Wilders Could Be In Next Dutch Gov't

The man likely to become the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte of the VVD (The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy), has stated that his Party (which is expected to garner the most votes in Wednesday's national election, but not an outright majority) could form a ruling parliamentary coalition with the Christian Democrats and with Geert Wilders' PVV (Party for Freedom). This is according to David Charter, writing for the UK Times and reporting from the Hague.

Rutte also said that he would be open to a coalition with the Labor Party as well, and he also characterized Wilders as "quite left-wing" on economic issues.

According to the most recent polls, Wilders' PVV is set to double it's strength in the Dutch parliament from 9 to 18 seats. That still puts it in fourth place, though, behind the Christian Democrats (24 seats), Labour (29) and the Rutte's VVD (36).

In addition to his "leftist" economic policies, Wilders is also a strong supporter of gay rights and women's rights. He and his party are routinely labeled as "right-wing" because of their strong, unapologetic criticism of Islam as a "totalitarian ideology".

Until recently Wilders had enjoyed uncritical support from the American right, but then, quite suddenly, Wilders came under fire from prominent members of the FOX News punditocracy (more on that here); and Wilders also had a recent falling out with the Christian Action Network (CAN), which had planned to release a film about Wilders, until Wilders personally and quite publicly distanced himself from the group when he became aware of homophobic actions and statements by CAN (more on that here).

Wilders gained international attention in 2008 when he released the film Fitna, a highly controversial 18 minute long documentary which is extremely critical of Islam.

Another "Peace Activist" Confirms IDF Version of Events

The following is from the transcript of an interview with Kevin Neish conducted live this morning by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Neish is a Canadian citizen and a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. He spoke by phone with Goodman from Istanbul.

I stepped out on the deck at just one point, just to look at the Israeli rigid-hulled Zodiacs, big—I think forty-feet long, I believe, they’re huge—and gunboats, regular-hulled gunboats, just sort of, I guess, roaring up on either side. And then, I spent—I don’t know what time it was. I’ve been told it was 4:00, 4:30. I didn’t check my watch. But then, from there, I watched them pull in a couple of Israeli commandos, I guess, and strip them of their weapons and then pack them down the stairs. And then the wounded, wounded and dead—the staircase was slick with blood on one side where I came down. Blood splattered on my clothing.

This corroborates what another eyewitness "peace activist", Kevin Ovenden, said yesterday to the British Stalinist newspaper The Morning Star. It also corroborates the IDF version of what really happened aboard the Mavi Marmara.

I realize that truth is famously the first casualty of war, and that this is war. But the fact is that the truth is not really all that difficult to find, at least in this case.

And the fact is that those aboard the Mavi Marmara were ready for a fight and got the fight they were itching for. This does not justify Israeli policy in Gaza. But the great injustices done to the Palestinians do not have the magical power to alter reality.

Click here for the complete transcript (along with various audio formats) of this morning's Democracy Now interview, which also includes Kevin Ovenden who, quite surprisingly, now openly states that it is "difficult to ascertain" whether or not IDF forces opened fire before they were themselves attacked by those on the ship. Ovenden also once again confirms that two IDF soldiers were forcibly abducted and held prisoner by the "peace activists" aboard the "aid ship":

two Israeli soldiers that I know of were overpowered, as people instinctively resisted with bare hands and whatever was around them—they were overpowered, but they were not harmed. The injuries they sustained were only those of being knocked to the ground. They were disarmed and handed back to the Israeli military as soon as was possible, which is after they had murdered nine people onboard the ship. There was every opportunity to inflict harm on those two soldiers, and no harm was inflicted. They were simply kept apart and dealt with by the medical team onboard.

Israel has certainly reaped the whirlwind as a result of it's occupation and continued oppression of Gaza and the West Bank and of all Palestinians. But "peace activists" who stupidly seek out confrontations with the IDF and intentionally provoke and initiate violence in order to generate international headlines are playing with fire. If they want to fight the IDF let them join Hamas, if they haven't already.

Gaza Flotilla: Rush To Judgement?

Three videos (scroll down) show that a group of people aboard the Mavi Marmara "aid ship" were armed with steel rods, broken bottles, nunchucks, slingshots, knives and incendiary and explosive weapons. The videos also show that this group of people prepared their weapons in advance and were waiting for the IDF commandos when they came to board the ship, and that when the Israelis did arrive the armed group put up a vigorous fight.

