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A rabs and Moslems

Our favorite beduouina has posted her life story. As many numbers as I throw at you about most Muslims are not Arab, nor are all Arabs Muslim (say hello to Edward Said, Hanan Ashrawi, and Tariq Aziz, to name a few), her own background gives a much sense of that reality. Just for the record, and for those of you who care about numbers: 6.3 billion people in the world (source) 1.3 billion Muslims in the world (no cited source, just the number that’s being bandied about right now) 300 million Arabs (source [projected from source]) ~5% of the world,…

The world was created by magic

I was intrigued by this article in CNN on the Kansas Board of Education. It seems that the faulty logic that ID people are trying to put forward actually puts them at a disadvantage in terms of curriculum design. If their wording goes through, it should be fine to suggest that a grand wizard (not the KKK kind, but the Gandalf kind) brought the world into existence. We are, in fact, nothing more than a magic school exercise. Or, how about that life on Earth is not unique, but we were seeded here by aliens to see how we would…

Faith in Fantasy on Imaginary Worlds Podcast

I am a longtime fan of the Imaginary Worlds podcast, and was ecstatic was I was asked to participate in roundtable on the role of faith in imaginary worlds. I was joined by friend of many years, the Velveteen Rabbi, Rachel Barenblat, who did a wonderful write-up of her experience here. The episode description is: Science fiction has not always been compatible with religion — in fact many futuristic settings imagine no religion at all. But sci-fi and fantasy have long fascinated people of different faiths because the genres wrestle with the big questions of life. You can listen to episode…