the Economist: America more religious than Iran

Lexington blogs on the Economist:

"More than eight out of ten Americans say they belong to a religion. More Americans than Iranians (four out of ten) say they attend a religious service nearly once a week or more."

Is a nation high on the 'opium of the people' the global enforcer?

image of God

Bertrand Russell

Happy Yom Kippur everybody! Let's celebrate with a slightly non-Kosher dish (thank you Philippe!): 

a 1959 interview of Bertrand Russell (pbuh!) on God.

"Well there can’t be a practical reason to believing what isn’t true. I rule it out as impossible. Either a thing is true or it isn’t. If it is true you should believe it and if it isn’t you shouldn’t. And if you cannot find out if it is true or isn’t you should suspend judgement. It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it is useful and not because you think it is true."

Bertrand Russell caricature

Pogonophobia - a word for this century

It is June 8, we celebrate the anniversary of the death of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah (pbuh), the senior Islamic prophet, who died in 632, Christian Era.

The fear of the actions of the bearded modern followers of the man from Mecca has a good word for it:

Pogonophobia: fear of beards
noun, Etymology: from the old Greek words for beard (pogon) + fear (phobia).
The adjective form can also come handy these days: pogonophobic.

prophet Muhammad - a barbate representation accepted by the Shia 

(Muhammad created Islam when he was about 40. What was the prophet's faith before that event? A Jew? Christian? or simply an Idolater?)

tomb of the prophet Muhammad in Medina, Saudi Arabia - a must for those doing Hajj or Umrah

the prophet Muhammad after a massacre in a conquerred city

GOD - the evidence

Radical Islam: do we need any other proof that god does not exist?
(a few other forms of extreme religion will also qualify!)

No Allah sign