Modern belief in God is not about covering the gaps in our knowledge, but about answering different types of questions
Stephen Hawking makes the claim that it is not necessary to invoke God as the creator of the universe and the assertion that physics alone made it.
He may be correct in his first statement, but to rule out a possibly important role for God is in my view unjustified. It is certainly possible that God sets up and maintains or underpins the laws of physics and allows them to work, so that being able to explain the big bang in terms of physics is not inconsistent with there being a role for God.
As a scientist, you are continually questioning, rarely coming up with a definitive answer. The limitations of your own knowledge and expertise together with the beauty and mystery of life and the universe often fill you with a sense of profound humility. Thus, unequivocal assertions are not part of a genuine scientific quest.
Mathematics as applied to physics may be the queen of sciences according to Carl Friedrich Gauss, but it does not answer every scientific question. Chemistry, biology, psychology and the social sciences have their own ways of analysing the nature of reality which are complementary to those of physics and mathematics: indeed, they are not reducible to physics but their insights emerge at their own level of complexity.
Furthermore, many of the questions that are most crucial to us as human beings are not addressed adequately at all by science, such as the nature of beauty and love and how to live one's life – often philosophy or history or theology are better suited to help answer them.
The complementary nature of different questions and in particular of the difference between how and why are important. If M-theory does indeed turn out to enable a unified theory, Hawking may be able in future to say how the universe started, but as a physicist he cannot answer the question "why?"
This is well illustrated by John Polkinghorne's story about boiling a kettle: I can describe with physics how it boils in terms of the stove making its temperature rise; but why it is boiling is a different type of question altogether – most probably in my case because my wife is thirsty!
The so-called "God of the Gaps" is not part of modern religious faith. In this view, you invoked God to explain the inexplicable – at one time this would have been the weather or common diseases, and for Hawking apparently until recently the origin of the universe. Thus, when an alternative explanation arises, there is no longer any need for God.
The God followed by many people of a religious faith is not a God of the Gaps at all – rather a God who helps answer other nonscientific questions about why the universe and its amazing life exists and how to lead a good life. Also, they welcome the advances in understanding that modern science brings, since they reveal more of the incredible beauty, diversity and wonder of the nature of the universe.
You cannot prove whether God exists or not. But you can ask whether the existence or nonexistence of God is more consistent with your experience. It is up to each of us to reach our own conclusion, but for many of us it is and can make a profound and enriching difference to our lives.
The universe just ramped itself up. Simple. And yet doubts remain - spontaneous creation is, for most folk, just a contradiction in terms
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd; / I am always about in the quad." This was the divine response, as imagined by Ronald Knox, to the inquisitive undergraduate who, following Bishop Berkeley's line of thought, wondered whether a tree in the college quadrangle would still exist if God was not there to sustain it. Now someone rather higher in the academic hierarchy has raised the question in a different form. Professor Stephen Hawking says in his new book that there is no place for God in theories about how the universe got started: "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something." Anyone who has ever watched in amazement as a piece of domestic equipment, say a washing machine, suddenly swings into action, even though no human hand has touched any buttons, will be able to grasp something of what Hawking is hinting at here. The universe just ramped itself up. Simple. And yet doubts remain. One accepts that if God were to choose one day to explain the universe to Hawking, the professor would be one of the few people on the planet with any serious chance of understanding the conversation. But spontaneous creation is, for most folk, just a contradiction in terms. God may or may not find all this amusing. The thing is – how to put this gently to Professor Hawking? – that God does not necessarily follow the ins and outs of our many arguments about His existence. Who could blame Him if, after all this time, He has become tired of them? Meanwhile, there is still a tree in the quad.
President Obama’s declaration that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over brings to a partial close a drama that has engulfed American political culture for nearly a decade. His address to the nation carefully avoided both a declaration of victory and a retroactive resolution of the Iraq war debate. Instead, it looked forward and sought to affirm the democratic hope that American society can be sufficiently unified to bring positive results out of what many regard as a costly and avoidable mistake. His speech implicitly argued that, regardless of what we believed about the justification of the war in the first place, we are now responsible for determining what the legacy of the Iraq war will be in our foreign policy and our domestic affairs.
Religious citizens have particular reason to think hard about their role in determining this legacy. They, or the ideas and traditions they care about, bear a burden of responsibility for both the problems and the hopes as we move forward.