In fact, one of those aboard, Kevin Ovenden, a former George Galloway staffer who spoke to the British leftist paper Morning Star, revealed that the ship's Turkish crew abducted two IDF soldiers who had been wounded in the course of the melee and held them captive:

Mr Ovenden praised the Turkish crew of the vessel as "truly heroic in their attempts to prevent further loss of life," saying they had taken two injured Israeli soldiers inside the ship to prevent them being hurt further in the panic and chaos.

From the reports I've seen there was only serious violence on board the Mavi Marmara (there were five other ships boarded and seized by the IDF at the same time), which indicates that there was something different about this particular ship -- probably the people on it.

Here is a video of the fighting onboard the Mavi Marmara:


And here is a video that shows preparations on board the Mavi Marmara just prior to the beginning of the IDF boarding:


Here is a third video showing the greeting given to the IDF by the "peace activists" aboard the Mavi Marmara:

Arundhati Roy: "It ought to be an armed movement ... I do not care ... Pick me up, put me in jail."

This Press Trust of India story is making the rounds:

Thu, Jun 3 02:52 PM

Mumbai, Jun 3 (PTI) Author-activist Arundhati Roy, who has been accused of romanticising Naxalism, has said she will continue to back the Maoists' armed struggle even if she is put behind bars. While claiming that she does not support violence, the 48-year-old Booker prize winner feels that the Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle as the Gandhian way would not have been successful in the present context.

"The Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle. I am not supporting violence.

"But I am also completely against contemptuous atrocities-based political analysis," she said delivering a lecture on 'The War on People' organised by the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights here late last night. "It ought to be an armed movement.

"Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here. People have debated long before choosing this form of struggle," Roy, who had saluted the "people of Dantewada" after 76 CRPF and police personnel were mowed down by Maoists in the deadliest attack targeting security forces, said.

"I am on this side of line. I do not care. Pick me up put me in jail," she asserted. While terming the naxalite violence as a corollary to the battle between the tribals and corporate houses to gain control over natural resources like minerals, water and forests, she said, "While 99 per cent of Maoists are tribals, 99 per cent of tribals are not Maoists.

"What the government calls Maoists corridor, is in fact MoU-ist corridor. You have an MoU on every mountain, river.

"MoUs signed by biggest corporations in the world who are waiting to gain hold of the resources," Roy said. Explaining the economics behind iron ore mining, Arundhati quoting from Lokayukta''s report said, while the government earns Rs 24 per tonne, the mining company gets Rs 5,000.

More Prayer Candles, Please!

You may have missed it (I know I did) but last year a store in San Francisco started selling its own line of Saint Obama Prayer Candles.

The candle is actually a knock off of an "official" Saint. Juan Martin de Porres was born in 1579 in Lima, Peru, and died in 1639. His father was a Spanish lord, and his mother was a former slave, to whom the nobleman was not married.

St. Martin was a vegetarian and included among the miracles attributed to him are bilocation, levitation, miraculous healing, and communication with animals. He was beatified in 1962 and his feast day is November 3rd. Some consider him the patron saint of interracial couples and of racial harmony.

In addition to the original, Indioproducts.com (one of a handful of major players in the Prayer Candle industry, which is estimated to be worth between $100M and $2B annually) now sells their own Obama Hope Prayer Candle, which bears no resemblance to St. Martin de Porres or any other actual saint.

Prayer candles are usually associated with Catholicism, Spiritism, various Latin American folk-beliefs, and Afro-Carribean religions (especially Santeria). But some enterprising visionaries have started to branch out with candles inspired by Eastern religions, Astrology, etc. The Wandering Gypsy Soul Candle Company has a beautiful line of Muses of the Zodiac candles as well as "Chakra Novena" and "Laughing Buddha" candles.

But it would be hard to beat the offbeat selection of Prayer Candles at the Vintage Religion website, whose self-description is "unique gifts inspired by the religions and cultures of the world." Alongside their nice selection of traditional and folk-Catholic candles (and also some very pretty rosaries and other standard items -- but they also carry "Jesus Hates It When You Smoke" ashtrays!), Vintage Religion also has an assortment of Hindu-themed Prayer Candles honoring Ganesh, Shiva, Lakshmi, Kali, Durga, Krishna and also a Radha/Krishna candle.

