Not Unrelated...

A blog post about listening.

Here's the pull quote:

If there’s one question I get asked more than any other question, it’s this: How do I listen to someone when I disagree with them?

There are many ways to answer this. It takes a lot of forgiveness, compassion, patience, and courage to listen in the face of disagreement. I could write pages on each of these principles, but let's start with the one thing that makes forgiveness, compassion, patience, and courage possible.

We must work to hear the person not just the opinion.

 Click here to read it all. You won't regret it.

Grant Hardy says "Not all religions can be true, or even equally true, but they can all be legitimate. By that I mean I can understand what you believe and that you have reasons to believe it even if I do not agree with you."

That may not be an exact quote.

Religion in the Classroom

The 2016 Republican Party platform includes a plank to "incorporate elective Bible classes" into public high schools. As one who teaches the topic of religion and religions in a publicly funded college setting, I'm aware of the tightrope between information and indoctrination, description and devotion. This article expresses some of the issues.

Why Muslims are the World's Fastest-Growing Religious Group

In a nutshell: birthrates.

Click here to see the statistics.

Tikkun Olam

Nice article about Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish philanthropist who built schools for black children in the American south in the early 20th century.

The article is occasioned by the release of a documentary movie about Rosenwald. Here's the trailer:

Men in Hijabs

The hijab is the most visible and, perhaps, controversial symbol of a Muslim woman's faith. A sign of Qur'anically mandated modesty, the hijab is seen by some women as liberating. By others it is seen as oppressive. I've posted quite a few articles and videos about the hijab in this blog. (Here, and here for example).  I've posted a link to a video about non-Muslim women experiencing life as hijabis for a day. But this is something new. Iranian men wearing hijabs in solidarity with women who are required by the government to wear the covering.

Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project

A wealth of information here.

The Ideas Behind ISIS

This is an important article from the Atlantic Council. It examines the ideology that underlies the terrorist group called ISIS.

Muslim Refugees Convert to Christianity

Interesting article here.

Don't miss the video here.

The United States of Islamophobia.

Good article from foreignpolicy.com

Here's a quote to get you started:

A study released last year by consulting firm 416Labs showed that over 25 years of coverage and headlines, the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the New York Times was more negative than cancer, alcohol, and cocaine. The study found there are no positive words in the top 25 associations with Islam and Muslims, and only 8 percent of headlines about those subjects carried a positive connotation. Cancer fared better at 17 percent.

Does This Reliquary Contain the Buddha's Parietal Bone?

Cool article here.

Extremism

Business Insider has a good article detailing the methods Daesh (ISIS) uses to recruit converts online. It references this article from the New York Times, which tells the story of Alex, a young American woman recruited by Daesh. Both are worth reading.

Follow a link from the Business Insider page to read "A Course in the Art of Recruiting" a manual developed by Al-Qaeda and apparently used by Daesh.

On the subject of extremism, this report from the Carnegie Endowment is a must read.