Many of them played a crucial role in encouraging the enthusiasms that led to the Iraq invasion. Conservative American Christians, in particular, actively embraced what Andrew Bacevich calls, in his book The New American Militarism, the “marriage of military metaphysics with eschatological ambition.”
“God is pro-war,” as the Rev. Jerry Falwell famously titled one of his articles in 2004. Falwell, of course, was representative of only a small percentage of American Christians, but his supreme confidence in construing the war in Iraq as a matter of good versus evil, and understanding the humanitarian dimension of the Iraq invasion in relation to the kingdom of God, was an extreme riff on views that were much more widely shared. Indeed, the most powerful Christian political movements in the United States today exhibit both an unwavering commitment to the essential goodness (and seeming omnipotence) of American military power and a strange confidence that their cultural and religious interests are being served by the ongoing war on terrorism. Even many citizens outside these movements (and these particular religious communities) display a determined confidence that the end of America’s quasi-imperial self-assertion in Iraq will be our ongoing role a “leader of the free world.”
Such views are theologically untutored and politically dangerous. In particular, they display a worrisome blindness to the full range of elements that constituted the political act of invading Iraq and that shape its potential long-term consequences. In different ways, they are premised on false or inadequate descriptions of the undertaking.
There were three principal justifications offered for invading Iraq: self-defense, the defense of the international rule of law, and humanitarian concern for the people of Iraq. All three of these—if true—are just causes for war, according to the Christian just war tradition. But a just cause does not a just war make. One requires, in addition, a “right intention.”
The criterion of right intention does not merely demand an examination of what military and political leaders think or say about what they are doing when they initiate a war. “Right intention” points toward the full range of factors that place an action in its moral species. Given everything that we know now—and even what we knew then—about how the Iraq invasion was conceived, can we really just highlight the humanitarian dimension of this undertaking and declare it the essence of the act? The fact that an unjust action has beneficial consequences or reflects some praiseworthy desires does not change the fact that it was an unwise act; it does not render irrelevant the fear-mongering, mendacity, and hubristic overreach that also played a role. The just war criterion of “right intention” requires, among other things, that the conscientious citizen drop down from the level of short-hand “principles” and describe more fully the circumstances, desires, emotions, and beliefs that go into making a complex action what it is.
There was no shortage of just war theorists in the land when the Iraq war emerged on the horizon. Indeed, their writings and public talks insured that the basic criteria of just war ethics (whether in its Christian or secular form) were well known and bandied about by even the unlikeliest of people. The views these thinkers offered, however, were often emaciated and unfit for the task. At their most critical, these theories were publicly impotent. The arguments were too abstract, and the communities whose beliefs they hoped to represent were poorly organized or nonexistent. At their most supportive of the war, the arguments were so theoretical that they merely served to justify actions that were justified on quite other grounds by the people who actually undertook them. They were exercises in placing an abstract set of ethical principles on a complex set of facts and circumstances to which they were largely alien. Too much of the picture fell away, or was rendered invisible, once the theoretical justification was put in place. What people need is a justification of war that gives a full, clear, and powerful account of the many reasons they have to be critical and worried even in the best of circumstances.
This fact invites a change in the characteristic genre of contemporary just war reflection. It may very well require that just war theorists, most of whom are employed in university philosophy or religious studies departments, learn to abandon the stilted forms of academic ethics and acquire new habits of “thick description.” The formal reasoning of the just war criteria must be put in the service of richer descriptions of the actual beliefs, practices, and circumstances that shape complex political actions. The criteria can then perform both an expressive role (by making ethical commitments that are implicit in the nation’s undertakings explicit and available for critical scrutiny) and a constructive role (by proposing important ethical considerations governing certain actions). Michael Walzer’s book Just and Unjust Wars remains a classic example of this approach and is too infrequently imitated.
As Americans now endeavor to “turn the page” (in President Obama’s phrase), we must determine whether the irrevocable past will endure like a nightmare in our efforts at world leadership or whether we will be capable of the repentance, reformation, and simple good-neighborliness that will be necessary to restore those nonmilitary aspects of our power. It is ultimately a question of the democratic freedom to remake ourselves in the light of our highest ideals. It is also a question of imagination. At the present moment, there are few reasons to be sanguine about the probable success of this effort.
Religious citizens have particular reason to contribute to public debates about the road forward. Despite the popularity among many of them of imperialistic theologies and distorted pieties, such citizens are heirs to longstanding traditions of moral and political insight, and thus have the capacity to help this society imagine new ways of employing its power and resources. Furthermore, these citizens—unlike, say, your average analytic philosopher—inherit traditions and employ arguments that are deeply embedded in the practices of actually existing communities. Ideally, religious citizens will be able to organize themselves into communities of conversation and study, so as to become communities of democratic accountability.
