Source Summaries

McElwee, Sean. "What the New Atheists Get Very Wrong About Religion."Alternet. N.p., 09 Dec. 2013. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.
This article dissects the basis of claims made by the New Atheists, the contemporary 'anti-theist' movement lead by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. It points out several logical fallacies present in their argument, and posits that the New Atheists give religion far too much credit in it's role as a shaping force of human conflict and history. The belief that the eradication of religion would lead to utopia is presented as far too simplistic a mindset. After all, the McElwee reminds us, 'The world's wars are about politics, not religion.' He provides a well substantiated case for the concept of religion being shaped by the current economic and political forces of the world, and not the other way around.

Wood, James. "Is That All There Is? - The New Yorker." The New Yorker. N.p., 15 Aug. 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2014.
This critique by The New Yorker's James Wood discusses the concepts presented in "The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays For How We Live Now." A main focal point is Philip Kitcher's essay "Challenges for Secularism," in which he discusses the faults he sees in the current attitude of secularism, especially mainstream atheism and the Darwinian atheists who contribute to the New Atheist movement. Kitcher believes that these contemporary viewpoints, with their disdain for the tolerance of religion, fail to recognize the good that religion and faith bring people both on an individual level and on a broader scale, socially. He believes that if religion is truly to be rendered obsolete, the pressure must be on secularism to provide an alternative source of moral guidance, support, and a source of inspiration and motivation for altruism. Kitcher points out that most people do not seek faith as a result of philosophical deduction, but as a source of support and direction in the throes of life.

Ghosh, Ranjan. Making Sense of the Secular: Critical Perspectives from Europe to Asia. Oxon: Routledge, 2013. Print.
The last excerpt discusses the move to secular society in South Korea, on a political level, and the juxtaposed individual shift back toward religion. As industrialization draws more of the population into urban areas, people are seeking faith as a method of building community and common ties with those around them. This emphasizes the idea that secularism only works if it is conscious of the holes it needs to fill in the daily lives of people as well. Other case studies point out regions of the world that also experience issues independently of those directly connected to religion, undermining the claim that the majority of historical and societal issues are rooted in religion. 

Th

Sources

1. Ben Affleck on Bill Maher’s Muslim Problem

In this article, historian Juan Cole addresses the controversial debate between Ben Affleck and comedian Bill Maher regarding Islam. Bill Maher and Sam Harris give an impassioned discourse upon their views of Islam. However much of it can be summed to Muslim-hating bigotry. I found this article very interesting because while it does discuss the debate upon whether Islam is a violent religion it also provides some background information upon Bill Maher. After reading this information it is hard not to associate Bill Maher as an Islamaphobe.

2. Terrorism and the other Religions

This article was also by historian Juan Cole and talks about how Islam is often misconstrued as the most and only violent religion in the world. However Juan Cole effectively  rebuts this claim by showing that Muslims are no more violent than any other religious people. He does this by talking about terrorism in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and more. I was very drawn to this article because it directly correlated with my first article about Maher. Also because Juan Cole is actually a professor at the University of Michigan and I am lucky enough to be taking one of his classes. He is a leading expert in Islamic affairs and is widely read and sought after for his expertise.

3. Islam and Democracy in Indonesia

This paper by Michel Buehler talks about how Islam and democracy coexist in the largest Islamic country in the world with about 230 million Muslims. Aside from that it also talks about how Indonesia is the world's third biggest democracy and how that is confounding given that most of its citizens are Muslims. People find this hard to believe because Islam and democracy aren't the most compatible of combinations due to Islam's view that no secular law is to be put above divine law. Buehler does a good job describing how these two coexist, one of the reasons being "the fragmentation of Islamic authority is society." I found this piece to be very interesting because it fits in well with where I think I'll be going with my essay.

Summary of 3 Sources

Religion's Role in State Affairs

In this article the author argues that although Muslims often call Bill Maher a racist or Islamophobic in reality he is just trying to help and is actually correct. In the article the author talks about how the problems of Muslim countries are caused because there is no separation between religion and the state. The author blames the Muslim clerics, or ulema for the problems and suicide bombings in Pakistan. 

Dangerous Discourse

This article is about the debate that happened with Bill Maher, Ben Afflek and Sam Harris. The author debunks some of the assumptions that Bill Maher makes, for example, the idea that the Western world is in charge of trying to reverse the effects of "primitive Islam" on the world. The author also talks about the problems with the debate itself which includes the point that there wasn't a Muslim at this debate, which is often the case with these discussions. The article then concludes by saying how Bill Maher never actually poses a solution.

Bombing at the Box Office: Reviewers' Responses to Agnosticism in Bill Maher's Religulous

This was an academic journal about documentary reviewers' responses to Bill Maher's documentary Religulous. What they found was that Bill Maher chose people that were not necessarily good candidates for speaking about religion. In this way he portrayed them as fanatics while giving them very little respect. Some reviewers agreed with his methods, but others did not. The intent and the method of his arguments were questioned by the reviewers. They were seen as being humorous and therefore possibly less threatening yielding good reviews. 

Summary of 3 Sources

I will be writing on the relationship between secular and religious disaster conceptions, with a focus on natural disasters, and how secular and religious groups justify the catastrophic occurrence.

The 2010 study, “Religions, natural hazards, and disasters: An introduction,” by J.C. Galliard and P. Texier elaborates on how the media is “keen” on covering natural disasters as acts of god, since the idea of punishment by way of natural disaster is so common in many western religions. Galliard and Texier posit that the ubiquity of disasters intended to punish and teach humans in western religions may be why certain societies are willing to accept such rationalizations. Ultimately, they argue that religion acts as an effective contributor to disaster-risk reduction, as they are generally trusted groups within the greater community that are able to arrive at the aftermath of disaster much faster than other groups can.

In the 1999 study, “Value-conflict arising from a disaster,” A.J.W. Taylor argues that religion can sometimes stand in the way of effective disaster treatment. Taylor uses the aftermath of a cyclone in the Cook Islands to illustrate how clergy were more focused on victims accounting for their sins, and less so on providing the actual aid the victims required. A secular trauma therapist criticized the clergy, accusing them of focusing too much on “…the Book of Revelation rather than on the Gospels of the New Testament. Taylor effectively argues that aid-groups need to pay attention to the value systems of disaster victims in order to more accurately address their needs.

In her 2010 study, “Anthropology of religion: Disaster and the representations of tradition and modernity,” J. Schlehe speculates that religion provides a way for people to express specific political interests after a disaster: by claiming the reason for the disaster is divine, certain groups of people can achieve various economic, social, or political gains that would have been hard to attain without the influence of religion. Schlehe claims that this methodology can be used to manipulate groups of people into acting in ways different from how they would have acted if the disaster had not been justified as a punishment from god.