Entries for July 2007

Does Islam say that believers who abandon the faith should be punished, even executed? The answer depends, of course, on whose interpretation of Islam you consult. Conservative literalists in many parts of the world choose texts from the Koran and the Hadith (accounts of the life and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) to support the view that apostasy is to be punished severely. Reformists seeking a more enlightened reading emphasize texts that say there can be no coercion in matters of religion. Does either side have more authority or influence in the Islamic world?

It is hard for a thoroughgoing skeptic to admit this, but maybe we all need a guru, or least need to try one.

In the Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions, a guru is a teacher and spiritual guide—a dispeller of darkness, according to the Sanskrit roots of the word—and in some sects of these traditions, the guru is respected almost as much the truth, wisdom, or God that he leads the disciple to. I suppose my wariness about gurus comes from seeing them being idolized by their followers, particularly those in the West, and, to be even blunter, from seeing many gurus behave like the worst sort of charlatans. Elmer Gantrys of the East dispensing pearls of wisdom for big bucks, if you get my drift.

It's official. Scientists really are less religious than most folks are. In fact, close to 52 percent of American scientists claim no religious affiliation at all, as opposed to 14 percent of the general population. Should we be surprised?

Probably not. But a new study conducted by University of Buffalo sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund at least sheds some helpful light on why so many scientists got to be that way.

Reasonable people keep wondering how or why someone who takes the Hippocratic Oath can contemplate killing innocent civilians. So it is refreshing when a recovering fanatic of the Islamist variety comes forth to tell people that one of the most frequently recycled explanations is utter bunk.

Hassan Butt describes himself as a former member of a British-based jihadi network, and he relates in the Daily Mail how he and his cohorts used to rejoice whenever well-meaning TV analysts attributed acts of Islamist terrorism to "western foreign policy."

Democrats have a right-brain problem. Or sort of. Neuroscience has moved beyond the pop-psychology model that locates all emotions in the right hemisphere of the brain and cool, analytical reason in the left hemisphere. But to the extent that the old model survives as a metaphor, its application to the Democratic Party pretty much sums up one of the big points of Drew Westen's new book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.