Howard Rhodes is currently a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Iowa College of Law.
Lord Sacks accuses astrophysicist of logical fallacy in book excluding possibility of supernatural creation
The chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, hit back at Stephen Hawking after the astrophysicist said God did not create the universe.
In his new book, The Grand Design, published next week, Hawking concludes that science excludes the possibility of a deity and that it is unnecessary to "invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going".
But his finding were described by Sacks as an "elementary fallacy" of logic.
Writing in the Times, the chief rabbi said: "There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. The Bible simply isn't interested in how the universe came into being."
Sacks also said the mutual hostility between religion and science was one of "the curses of our age" and warned it would be equally damaging to both.
"But there is more to wisdom than science. It cannot tell us why we are here or how we should live. Science masquerading as religion is as unseemly as religion masquerading as science."
In an earlier book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking was apparently more open to the idea of God, suggesting that a scientific understanding of the universe was not incompatible with a creator. "If we discover a complete theory … it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God," he wrote.
Tibetans around the world celebrate the 50th Tibetan Democracy Day which marks the anniversary of the Dalai Lama's efforts to transform Tibetan society into a democracy
In a new book, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking argues that the universe is the work of physics, not God. Do you agree?
Children dress as Hindu god Krishna during festivities to mark Janmashtami at a school in Mumbai
• Physics, not creator, made Big Bang, new book claims
• Professor had previously referred to 'mind of God'
God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain's most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.
In the new work, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity.
In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, he said new theories showed a creator is "not necessary".
The Grand Design, an extract of which appears in the Times today, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have created out of chaos.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," he writes. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
In the forthcoming book, published on 9 September, Hawking says that M-theory, a form of string theory, will achieve this goal: "M-theory is the unified theory Einstein was hoping to find," he theorises.
"The fact that we human beings – who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature – have been able to come this close to an understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph."
Hawking says the first blow to Newton's belief that the universe could not have risen from chaos was the observation in 1992 of a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions – the single sun, the lucky combination of Earth-sun distance and solar mass – far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes.
Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe, writing in his bestseller A Brief History Of Time in 1988, he said: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason–- for then we should know the mind of God."
Hawking resigned as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University last year after 30 years in the position.
Arrayed on the steps of City Hall, New York Muslim leaders Wednesday condemned the ugly rhetorical attacks aimed at Islam and its followers amid a national furor over a planned Islamic center two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Our consciousness paves the way for our spirituality, but there's little consensus
In finger-wagging style, Mary Midgley warns that "serious scientists know that their enquiries are endless; any answers always raise a swarm of new questions" (Serious scientists know that they cannot explain all the major puzzles of existence, 28 August). But who ever said otherwise? Well, I did apparently.
She quotes from my 1995 book, Soul Searching, selecting passages to back her assertion that I believe that science can provide "a sufficient explanation for everything that is or might be". What she fails to say is that in these passages I was describing how things looked to overconfident natural philosophers at the end of the 18th century, and how this set the stage for a Romantic reaction and in particular for spiritualism and psychical research.
True, I wrote that "two hundred years later this ambitious [Enlightenment] programme for a self-sufficient science has succeeded beyond the dreams of its inventors. Across great swaths of nature ... the major puzzles of existence have been pulled to pieces in the hands ... of all-conquering and -consuming scientific rationality."
But I went on: "Yet equally, two hundred years later, the majority of ordinary people have remained as faithful as ever to the earlier ways of thinking." And this was precisely my point. For most people scientific explanation remains unsatisfying. Indeed almost everybody has a Midgley – and a Newton – inside them, protesting that there has to be more to life, the universe and everything than we can ever know.
Midgley asserts: "Humphrey is convinced that something called science has indeed solved the mind-body problem." But if she had read further she would have found me saying: "All but a few contemporary psychologists agree that there will eventually prove to be some sort of satisfactory theory of mind-brain relationship … But at present there really is very little consensus about the form, let alone the substance, of this theory-to-come."
However, Midgley, it seems, has no interest in such a scientific theory anyway. For her, "our problem here is to understand the relation between our inner and outer life … and how to face life as a whole". Strangely enough, I entirely agree. In my own more recent writing, such as Seeing Red, I have begun to argue that the explanation for why consciousness evolved lies in its very mysteriousness and the effect this has on our world-view.