In addition to their Hindu themed candles, Vintage Religion also sells three Buddhist themed candles (including Kuan Yin), four different Frida Kahlo candles, and a Chinese Dragon candle. They also have a Saint Martin de Porres candle that looks like it was the model for the Saint Obama candle mentioned earlier.

One artist who has productively explored what can be done with the Prayer Candle as a visual medium is Vicky Berndt, who, in addition to the Judy Garland candle pictured to the right, also has produced candles honoring Loretta Lynn, Karen Carpenter, Little Richard, Salvador Dali and more.

Berndt appears to approach the whole Prayer Candle thang strictly from a popular culture angle, with no real interest in any any spiritual significance. That's kind of a shame, but her candles are so beautiful and ingenious just as they are that it is unfair to criticize for them for what they are not.

I also should mention that Robert Place, designer of the Alchemical Tarot, now sells a beautiful Prayer Candle sporting the High Priestess image from that deck (pictured to the left).

My purpose here, though, transcends mere pimpage for a few online artists and merchants whose Prayer Candles meet and exceed my expectations. More importantly, these examples help to highlight two features of the Prayer Candle phenomenon that might be overlooked (although they are already present even there) in the more ordinary candles found on the shelves at your local grocery store or Walmart.

First of all, the mass produced, low-cost nature of the Prayer Candle makes it an inviting template for experimentation. To the right kind of mind, every Prayer Candle has "your crazy idea HERE" emblazoned across it. And the Prayer Candle's "industrial" characteristics also lend themselves to a market-driven selection process to determine which ideas not only tickle the artist's fancy, but resonate with a wider audience. There are severe limits to this second point, however, unless you have friends at one of the major candle manufacturers or the distributors.

When the above two considerations (low-cost mass production + market-driven positive feedback) are solidly grounded in mass pop-culture, as opposed to the self-conscious boutique pop-culture-as-kitsch POV of someone like Vicky Berndt, though, they take on a new life. In real pop-culture the innovativeness of the individual artist takes a back seat (and then some) to what sells. But the results can be just as startling and fascinating as Berndt's latest brainchild: her Michael Jackson as Krishna candles.

Because of its mass appeal and mass-production the Prayer Candle becomes an unphotoshopped snap-shot of real-world spirituality in all its glorious messiness: inclusive of love-magic, money-magic, legal-magic, healing, devotion and spiritual enlightenment. When it comes to Prayer Candles it seems that nothing is censored simply because it is too strange or crude or even profane, nor is there any hesitation or embarrassment about expressing the loftiest and most selfless religious aspirations. Indeed Saint Augustine of Hippo must take his place beside Jesus Malverde (considered to be the Patron Saint of Drug Dealers).

One can almost imagine Huston Smith gazing at the shelves of his local Botanica when he wrote these words:

What a strange fellowship this is, the God-seekers in every land, lifting up their voices in the most disparate ways imaginable to the God of all life. How does it sound from above? Like bedlam, or do these strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? Does one faith carry the lead, or do the parts share in counterpoint and antiphony where not in full-throated chorus?

We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine.
[The World's Religions, p. 2]

[This is a follow-up post to Lady GaGa Prayer Candles.]
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Another negative review of Prothero's "God Is Not One"

The slow motion epic fail continues.

Yet another negative review of Stephen Prothero's God Is Not One has appeared. This one was written by Leo D. Lefebure (Professor and Matteo Ricci Chair at the Georgetown University Theology Department), and appears in today's online edition of The Christian Century.

As was the case with the two negative reviews that appeared just a little over a week ago in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe (by Jay Tolson and Alec Solomita, respectively), Lefebure seems broadly sympathetic to Prothero's stated goal, but he also clearly feels that Prothero has completely failed to deliver. (For an overview of those other two reviews, along with relevant links, see my previous post: "Holy Crap! Two reasonably intelligent reviews of Stephen Prothero's God Is Not One".)

Lefebure's analysis of Prothero is calm, methodical, and withering.

