Jeff Weise of Minnesota, who killed nine people including seven at Red Lake High School, in an attack before taking his own life. The FBI and the Secret Service have reported that the key common thread in shool shootings is violent video games.

There was a double failure in the State of Virginia's gun laws. Despite his mental illness, which was known to police, Cho Seung-Hui had no trouble purchasing several guns and multiple clips of ammunition to go along with them. Further, there was a law in place which prohibited non mentally disturbed students and staff members of Virginia Tech from carrying legally licensed weapons while on campus.

Finally, what was the role played by bullying? Cho Seung-Hui's silence in high school was interpreted as a lack of ability to speak English since he had come to the United States at the age of eight. One of his classmates remarked that because of this he was "an easy target".

Were the dead and wounded at Virginia Tech victims of a failed mental health system, a violent video entertainment industry, a failed gun control policy, and a failure to control bullying by young teenagers?

Posted April 19, 2007

Born Again?

"The strength of much of conservative Christianity is that it has emphasized personal transformation while the strength of much of liberal Christianity is that it has emphasized political transformation. A politically engaged spirituality affirms both spiritual transformation and political transformation"
Marcus Borg - The Heart of Christianity

Recently the media in the United States has fixated on racial and misogynistic comments made by Don Imus about a group of minority women (link). Questions were raised about whether or not Mr. Imus should be forgiven, and if so what would be a suitable act on his behalf that would render justice to those who were aggrieved. CBS and MSNBC decided on retributive justice - Mr Imus was fired. Others believe that this was an incorrect course - Mr Imus should have retained his job and been given an opportunity to provide restorative justice to both the young women and to the society at large. The restorative justice group points to the use of similar language in the vernacular of black culture particularly that evidenced in hip-hop rap music. For example an Academy oscar was awarded for a song (link) by Rap artists which contained worse terminology than that employed by Mr. Imus

In this blog we have explored what is understood about the concept of giving and receiving forgiveness (link). The Imus story offers an additional opportunity for us to explore what is meant by the concept of being 'born again' and the implications of being born again on how one seeks to provide 'justice' in a modern society.

The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg (link) addresses both of these issues. Borg writes: Unfortunately, mainline Christians have generally allowed their more conservative Christian brothers/sisters to have a near monopoly on 'born again' language. There are a number of reasons for this. For some, the language may be too hot and heavy because of its associations with 'revivals' and a 'sweaty' kind of Christianity.

Moreover, the notion is sometimes quite narrowly defined. In some Christian circles, to be born again can mean accepting a certain set of beliefs, a particular conservative theology, often expressed in a question using a salvation formula such as, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?" In at least the first of the 'left behind' novels that have been best-sellers for the last half decade, to be born again is defined even more narrowly by being virtually equated with believing in the 'rapture' and the imminent second coming of Jesus. In addition, most of have known at least one person who was 'born again' in a remarkably unattractive way. When being born again leads to a rigid kind of righteousness, judgmentalism, and sharp boundaries between an in-group and an out-group, it is either not a genuine born-again experience or it has a lot of static in it".

What is your understanding of being born again and what does being born again mean for seeking to establish a more just society?

Posted April 13, 2007

A Muslim Britain?

At St. Mary Magdalene Church, where the first stone was laid in the 12th century, the congregation has dropped to about 90 people on Sunday, and the average age of congregants is 75. Christenings are now rare, and there are only seven weddings booked for the year. - Anglican vicar, Philip Dearden

In an article in the NY times on April 2, 2007 Jane Perlez wrote in part: Clitheroe, England — This town opted to allow a former Christian church to become a mosque. The vote marked the end of a bitter struggle by the Muslim population to establish a place of worship, one that will put a mosque in a Methodist church. The battle underscored Britain’s unease with its Muslim minority, and particularly the infiltration of terrorist cells among the faithful, whose devotion has challenged an increasingly secular Britain’s sense of itself. Britain may continue to regard itself as a Christian nation but practicing Muslims are likely to outnumber church-attending Christians in several decades. With a population of 14,500 people in Clitheroe liked to think they represented a last barrier to the mosques that had become features in surrounding industrial towns. But Clitheroe had not bargained on the determination of Mr. Arshad - the British-born son of Mohamed Arshad, who came to Clitheroe from Rawalpindi in 1965.

“I thought, why should I be treated any less well?” Mr. Arshad said. Mr. Arshad and his father made eight applications for a mosque, and proposed buying a modest terrace house to be used for worship. Often there was booing at council meetings, and, he said, cries of “Go home, Paki! On the night of the vote on the mosque, the council chambers overflowed. The vote was 7 to 5 for the mosque; there was no violence. But the fight is hardly over. Beneath the official vote lies a river of resentment, some of the church’s windows have been smashed.

Today, of its Christians, only about 6 percent are regulars at church. Britain’s Muslims are far more regular mosque attendants. In working-class neighborhoods, the differences are stark between white Britons and immigrant Muslim Asians. The whites are less likely to marry, and they bear more children out of wedlock, trends many Muslims, find disturbing. The high rate of alcohol consumption among whites sets the groups apart, too. Increasing numbers of neighborhoods have become exclusively Muslim. Mr. Dearden, 64, said. “People don’t have a conscience about religion; they don’t come anymore.” In the nearby town of Kendal the Anglican vicar says Islam could now be seen as an alternative to Christianity. On a recent Sunday, only one child turned up to Sunday school classes. The story books, paper and pencils lay unused as an elderly teacher tutored the 6-year-old boy in an otherwise empty room. In contrast, Shamim Ahmed Miah, 26, a British-born mufti of Pakistani origin in Accrington, a town next to Clitheroe, teaches 30 Arabic and Koranic students, ages 5 to 15, in three sessions daily.

A Secular Humanist or Muslim Britain?

Posted April 2, 2007

Compassion

"If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
Mother Teresa.
Paul Slovic writes in the March 2007 issue of Foreign Policy that people don’t ignore mass killings because they lack compassion. Rather, it’s the horrific statistics of genocide and mass murder that may paralyze us into inaction. Those hoping that grim numbers alone will spur us to action in places like Darfur have no hope at all. Most people are caring and will exert great effort to rescue “the one” whose plight comes to their attention. But these same people often become numbly indifferent to the plight of “the one” who is “one of many” in a much greater problem.

It’s happening right now in regards to Darfur, where over 200,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the past four years and at least another 2.5 million have been driven from their homes.

Slovic says: "A recent study I conducted with Deborah Small of the University of Pennsylvania and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University found that donations to aid a starving 7-year-old child in Africa declined sharply when her image was accompanied by a statistical summary of the millions of needy children like her in other African countries. The numbers appeared to interfere with people’s feelings of compassion toward the young victim. When writer Annie Dillard was struggling to comprehend the mass human tragedies that the world ignores, she asked, “At what number do other individuals blur for me?” In other words, when does “compassion fatigue” set in? Our research suggests that the “blurring” of individuals may begin as early as the number two.

Why aren’t these horrific statistics sparking us to action? Why do good people ignore mass murder and genocide?

Paul Slovic is president of Decision Research and professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. He studies risk and decision-making. Read his article at

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3751

Posted March, 15, 2007