Since Midgley has quoted at such length from a book I wrote 15 years ago, let me answer with these words from the cover of my new book Soul Dust: "Consciousness, [Humphrey] argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows us, as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the 'soul niche'." I invite Mary Midgley to review it.
In his sober address to the nation, President Obama announced the combat mission in Iraq is at an end.
As a theological ethicist who subscribes to all the criteria of the just war tradition—the version Mennonite pacifist John Howard Yoder said has “teeth”—I was critical from the outset of the US-led war in Iraq. In the seven years since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, I have regretted that perhaps just war ethicists, including myself, did not do enough to oppose it, especially if we really regarded it as an unjust war.
What does it mean now to say the war is at an end? “End” can mean “stopped” or “concluded,” but it is important that Christians and others, for whom just war continues to be a valid moral approach to dealing with serious threats to innocent human lives, recover another understanding of what “end” means. The end, understood in the just war sense of “purpose” or “goal,” should be, as St. Augustine taught, tranquillitas ordinis or “tranquil order”—a just and lasting peace, a genuine peace that is more than merely the absence of war.
Such a peace should be restorative for all affected by the war. President Obama observed that around the world today “old adversaries are at peace,” and I suspect he had in mind US friendships with Germany, Italy, and Japan. He said our combat mission is ending, but “our commitment to Iraq’s future is not,” and he emphasized at the same that we are now also trying to build for our nation “a future of lasting peace.” That involves refocusing attention on the US economy, and it will include providing health care, education, and employment for returning US military personnel. All of this is congruent with a just war meaning of “the end.” Much of it, however, should have been in our sights from the very outset of the war.
The president referred to “lessons learned.” One lesson those who subscribe to the just war criteria should have learned is that just war categories need to be longitudinally extended to include postwar justice. Even if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were just, more needs to be done to guide us to put in motion the ingredients for a just and lasting peace. On the flip side, if a war is unjust because the criteria for going to war and for conduct during war were not satisfied, then the duty to establish postwar justice is all the more imperative, even though that won’t retroactively make it a just war.
One postwar criterion would be the principle of restoration, including restoration of public services such as the police: before embarking on war, make sure appropriate plans, equipment, and personnel are ready and in place to restore law and order on the streets and in the communities of the defeated nation. In his speech President Obama mentioned that US troops “shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people [and] trained Iraqi Security Forces.” Such a shift would not have been necessary had the Bush White House not denied in June 2003 the Department of Justice’s recommendations for an International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program, which called for the deployment of over 6,600 international police advisers, consisting of trainers for police academies, plus armed international constabulary units with 2,500 more personnel to help coalition military forces restore stability in Iraq (see “The Police in War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism, and Violent Crime” [Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010] by David H. Bayley and Robert M. Perito). Meanwhile, there were looters raiding homes, businesses, and museums; Iraqis were killing Iraqis; government buildings were ransacked and burned. Many scholars in other fields—including security policy experts such as Graham Day and Rama Mani—highlight the crucial role police (as well as courts and prisons) play in the transition from war to a just peace. Oftentimes the police of the defeated country disband during the war or are corrupt or implicated in the evils that led to war, so a transitional police force, accompanied by trainers, is necessary until a new force consisting of vetted, well-trained, and human-rights-respecting police is in place.
I am hopeful that progress in this connection is now underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in the meantime too many persons suffered—Iraqis, Afghans, and also US military personnel—from a lack of the kind of efforts that postwar justice would require for any war to be considered just.
Tobias Winright is associate professor of theological ethics at Saint Louis University, a former law enforcement officer, and coauthor with Mark Allman of “After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post War Justice” (Orbis Books, 2010).
President Obama’s speech might have been far more effective—and honest—if he had admitted the most elemental truth about the war in Iraq: that the surge of troops ordered by George W. Bush actually worked to defeat the terrorist insurgency that threatened to derail the whole experiment in liberty and freedom in Iraq.
Obama opposed this troop surge and was, indeed, on the vanguard of the defeatist antiwar left. Had his view prevailed, Iraq would have been reconquered by al-Qaeda and Baathist extremists whose victory over a weak United States would have been the most potent recruiting tool imaginable for America’s enemies for generations to come.
Obama made the political move of declaring the war to be over, but it is not. Fifty thousand American troops remain, and they are combat-ready, and American military presence will always be necessary in Iraq in order to maintain the fragile equilibrium there. The president’s proclivity to announce American withdrawal strategies publicly, not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan, will only embolden those who wish to derail the most exciting experiment in democracy in the Arab world.