Lefebure begins (after an introductory paragraph that tells you more in five sentences about what Prothero is actually trying to do, than Prothero himself ever bothers to tell the reader in his entire book) by pointing out that there is nothing original in Prothero's rejection of perennialism. Then he moves on to point out that: "Any astute defender of the Perennialist School would, of course, readily acknowledge the kind of surface differences that Prothero notes." (This is Lefebure's nice way of saying that Prothero's whole schtick is nothing but a long drawn-out straw man argument, rather than a serious critique of the Perennialist School.)

Lefebure then takes on Prothero's bizarre accusation that Gandhi's teachings on religious tolerance have directly and significantly contributed to religious intolerance and violence. And Prothero's crude sleight-of-hand, in which he attempts to consign any commonality among humanity's religions to the field of ethics, and, thereby, deny that religions as religions share anything in common, is also deftly exposed by Lefebure.

And there's more, including some factual whoppers that undermine any value that Prothero's book might have even as just another popular survey of world religions.


Previous posts from this blog on Stephen Prothero's "God Is Not One":
Holy Crap! Two reasonably intelligent reviews of Stephen Prothero's God Is Not One
Good Fences Make Good Religions?
Who, if anyone, is Stephen Prothero arguing with, other than himself?
How Stephen Prothero mangles the economics-politics-religion analogy
The basis of universal spirituality
Contra Prothero

GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE

.
General, your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.

[From a German War Primer, by Bertolt Brecht]

Angelique Kidjo on Voodoo and Catholicism

This is an excerpt from a June, 1998 interview with Angelique Kidjo (AK) done by Nick Harcourt (NH) of radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, CA, during the "Morning Becomes Eclectic" show. The transcript is from here. The excerpt starts where Angelique is already talking about her tour at the time and she starts to talk about her two religions ....

