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The financial crisis in Italy has made indulging religious economic privilege intolerable. 130,000 people signed a petition as part of making this happen: Prime Minister Mario Monti has announced the Vatican must pay taxes on non-religious property, from which it previously enjoyed an exemption. The annual cost could be up to 720m euros ($945m; £598m) according [...]
Archive for the ‘World Affairs’ Category
Vatican Loses Part of its Tax Exempt Status in Italy
February 17th, 2012 
Daniel Fincke Ayaan Hirsi Ali Warns of “Rising Genocide” Due to “Christophobia” in Muslim World
February 11th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Ayaan Hirsi Al’s case is alarming: We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a [...]
Now A Muslim Extremist Terrorizes The Audience, Not Just The Speaker
January 17th, 2012 Daniel Fincke The New Humanist recounts a chilling, appalling, infuriating story: Yesterday evening, a talk on “Sharia Law and Human Rights” organised by the Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society at Queen Mary, University London, had to be cancelled after threats of violence. The talk was due to be given by Anne Marie Waters of the One Law [...]
Posted in Islam, Islam, News, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, World Affairs, World Affairs 
5 Comments »The State of the Arab World
October 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Fareed Zakaria’s depressing summation of the findings of the United Nation’s Arab Development Report, which he considers to be “the most important book of the last decade”: To what extent can we blame modern Islam for all of this? To what extent neo-colonialism? To what extent something else? I am inclined to say that the [...]
Posted in News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Politics, Politics, World Affairs, World Affairs 14 Comments »What A “War on Terror” Should Mean vs. What it Has Meant
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Princeton’s emeritus philosophy professor Michael Walzer is co-editor of Dissent. He is not a George W. Bush yes-man. But he thinks that “war on terror” is a legitimate concept even as many leftish thinkers oppose it as a confusion. People argue that terrorism is a tactic, not a specific enemy you can target. In “Terrorism [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Torture, Torture, World Affairs, World Affairs 
Tags: Michael Walzer, Terrorism, Terrorism and Genocide, Walzer on Terrorism, What is Terrorism?, What is wrong with Terrorism? 3 Comments »Norwegian Imam Argues For Beheading Students Who Don't Fast For Ramadan
May 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
Turkish-German Actress Poses In Playboy As "Act of Liberation"
April 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Sila Sahin’s appearance in the German version of Playboy has symbolic connotations: the 25-year-old Sahin, who plays Ayala in the RTL German soap opera Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times), managed to link her public exposure to the debate over a central sociopolitical issue: that young Muslim — in this case, Turkish — women [...]
Posted in Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Islam, Islam, News, Religion, Religion, World Affairs, World Affairs 6 Comments »Norway's State Philosopher
March 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Below is some of Michael Moore’s documentary footage which he cut from Sicko. He explores Norway’s exceedingly high standard of living and the values which produce it. Along the way he talks to Hynrik Syse, the philosopher who the government hired to manage the nation’s oil profits so that they would be used in the wisest [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Politics, Videos, World Affairs, World Affairs 3 Comments »Rachel Maddow Explains The Nuclear Threat In Japan
March 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This account of how nuclear power works and what the current danger was remarkably clarifying for me: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Dr. Maddow would truly make a superb physics professor (you know, if she actually had as good a grasp of all physics as she has of [...]
Posted in News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Physics, Physics, Science, Science, Technology, Technology, World Affairs, World Affairs 1 Comment »On God And The Japanese Earthquake
March 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Edward Tarte says everything that shouldn’t need to be said on the topic, but sadly does: The word poison is a bit unnecessarily strong, but the rest is spot on. Your Thoughts?
About Those Germans Trying To Get The Pope Charged With Crimes Against Humanity…
February 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Sendai Anonymous has the scoop on how the enemy of our enemy may not be our friend. Your Thoughts?
Vatican Confirms Widespread Rape Of Nuns By Priests In 23 Countries
February 26th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Sickening: The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns. The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns. Most of the abuse [...]
The Religious Conservative's False Choice: "Big Brother" Or "Heavenly Father"
February 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in fear of reprisal in the afterlife, but as there [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Theocrats, Theocrats, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Political Philosophy, Social Contract, Victor Frankl 3 Comments »Dispelling Misconceptions About China
February 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke An illuminating video: Your Thoughts?
How Would Apostates, Adulterers, And Thieves Fare In A Democratic Egypt?
February 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Razib Kahn has a most disturbing chart: Kahn explains the above: On the x-axis you see the proportion who accept that adulterers should be stoned. On the y-axis you see the responses to amputation and apostasy. The red points are the proportion who agree with the death penalty for apostates, and the navy points those [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Free Speech, Free Speech, Law, Law, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, World Affairs, World Affairs 3 Comments »Fear Of Middle Eastern Democracy
February 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Watching this video, I’m starting to fear those who have seemingly no belief in either the intrinsic value or potential effectiveness of democracy as much as I fear Islamism: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Your Thoughts?
Posted in Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Conservatives, Democracy, Egypt, Glenn Beck, Hosni Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Rachel Maddow 1 Comment »"Today, There Is Joy."
February 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Will Wilkinson gives an eloquent defense of the joy in Egypt today: I admit that I am more than a little tempted to rain on the parade and note that Mr Mubarak’s departure guarantees nothing and that it is not unreasonable to fear a turn for the worse. There’s a tiny, stability-loving Burke on my [...]
Muslim Mob Burns Churches, Demands Death Penalty Over Christian Man's Leaflets "Insulting" Islam
February 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The usual outrageous outrage: A Muslim mob burned churches and clashed with police in Indonesia on Tuesday as they demanded the death penalty for a Christian man convicted of blaspheming against Islam, police said. Two days after a Muslim lynch mob killed three members of a minority Islamic sect, crowds of furious Muslims set two [...]
Not Bad For Political-Message Comedy
February 3rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jamie Kilstein: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Comedy, Comedy, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Politics, Politics, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Jamie Kilstein 1 Comment »Footage Of Attack On Anderson Cooper in Cairo
February 3rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke This really gives you the sense of the brutal, scary situation on the ground: Your Thoughts?
A Plain-Clothes Mubarak Crackdown?
February 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke An upsetting and infuriating inference from Nicholas Kristof: Today President Mubarak seems to have decided to crack down on the democracy movement, using not police or army troops but rather mobs of hoodlums and thugs. I’ve been spending hours on Tahrir today, and it is absurd to think of this as simply “clashes” between two [...]
Posted in News, News Discussion, News Discussion, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Egypt, Mubarak 7 Comments »Real vs. Fake Democratic Revolutions: A Pictorial Representation
February 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke via The Daily Dish (whose Egypt coverage all-day, everyday is must read) and whatstherumpus.) Your Thoughts?
Should We Fear An Influential Muslim Brotherhood Would Push Authoritarian Islamic Policies?
February 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Nathan Brown is a political science professor at George Washington University and director of the school’s Institute for Middle East Studies. He gives an overview of the Muslim Brotherhood’s evolution from their found through to today, explains how their renunciation of violent means came to pass decades ago, why al-Qaeda sees them as sell outs, [...]
How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt
February 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke A helpful guide, with special emphases on how not to be insufferably condescending. Your Thoughts?
Posted in News Discussion, News Discussion, Racism, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Egypt 1 Comment »
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