Obama said in a pre-speech press release that he was not going to offer a “victory lap.” Well, why not? That is what US armed forces are entitled to because of their blood, sweat, and tears on behalf of Iraq. Because of their efforts, the insurgency was dealt mortal blows, and now the Iraqi people have an opportunity to make a free and decent democracy in an area that has been characterized by the bloodiest sort of despotism. It was warming that Obama expressed such heartfelt admiration and awe for the troops, but he needed to provide a more affirmative vision of successes in Iraq—a vision that casts it as a victory over totalitarianism, which has always been a central aspect of America’s civilizing mission. It is precisely the renunciation of that mission and Obama’s willingness to appease the new wave of authoritarian leaders around the world that signify the evisceration of a Democratic Party once proud to stand for democratization and human rights in foreign policy.
The speech was disappointing as well in its craven attempt to link the economic crisis of the middle class to the expenditures on the war. Politicizing the war by trying to get the middle class to see its present quandaries as a result of it will not fool the average American, who understands that Obama’s failed economic policies and his drive to increase taxation and social entitlements are, at base, what is making their existence miserable. Obama has been president for nearly two years, and he continues to lay the blame for the economic crisis on his predecessor. He still has not learned the lesson that Americans were only willing to go along with that game for a short time. They elected a president to lead them, not to be a recriminator-in-chief.
It is highly doubtful Obama’s speech will convince the middle classes that the war is the principle reason for their crisis. Such rhetoric appeals to the anti-war left and fulfills a central campaign promise, but that constituency is now a small part of Obama’s political retinue. The November elections will decidedly show that the voters are no longer interested in voting on referenda on the Bush administration and that they expect the president to lead.
Thomas Cushman is professor of sociology at Wellesley College and coeditor of “The Religious in Responses to Mass Atrocity” (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Triple blasts in Lahore end lull in violence after floods as militants and 'civilians' die in air raids near Afghan border
Three bombs exploded at a Shia procession in the Pakistani city of Lahore, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 100 others, police said.
The blasts took place at three sites as 35,000 Shia pilgrims passed through the streets in mourning for the caliph Ali, one of Shia Islam's most revered figures. The first blast was a time bomb. Minutes later, a young male suicide bomber tried to force his way into an area where food was being prepared for the pilgrims and blew himself up. A second suicide bomber struck at an intersection near the end of the procession.
The atrocities appeared to be the latest in a string of attacks by Sunni extremists against the minority Shias and broke a lull in violence during the floods that have ravaged the country.
The prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, condemned the blasts and said the attackers would not escape justice.
The attacks came after two days of government air raids on militant strongholds in the north-west, near the Afghan border. Pakistani officials said up to 62 militants, their family members and other civilians with no ties to the fighters, were killed.
The raids yesterday took place in several villages in Teerah valley in the Khyber region and killed 45 people, the officials said. One official described the dead as insurgents, but said people living with them could also have been killed. An intelligence officer admitted that some women and children were killed in the attacks.
Jihad Gul, who lives near one of the villages, said he had seen the bodies of at least 20 women and children, but army officials said reports of civilian casualties were unconfirmed.
In today's air attack in the adjoining district of Orakzai, officials said 15 suspected militants were killed and 10 others were wounded.
In April, the Teerah valley was hit by army air strikes that killed about 60 civilians. The army, which initially described the victims as insurgents, ended up paying compensation to the victims' families and issued a rare public apology.
• Pakistan's military cancelled a trip by officers to an annual meeting at US Central Command after they were taken off a plane and subjected to "unwarranted security checks" at Dulles airport, Washington on Monday, a spokesman said today . The nine-member delegation, led by a rear admiral, was awaiting take-off on a United Airlines flight to Tampa, Florida, where Central Command is based.
When the George C. Marshall High School cross country team assembles each day for practice in Falls Church, Virginia, Maha Hassan is not among the runners.
Instead, the 16-year-old athlete walks around the school track on her own to try to keep her conditioning up.
Hassan is not running this summer because she is observing the Ramadan fast, which means she abstains from all food and drink during the daylight hours. <!--IMAGE-->
Added challenge
The timing of the Muslim fast changes each year. It occurs during the ninth lunar month of the year and begins with the sighting of the new moon. This year the holiday began on August 11, during one of the warmest months of the year.
“I would like to run but I have to remember that I am fasting. I have to remember that I would be too tired and wouldn’t be able to try my hardest,” says Hassan. “After Ramadan is over, I can run on my own until winter track in November.”
Hassan has fasted since the age of 13 and decided to observe Ramadan instead of participating in cross country. Her decision to fast came after spending the summer with her cousins in Sudan.
“When I was talking to my family, I felt like it should be more important to me and that I should be more involved in my religion.”
Hard choices
Young Muslim athletes often try to participate in both fasting and their chosen sport. However, hot summer days have prompted many teen athletes at Marshall High School to reconsider. <!--IMAGE-->
Marshall football player Rakin Hamad, 17, is one of them. He fasted last year, enduring grueling practices in the heat without water.
“It was pretty hard. There were some points where it was just too hot. There were times I had to go to the trainer and just lie down.”
After learning that his coach planned to hold two practices a day, Rakin reluctantly decided not to fast this year.
He will start applying to colleges soon, and believes playing on the varsity team could bolster his chances of getting into the university of his choice.
“I just decided I couldn’t fast this year especially since it’s the middle of August when the heat is unbelievable and with two practices, it was just too much.” <!--IMAGE-->
Soccer player Carma Khatib has found a middle ground that works for her. She fasted for the first time last year, trying it for one day. Khatib felt the experience helped her empathize with the less fortunate, who do not have food to eat.
This year, she’s figuring it out as she goes along.
“I’ve fasted a couple of days. During soccer, I either don’t fast or I fast but I drink water so I stay hydrated.”
Personal decisions
These different approaches to observing Ramadan are not unusual, according to Joshua Salaam, youth director at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, a mosque and community center in Sterling, Virginia.
“Some Muslim youth are not at the same religious level of others. Some youth don’t pray at all, some don’t fast.”
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, director of the Minaret of Freedom Institute and a professor at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland, agrees.
“From my personal experience, Muslims are pretty good about fasting,” he says. “It is more common to see Muslims neglect their prayers rather than the fast because the five daily prayers cause more of an interruption during the day.”
Double devotion
Samee Khan is trying to maintain his dedication to both religion and football. <!--IMAGE-->
An observant Muslim, the 14-year-old prays five times a day and fasts every year.
He also plays on the freshman football team at Herndon High School in Virginia. As a child, Samee’s father used to take him to Redskins training camp to watch the professional football players practice.
“I’ve always wanted to play football,” he says. “It was my first love.”
The three-hour daily practices take place in the early afternoon, during the hottest part of the day, making Samee’s fast particularly challenging.
“It’s horrible. Sometimes you have trouble breathing. You have this terrible taste in your mouth,” he says. “The coaches don’t really cut us any slack.”
Having two fellow Muslims on the team helps, as does support and encouragement from his non-Muslim teammates, who admire Samee’s discipline.
It isn’t easy, but Samee wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I have a love for football and a love for my religion. So I’ve got to do both.”
Washington, DC religious leaders spoke against rising anti-Muslim rhetoric at an August 30 press conference, and some of them also shared their thoughts about the recent rally on the National Mall organized by conservative commentator Glenn Beck. Watch Rev. John Wimberly of Western Presbyterian Church, Rev. Timothy Boggs of the National Cathedral, Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and Rabbi Jonathan Roos of Temple Sinai.
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement wants papal critics to 'disagree with respect'
Gay and lesbian Christians have criticised secularists planning to protest during the pope's visit to Britain for their "unhelpful and counterproductive" tactics.
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said that it wanted papal critics – who are voicing their opposition to this month's state visit for a number of reasons, including the Vatican's rejection of equal rights for homosexuals – to "disagree with respect".
It said that it would hold a prayer vigil, not a protest, so the pope could see the faces of those he spoke against, and become aware that his "homophobic comments affect real people".
It said: "The Protest the Pope coalition of secularist groups has opposed the trip and promised noisy protests, but progressive Christians believe that this is unhelpful and counterproductive."
But its call for restraint went unheeded, with Protest the Pope refusing to change its strategy.
Andrew Copson, from the British Humanist Association, said that the LGCM statement failed to recognise that Protest the Pope objected to the state aspect of the visit, not the pastoral or religious one. "As a religious leader and a citizen of Europe, we have said he is obviously entitled to visit.
"As a head of a state which many see as enormously destructive of human rights and equality on the international stage it is legitimate and morally right to question him, and the idea that heads of states should receive automatic 'respect' because they also happen to be religious leaders we see as entirely mistaken."
At its first public meeting last month there was support for an attempt to stop Benedict XVI reaching an event. The audience, in Richmond library, heard that Benedict XVI would have to travel down a narrow suburban road to reach the campus of St Mary's University College, Twickenham, where he would meet thousands of schoolchildren and students. The forum said that it would not support such a blockade, having decided against direct protest, but it was a matter for individuals if they wished to pursue this option.
Organisers behind its flagship event, a march through central London on 17 September, say they are co-operating with local authorities and law-enforcement agencies.
Today the group is staging a debate about whether the papal visit should be a state one.
Proposing that it should not be are human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and the philosopher AC Grayling. Their opposition comprises Christopher Jamison and the Catholic commentator Austen Ivereigh.
Greenbelt festival; comedy and hotties; the boys from Rev; social networking; Christian missionaries in North Korea
✤ I am not a Christian and I dislike festivals, so of course I spent the lion's share of my bank holiday weekend at Greenbelt, which is a Christian festival. It has everything you might expect – hymns and Fair Trade beverages – and things you might not – good comedy and hotties.
Being at the event is rather like hanging out with your friends' parents. The experience is a pleasant one, a little unsettling at first, but it feels reassuring to be around nice and well-mannered people who are, well, nice and well-mannered. What I saw, according to writer Robin Ince, was daytime humanity. Night-time humanity at Greenbelt was quite different. Consternation that the beer tent closed at 2am. That sort of thing.
Ince was possibly the most popular atheist at the festival which, given the nature of the event, was a highly likely outcome. He took to the stage several times – including a panel debate featuring Giles Fraser and Cif Belief regular Maggi Dawn – to talk about How We Know What We Know. It sounded a little Rumsfeldian and it was. The conclusion was that we don't know how we know but we know that.
Ince, who spent the whole weekend at the racecourse, told me he was interested in why people believe and why people believe what they believe. "People here are very questioning, not merely of other people, but of their own thoughts and beliefs too. It's a very thoughtful festival," he said. Follow the goings-on at Greenbelt here and make your own mind up about one contributor's assessment of the event – that it was a Hajj for liberal Anglicans. Give over. Everyone knows Hajj is way more fun. Which other religion has festivals involving the ritual slaughter of millions of animals?
Much excitement with the arrival of James Wood and Tom Hollander, who arrived on site Sunday to do some "speculative" filming for a "possible" second series of Rev. The team was given the sort of reception that would make Jesus and Moses green with envy. In fact, the very sight of Hollander was enough to cause a parting of, well, everything. Hollander said it was akin to Beatlemania. While it's nice the series has shown some love to a community that sometimes feels lonely and marginalised, one wonders why they can't get this from real life.
✤ Christians of all stripes have embraced all sorts of social networking innovations, such as Twitter. Indeed the hashtag – #gb10– was also used for the Glenn Beck rally taking place thousands of miles away in Washington DC. The event organisers seem to have taken their cue from the dos and don'ts issued by the papal visit team. Except mentions of pepper spray and firearms.
✤ Ahoy atheists! I know you're not members of a movement, religious or otherwise, and there is nothing heavenly or divine about you, with some notable exceptions, but Jerome Taylor at the Independent writes on the pitfalls of Christian missionaries who are eyeing up North Korea, an officially atheist state, as "crying out for Christ".
Following a visit to a charity that helps persecuted Christians, he reflects on the thousands of bibles that are attached to balloons and floated across the demilitarised zone or smuggled from China.
"Missionaries floating bibles over the globe's most-heavily fortified border might see themselves as doing God's work. But plenty in the international community are terrified they might inadvertently start world war three."Aijalon Mahli Gomes is not the first to have fallen foul of one of the most repressive regimes in the world in the name of God and he won't be the last. Christians are determined to spread the gospel in the DMZ. Christianity Today carries an interview with Robert Park who says one of the best ways for Christians to help North Koreans is to redirect money to refugees and North Koreans assisting refugees. "The North Korean people themselves love their homeland and they desire liberation more than anyone else – their hearts are in North Korea," he tells the magazine.
How he arrives at this conclusion – that North Koreans want to be Christian, they love their homeland and that Christianity will bring them the liberation they crave – is unclear. But it is rather presumptuous. Also, and I'm just putting it out there, is it better to have state-enforced atheism than state-enforced religion?
