Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The Times has a sobering story about the number of potential Al-Qaeda sympathisers that might be found among British Muslims or other Muslims who now live permanently in Great Britain. This ties into our discussions of “moderate” Islam, radical forms of Islam and the double-edged sword of assimilation in the West.
Driving back from the North Carolina mountains tonight, I heard an amazing commentary on NPR that fits into our discussion of the MSM’s heated search for a “moderate” version of Islam that it can hold up as some kind of majority viewpoint. This is part of the whole template that there are “fundamentalists” in all faiths who are equally dangerous in their often violent quest for the illusion of certainty and moral absolutes and then there are “moderates” who, if they all had their way, would all get along as they search for the Eternal Other.
I understand the tension caused by young Master Jeremy’s hell wish. Christian believers should, of course, pray for evangelism, debate, repentance, conversion and dangerous stuff like that. Free speech, even.
Today’s New York Times includes this report about Sleeper Cell, a 10-part Showtime series about a faithful Muslim named Darwyn (yes, we get it) who infiltrates a terrorist group. The Times mentions the producers’ goal of high realism, but also must grant that, while some Muslim FBI agents exist, there’s no way to know if any such agent has infiltrated a terrorist cell.
I have been mulling over a Los Angeles Times story about Iran for several days. I get stuck on something like this every now and then. I used to work on a copy desk.
Egypt will not be the first predominantly Muslim country to conduct stem-cell research. Iranian scientists developed human embryonic stem-cell lines in 2003 with the approval of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader . . . Singapore, where Muslims have a slight majority, has also produced embryonic stem-cell lines. And nonembryonic stem-cell research is conducted in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia . . .
“Police and intelligence were working under the mental framework that Islamists would never attack Spain.”
The current issue of The Economist has a nifty pair of articles about politics in Egypt and the spread of an Islamist party that originated in Egypt and may be set to come to power.
The Pentagon has come out with its findings in re: the controversy that Newsweek kicked up several weeks ago. It isn’t exactly a straight flush [If puns could kill -- ed.] but, as the AP reports, here she blows:
