Today … in God: Thursday, September 9, 2010

• Cathy Grossman over at USAToday’s Faith&Reason blog is taking a poll about whether plans to burn copies of the Quran in Florida, led by a completely wackadoodle (that’s the technical theological term for it — really, trust us) Christian pastor there (cringe), constitute free speech or a hate crime.

Cathy says:

Is burning a Bible because you hate Christianity, a hate crime? How about burning a Torah? Is that an anti-Semitic act? And this brings us to the question of burning a Quran….Is the Dove World Outreach Center’s Quran bonfire, planned for the Saturday anniversary of the 9/11 attack, a hate crime or n expression of free speech — like the deplorable but legal protest act of burning a U.S. flag to object to a government policy?…

I noticed that my colleague Doug Stanglin’s On Deadline blog, which is running a constant update on the church’s plans, has a quick poll to readers. Of the 4,273 people who voted in the unscientific survey by early this morning, 24% said the church should not cancel its plans.

But there’s no way of telling if they say Dove should fly with this because they agree with the pastor’s stance that Islam is “of the devil” or because they see it as a free speech issue.

But do the 76% who say Dove should not do this object because they see, like General David Petraeus and the Vatican, a potential flash point for worldwide violent protest, or because they deem it as a hate crime, one intended to generate fear and loathing of Muslims based on their beliefs that these are the words of Allah?

TO READ THE REST AND/OR TAKE CATHY’S POLL, CLICK  HERE: LINK

• Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tonite. President Obama taped a lovely, timely message for the occasion. See text and video below (via Office of the White House Press Secretary)

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Here is the full text of President Obama’s 2010 Rosh Hashanah message

As Jews in America and around the world celebrate the first of the High Holy Days I want to extend my warmest wishes for the New Year.  L’shana Tova Tikatevu – may you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life.

Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the spiritual calendar and the birth of the world.  It serves as a reminder of the special relationship between God and his children, now and always.  And it calls us to look within ourselves – to repent for our sins; recommit ourselves to prayer; and remember the blessings that come from helping those in need.

Today, those lessons ring as true as they did thousands of years ago.  And as we begin this New Year, it is more important than ever to believe in the power of humility and compassion to deepen our faith and repair our world.

At a time when too many of our friends and neighbors are struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, it is up to us to do what we can to help those less fortunate.

At a time when prejudice and oppression still exist in the shadows of our society, it is up to us to stand as a beacon of freedom and tolerance and embrace the diversity that has always made us stronger as a people.

And at a time when Israelis and Palestinians have returned to direct dialogue, it is up to us to encourage and support those who are willing to move beyond their differences and work towards security and peace in the Holy Land. Progress will not come easy, it will not come quick.  But today we had an opportunity to move forward, toward the goal we share—two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

The scripture teaches us that there is “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”  In this season of repentance and renewal, let us commit ourselves to a more hopeful future.

Michelle and I wish all who celebrate Rosh Hashanah a sweet year full of health and prosperity.

• Ursula Goodenough over at NPR explores a renewed science-vs-religion debate and so-called “God mongering” in this article about continuing reaction to cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s about-face on the whole God thing.

Ursula writes:

To monger means to broker, to deal in a special commodity. It’s usually used pejoratively, as in fear mongering.

In his book The Whole Shebang, the gifted science writer Timothy Ferris suggested that cosmologist Stephen Hawking was engaging in God-mongering, when in the book Brief History of Time he speculates that the discovery of a unified theory of physics could lead to understanding “why it is that we and the universe exist,” which in turn would be “the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”

During his pan of Hawking’s just-released book, The Grand Design, in yesterday’s New York Times, reviewer Dwight Garner notes that this time around, Hawking is effectively engaging in no-God mongering when he concludes that the creation of our universe “does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god.”

READ THE REST HERE: LINK

• Biola University philosophy professor John Mark Reynolds (he of Scriptorium Daily) has a provocative commentary in the Washington Posts’s On Faith blog today titled “Analogy overkill: Justice not healing.”

Professor Reynolds says:

The nation has not healed from the attacks on 9/11, because an act of war is not a wound or a disease. Terrorists attacked our nation and killed Americans on September eleventh motivated by a radical form of Islam. Until we win the war against terrorism and make radical forms of Islam as unattractive as we have made Nazi ideology, we will not have finished the job that 9/11 started.

Our nation needs justice tempered with mercy, not healing, if we are to put 9/11 in our past. Comparing the attacks on our nation to a “wound” has some value as an analogy, but it also risks masking hard truths in a culture easily enamored with pseudo-scientific or therapeutic solutions to hard problems.

Victory not therapy is the solution to the problem of 9/11. Radical Islam must be defeated and rooted out of the global community.

READ THE REST HERE: LINK