AK: I decided to move forward, to go and meet the black Diaspora that comes basically from Africa that are in the world. And my first stop is in America. And, of course, that album has a sound of R&B and soul and funk, that was my first influences. And my second stop is gonna be in Brazil, and my third stop is gonna be in Cuba, Haiti, and New Orleans because all of those places keep something which is very close to my country which is the Voodoo religion and the rhythms.
NH: Let's talk about the religion a little bit if you can before we play some more music. I know that you actually share two religions, I mean, you have Catholic. And you have animism. How do you juxtapose, I mean use both of those religions, how can they both be a part of your life? I'm not saying that they shouldn't be. I'm just interested to know how do you make these two religions both a part of who you are?
AK: When the missionaries arrived in Benin, for example, and they brought the religion, they asked everyone to be baptized, and everybody had been baptized but, we told them from day one that our religion we wanna keep it because our religion is very important for us. And they were obliged to accept that, there was no way for them not to accept that because people wouldn't go to their church and not go into their Voodoo ceremony after. So the first cathedral that had been built in the history of the Catholic religion in Benin was built right in front of the Temple of Python. And those two priests were very close friends. And how did those affect my life and I incorporate them in my life? It's simple. In the Voodoo religion they teach us to respect the nature and to respect every human being. Everything that is alive on this earth we have to have respect for because we believe in Voodoo religion that without the nature, a man would not exist, a human being would not exist. Therefore, we choose to believe in the thunder, in the lightning, in the water, in all the elements that are surrounding us, our lives. Snake is very important because they say in the mythology of the Voodoo religion that this world had been created by two snakes, male and female; during 40 days they created all the planets. And at the dawn of the 41st day, they embraced themselves and left the earth to leave the human being to do what they have to do. And those snakes are called aida-wedo, which means what belongs to the earth belongs to you. And when those gods come to reward somebody who works for a community, they come in terms of rainbow. And they call these two rainbows rainbow snake. And in Haiti, they call it aida-Houeda, and everything stays like that because, what is very important for me is the care of each other. That's what Catholic religion teaches us: You have to love each other. God doesn't send us on the earth to kill each other. He sent us for us to use our brain and our self-conscience to work for a better life for every individual and for everybody. And that's one of the things I really appreciate, too, in the Voodoo religion, where we deal with community.
NH: Well, I like that you can take both of those beliefs because animism itself, or Voodoo, is obviously really a belief of everything having a purpose and everything having a soul and everything having a reason, and taking the caring part of the Catholic religion and putting it together. That makes sense to me. Anyway, why don't we have some more music, and then we'll come back and talk some more in a little while. What's the next piece you're gonna play for us?
AK: The next song I wanna sing is gonna be an a capella song a singer from Togo next door to Benin used to sing. It's called "Blewu," and that singer was one of my biggest influences, too, in Africa. She died in a car accident in 1973, and it was a loss for us in West Africa because she was very big. And "Blewu" means, it's a thanking song that we used to sing when everybody joined for a drum or for a concert, and we ask the Almighty to send everybody back home safe, with no harm to anyone. So, for the listeners outside, this is my thanking for them sitting down or driving their car listening, this song is dedicated to everybody.
NH: On Morning Becomes Eclectic at KCRW, it's Angelique Kidjo.
AK: (sings "Blewu")
NH: Angelique Kidjo live on Morning Becomes Eclectic. That was beautiful a capella piece. Thank you so much.
AK: Pleasure.
NH: OK, so we're talking about the fact, I'm sort of backtracking now, how you started, you came to Paris, your career really began there, at least the Western part of your career. You're now living in New York City. How do you find New York City? How long have you been there?
AK: A year. Almost a year, yeah.
NH: And the community, it's a pretty different place from Paris.
AK: Oh, it is different from Paris, and it's different from Africa where I come from. What I like about New York is the energy in that city. I mean, it's moving non-stop. And when you are in New York, you have an idea of how the world can look like. You have every kind of different person, different parts of the world there. You have Asia, you have Latin America, you have Africa, you have North America, you have Europe, you have everybody living in New York City. And I like the energy, and I like the way you work there. When you wake up in the morning, you wanna do something, they can be efficiently used, and boom, have things done, and I like that.
NH: It's certainly a city of many, many, many different cultures. Los Angeles is, too, but I would think that New York is probably even more diverse.
AK: Absolutely, and I like that. I'm somebody who likes to challenge and mix things and mix people. I like that.
NH: And you were saying that your next stop is going to be Brazil. You want to live in Brazil at some point?
AK: Yeah, I'm going to go to Salvador Bahia to start with to write because the Salvadorian people have a very close history with my village. The first colonist that arrived in Benin was a Brazilian white man called Francisco de Souza. He arrived and he was very close friends of the king. And he was married to different women there, he had a lot of kids, and you have a huge, big community of mixed kids between Brazilian white people and Beninese women. And there is an anecdote about this guy that arrived that explains completely how things happen like this today, how slavery was possible, and how the relationships are still in Africa. As I was saying before, he was a friend of the king. And they had a fight, I think he betrayed the king. and when you betray a king, they kill you.
NH: Not a good guy to betray.
AK: No.
NH: Not the king.
AK: So in the Voodoo religion, there are two colors that you can't play around with: red, which is the color of the blood that links animals and human beings together, and the color white, which is the color that we wrap the god and goddesses in, meaning, it is the light, it has nothing to do with the dark. So because he was white, they couldn't kill him. So the king said, "Why don't you dye him with indigo?" So they dyed that guy with indigo and they tied him up outside in the backyard, but he was looking at them, his eyes were blue. They were like, "This is weird; he's not a black man, we can't kill him. Let us let him go." So they let him go, and he moved from the Kingdom of Abomey to my village. So, the people that come from Benin and go to Salvador Bahia, they came back, and they influenced the traditional music of my village. There are a lot of things that sound like samba and like the drum of the olodoum. And they came back, too, and built up a museum in my village. So when you go to my village and you visit my village, you have two museum. You have the museum of Benin, with the beginning of the colonization and the slavery -- the people that came back, the Cubans came back, the Brazilian people came back, the Haitian people came back, to influence the music itself and the way of life. And you have the museum of the Salvadorian people that came back to Benin and built up a museum. So, people tell me that going to Salvador Bahia is just like my village, so I wanna go there.
NH: So you wanna go check it out.
AK: Oh, yeah.
NH: Do you get back to Benin, to your own village very often? Do you return?
AK: Oh, yeah, I try once a year.
NH: To go home, you still have family?
AK: I have my dad, my mom, my family, my uncles, my aunts, and cousins.
NH: So it's always good to go back and make that connection.
AK: I need to go.

