Chris Navin

Full piece here.

“Salafism, as represented by the groups banned today, is incompatible with our peaceful, democratic system,” Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said in a statement.

“DawaFFM, Islamische Audios and An-Nussrah aim to change our society in an aggressive way so that democracy is replaced by a Salafist system and the state of law replaced by sharia,” he went on.’

Related On This Site: It’s the fierce critic of religion, new Atheist, and 68er Christopher Hitchens who has defended free speech most vigorously: Repost-From Beautiful Horizons: ‘Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan at the 92nd Street Y’

From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…

A British Muslim tells his story, suggesting that classical liberalism wouldn’t be a bad idea…as a more entrenched radical British Left and Muslim immigration don’t mix too well: From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’… Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’…

Free speech (used both well and unwell) meets offended Muslims: ‘Mohammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Headbutted‘During Lecture’……From The OC Jewish Experience: ‘UC Irvine Muslim Student Union Suspended’…From Volokh: ‘”South Park” Creators Warned (Threatened) Over Mohammed’

Najat Fawzy Alsaeid At The Center For Islamic Pluralism: ‘The War Of Ideologies In The Arab World’…

More On Lars Hedegaard Via the NY Times: Is Europe Waking Up?

Full piece here.

That’s Thomas Nagel’s (wikipedia) new book ‘Mind And Cosmos.‘

Some drama at the link:

‘For the bargain-basement atheism of our day, it is not enough that there be no God: there must be only matter. Now Nagel’s new book fulfills his old warning. A mob is indeed forming, a mob of materialists, of free-thinking inquisitors.’

The New Republic is generally center-left.

–Edward Feser has been reviewing Nagel’s book and the response to it in a series of posts. Recommended.

–Link from a friend, a response to Nagel: What’s it like to be a human, (instead of a bat?)

–Recently, British thinker Alain De Botton floated the idea of building an ‘atheist temple’ in the heart of London. He recommends combing through religious practices for useful organizing principles in response to the New Atheists. You can read more about it here, which includes a radio interview/podcast.

–A postmodernist temple without the materialist core? The Rothko chapel, in Houston, Texas:

Addition: Paul Rahe has more, and wonders at Steven Pinker’s suspicion of the religious to impede science, as though all sorts of utopians, ideologues, and the closed-minded everywhere aren’t really friends of free inquiry.

From Darwinian Conservatism: ‘Jonathan Haidt’s Darwinian Conservatism’…Evolutionary psychology and moral thinking: Franz De Waal At The NY Times 10/17/10: ‘Morals Without God?’…

Does evo psy have aspirations in creating a sort of secular morality…or non-religious moral and philosophical structure that leads to materialism? Steven Pinker has adopted a rather libertarian set of statistics on lower levels of violence Steven Pinker From The New Republic: The Stupidity Of Dignity…Simon Blackburn Reviews Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature” Via the University Of Cambridge Philosophy Department

Hitchens kept looking at the world through the materialist lens of history, and joined the New Atheists: Via Youtube: Christopher Hitchens On Faith And Virtue

David Sloan Wilson At The Huffington Post: Atheism As a Stealth Religion…Don’t immanentize the eschaton!: From The NY Times: ‘Atheists Sue to Block Display of Cross-Shaped Beam in 9/11 Museum’