Edmund Adamus under fire from equality and secularists groups for criticising the UK's 'gay agenda'
The Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster has distanced himself from an aide who said gay rights and the commercialisation of sex had turned Britain into a "selfish, hedonistic wasteland" and "the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death".
The comments from Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, have angered gay rights and secularists groups and provoked embarrassment among the Catholic hierarchy weeks before the pope visits Britain.
Senior figures, including Lord Patten of Barnes, have been keen to stress that the UK, while secular, is not anti-Catholic and that the pope is not flying into hostile territory.
Adamus told the Catholic news agency Zenit there was an "aggressive anti-Catholic bias towards the church and the pontiff" in this country that exceeded even countries that violently persecuted Christians.
"Historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular, London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death.
"Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years or more have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking, than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution."
He also talked about marriage and the role of men and women, urging Catholics to "exhibit counter-cultural signals against the selfish, hedonistic wasteland that is the objectification of women for sexual gratification."
"Britain in particular, with its ever-increasing commercialisation of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the 'gay' agenda, is such a wasteland."
A spokesman for Nichols said the views expressed by Adamus "did not reflect the archbishop's opinions".
Ben Summerskill, from the gay rights group Stonewall, said the comments were "gratuitously offensive".
He told the Independent: "The gratuitously offensive comments being made by the archbishop's adviser are hardly likely to promote sensitive debate about respect for religion in the 21st century. You would think that, given its present status, the Roman Catholic church in Britain would be slightly more sensitive about wagging its finger at other people".
Losing my parents showed me culture is not something we teach ourselves. This Ramadan, I feel less Bangladeshi than ever
It's now a year since I was orphaned. Not only did I lose my dad on 1 September last year, but I felt as though I had lost the last link to my cultural identity.
As a child, I felt simultaneously English and Bangladeshi. I had a preference for indie music but liked going home to okra curry. At school I excelled in geography and art, and at home I made my parents proud when I recited passages aloud from the Qur'an. There were aspects of both cultures that I liked and loathed, but overwhelmingly it was the exoticism of Englishness that captivated me the most – things I couldn't be part of. While I was watching Top of the Pops on TV, my friends were in the audience, and as they rolled their school uniform kilts above their knees, mine practically touched my ankles. I couldn't wait until I left home.
At university I immersed myself in a world of miniskirts and clubbing, changing back into a floral tunic and trousers when I went home at the weekends. I closed my ears when my mum showed me yet again how to fold samosas and ignored her offers to show me how to make rice. Then, just before my 21st birthday my mother fell ill and died shortly afterwards. I felt a deep sense of loss, but having my dad around still made me feel complete. It wasn't until I lost him, too, that I realised just how privileged I had been to have two cultures in my life.
And now they are gone I feel neither English nor Bangladeshi. I've come to realise that my parents played a major role in shaping who I am, what I believe and the decisions I've made in my life. Without their physical presence, I am less cultured. Ramadan used to be the time of year that I felt most grounded. The emphasis was on home cooking and preparing traditional cuisine. Neighbours would deliver lentil pakoras and bowls of chick peas, while my mum would roll out dough to make coconut patties.
This year I didn't have anyone to tell me when the month of fasting started and I no longer break it with a spread of fresh hot snacks. My mum cooked every day and the flavours she captured can never be replicated again. Even when I taste other people's Bangladeshi dishes, or when my sisters try to recreate her specialities, without my mum doing the home cooking, I feel less of a Bangladeshi.
My father, on the other hand, was the upholder of religion. In his absence I find it hard to take in any new teachings on Islam: it's as though my own religious education has come to a standstill without him being there to tutor me. Hearing acquaintances talk about religion has no impact on me. We can't teach ourselves culture, no matter how desperately we try. It's something that's passed on from our parents and is far more powerful than anything we read or hear.
Later this year I am marrying an Englishman. Yet it hasn't given me a stronger connection to the English culture I craved as a child. We are trying to organise a multicultural celebration, but without my parents being present I'm finding it difficult to put my Bangladeshi side across – I feel like a fraud making up traditions as I go along.
Bereavement is difficult, but what no one ever talks about is the loss of identity that comes with it. When Eid falls in just over a week, I won't be celebrating. Instead I'll be reminiscing about the time I used to rise to the smell of my mother's sweet vermicelli while my dad got ready to go to the mosque. I'll text my sisters an "Eid Mubarak" greeting before I head off for an ordinary day's work; after all I've no parents to buy presents for or pop in and visit, just me, an individual trying to figure out who I am and where I belong.