Angelique Kidjo in concert in Benin
(where she was born):

Holy Crap! Two reasonably intelligent reviews of Stephen Prothero's "God Is Not One"

According to Stephen Prothero's own self-glorifying narrative, he is on a daring crusade against the "dangerous" and "seductive" "prevailing metaphor" for how we have come to (mis-)understand the world's religions. It's strange, then, that he has so far encountered remarkably little criticism in response to his new book, God Is Not One. But maybe that is starting to change.

A few discordant notes are beginning to be heard, finally, in what has until now been a monotonous chorus of puff-pieces, soft-ball interviews, and one particular "review" that keeps getting repeated over and over and over again.

First up, there is Jay Tolson, writing in last Sunday's Washington Post (here). Tolson starts off his review by congratulating Prothero for having "thoughtfully dispelled" the following "misleading notion":

Seeing the world's major belief systems through Enlightenment-tinted glasses, a succession of influential philosophers, artists, scholars and even many religious leaders have tended to minimize the differences of ritual and dogma among the various religions to emphasize a supposedly universal and benign truth shared by them all. Such well-meaning believers (and they do constitute a kind of religion of their own) have subscribed to variations of the Dalai Lama's affirmation that "the essential message of all religions is very much the same."

But wait a minute. This is not what Prothero says at all. Prothero doesn't argue against those who "minimize the differences" between religions. Prothero argues against those who claim that "all religions are the same."

You see, it would be one thing if Stephen Prothero were to accept the premise that there are both differences and commonalities among the world's religions. But he does nothing of the sort. He categorically denies that there is any spiritual common ground between the "rival" religions of the world.

Having congratulated Prothero for what he has not done (or even set out to do), Tolson does, by the end of the review, get around to pointing out that Prothero never "adequately wrestles" with the questions he has raised. In fact, Tolson admits that God Is Not One fails to be anything more than a "primer on eight major world religions". In other words, Prothero has written just another survey of religions, and one that is little, if any, different from the very books (Huston Smith's The World's Religions in particular) that Prothero claims to be debunkifying!

Tolson squarely hits the nail on the head when he states that Prothero has completely failed to provide "a sustained examination of the incommensurability of the world's religions", which, not to put too fine a point on it, is precisely what Prothero had promised to provide.

Alec Solomita, writing in last Sunday's Boston Globe (here), is more to the point. From the beginning he characterizes Prothero's book as an "attempt to debunk the idea that all religions are brothers under the skin." And Solomita makes it clear that in his opinion Prothero's attempt not only fails, but disappoints.

But, as was the case with Jay Tolson's review in the Washington Post, Solomita also cannot bring himself to cast the issue in the mindlessly crude manner that Prothero does. For Prothero does not anywhere claim to be attacking the notion that "all religions are brothers under the skin." Instead, Prothero boldly declares, over and over and over again, that he is out to disprove the claim that all religions are the same.

There is a big difference between saying all religions are "brothers under the skin" and claiming they are "the same". And the most important difference is that many people do claim that humanity's religions share a kind of kinship, but no one seriously claims they are all the same.

It would be one thing to differ over how (and how closely) the world's religions are related to each other. But it is another thing altogether, at the serious risk of repeating myself, to deny that there is any spiritual common ground whatsoever among the world's religions, as Stephen Prothero emphatically, proudly, and repeatedly does.

Solomita presents much more detailed criticisms of Prothero than what is found in Tolson's comparatively superficial review. But both reviews should be read carefully by anyone interested in how the Saga of Prothero's Quest is playing out.

Both reviews clearly and effectively make the same basic point: Prothero never even begins to even attempt to make good on his chest-beating declamations about taking on the terrible mind-destroying "meme" that "all religions are beautiful and true." Tolson's and Solomita's joint decision is all the more damning since they are both sympathetic to Prothero's cause, and they were both clearly hoping he would succeed - or at least that he would actually try.


Previous posts from this blog on Stephen Prothero's "God Is Not One":
Good Fences Make Good Religions?
Who, if anyone, is Stephen Prothero arguing with, other than himself?
How Stephen Prothero mangles the economics-politics-religion analogy
The basis of universal spirituality
Contra Prothero

[The smoking crater pic is from jimblackhurst.com. The epic bike fail pic is a combination: the kitty is from here, while the bike fail itself is by jeremy king.]