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December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or

In our current hyper-productive, "time-is-money" motivated community, the idea of a "9 to 5″ working hours doesn't really are available any longer. The time spent at work, whether at the office or any other place, often competing the time spent targeted on anything else in our lifestyle. With the convenience of technology, work has crept into the sides of our everyday living and essentially obliterated the stability between the public and private dichotomies that were once clearly separated. From Islamic Point of View As Muslims, the fact that Islam is a way of lifestyle and not just a perception, punches an even greater wrench into the frustrating complexness of keeping personal perception levels and discussing work circumstances. From arranged wishes and guidelines of modesty, to a month of going on a fast and limited sex connections, God-consciousness prevails in all that a exercising Islamic does. So, when work seems to leak over into lifestyle and individuals are frustrated from providing perception into the office, how does a Islamic reunite the requirements of the office without limiting his or her faith?

The Silsilah Dialogue Movement is a Filipino movement in Mindanao that aims to unite Christians and Muslims, as well as other people of different religion and faith. Prof. Alzad Sattar is proud to be a member and Muslim coordinator of the Inter-faith Council of Leaders in Basilan. He took up Political Science in Basilan State College and had his Masters Degree in the University of the Philippines. He became a professor in Basilan State College since 1996. Presently, he is the Assistant Dean of Academic Support and Services and Dean of the College of Islamic Studies. He is also an active participant and member of non-government organizations that promote peace and harmony like the Silsilah Dialogue Movement. As a child born in the city of Basilan, he believes that this place is very beautiful. Despite of this harmonious scenery with its natural white beach and sea resources, for him, Basilan has a large diversity when it comes to cultures and religions between the people living in this paradise. He hopes that someday this diversity would surpass through the help of the Dialogue. The following are some excerpts and inspiring keys mentioned by Prof. Alzad Sattar in an interview in the Silsilah Dialogue Movement: What was the impact of Silsilah Dialogue Movement to you as person? Prof Sattar: Silsilah actually transformed a lot in me as a person. I remember in the past, I had biases and prejudices against Christians because of a lot of factors. Number one factor is the orientations that I had, that Christians are like this and that and the second factor was the situation that I had experienced. I was born during the Martial law and at that time, many of my relatives died. The people who killed them are the Philippine soldiers who happened to be Christians. This contributed to my perception about the Christians. One factor that also contributed in my biases is the books I read. Like what I said, I was a PolSci graduate and because of that I rea

...The answer therefore seems to be this. The American public deeply questions the President's faith, and while the answer to whether or not Obama is a Muslim may or may not ever be known, he is certainly not much of a Christian...

There must be a secret that all commanders know, the secret revealed in crisis, that the soul that is calm with controlled emotion is performing an act of faith - the battle continues.

This article will allow me to evaluate the mainstream media's interpretation of the Other Campaign. Expectedly, it is full of jokes and superfluity and lacking in legitimate analysis. The NYT guy said that Marcos was vague about what the Other Campaign is about. They say Marcos "even tried to undermine" the "popular leftist candidate," the one from the PRD, who would sell out the country. "Precisely what Marcos hopes to accomplish with the meetings and with a planned national tour by a group of Zapatista representatives remains murky. He has not defined how he would change the Constitution." They say that the EZLN hasn't launched another military offensive because they were pushed back into the jungle by the military in 1995. in article: Still others say Marcos's call for a broad movement reflects a widespread disappointment with left-leaning politicians throughout Latin America, who have become enmeshed in the sort of corruption scandals they once criticized. "What they are saying represents a trend in Latin America, which is that people have lost faith in political parties," said Peter M. Rosset, an expert in agricultural policy who attended the meeting on Sunday. "The basic feeling is that the political class is all the same." That sentiment was expressed over and over here in San Miguel, a former 15,000-acre ranch that the Zapatistas seized in 1994 and divided among former Indian ranch hands. "This movement, for me, its historic," said Arturo Guzmán González, a 29-year-old singer who did a version a cappella of his protest song, "Manifestarse." "It has a moral base, this movement. They seek the words of everyone."

Democrat or Republican, Libertarian or Socialist, politically active and not we are reaping the bitter reward of a political and legal system designed to maximize corporate profits at the expense of our environment, our livelihood, and our very lives. Our society is unraveling. We all know this. This is not idle conspiracy theory. These are well established facts. We are ruled by a headless beast that is no longer accountable to us. That it is headless makes it no less beastly. But there is a silver bullet. It's within our power to restore a functioning free market; to take back our democracy. We must end limited liability for corporations. Only when wealthy investors are no longer shielded from the costs that we collectively bear in their stead, only when they can no longer hide from the burden they have placed on us, only then can we expect the end of corporate plunder.   We are running out of time. Millions of Germans lost faith in the free market and capitalism during the Great Depression, and "with the failure of the left to provide a viable alternative, they became vulnerable to the rhetoric of a party that, once it came to power, combined Keynesian pump-priming measures that brought unemployment down to 3 percent with a devastating counterrevolutionary social and cultural program."

A 64 year old man gets attacked by Islamic Extremists over some more depictions of their pedophile prophet. The video of the attack is *slightly* violent, certainly no Van Gogh incident, but this speaks volumes about the intolerance and warped conception of freedom among the Islamic faith.

Numerous people have argued that one potential benefit from the death of Osama bin Laden is that it will enable the U.S. Government to diminish its war commitments in that part of the world and finally arrest the steady erosion of civil liberties perpetrated in the name of the War on Terror (as though any of that is the government's goal).  By contrast, I've argued from the start that the bin Laden killing is likely to change nothing of any significance, except that -- if anything -- the resulting nationalistic pride, the vicarious sensations of power and strength, the substantial political benefits for the President, and the renewed faith in military force would be more likely to intensify rather than arrest these trends.  But that was definitely a minority opinion.

Democrat or Republican, Libertarian or Socialist, politically active and not we are reaping the bitter reward of a political and legal system designed to maximize corporate profits at the expense of our environment, our livelihood, and our very lives. Our society is unraveling. We all know this. This is not idle conspiracy theory. These are well established facts. We are ruled by a headless beast that is no longer accountable to us. That it is headless makes it no less beastly. But there is a silver bullet. It's within our power to restore a functioning free market; to take back our democracy. We must end limited liability for corporations. Only when wealthy investors are no longer shielded from the costs that we collectively bear in their stead, only when they can no longer hide from the burden they have placed on us, only then can we expect the end of corporate plunder.   We are running out of time. Millions of Germans lost faith in the free market and capitalism during the Great Depression, and "with the failure of the left to provide a viable alternative, they became vulnerable to the rhetoric of a party that, once it came to power, combined Keynesian pump-priming measures that brought unemployment down to 3 percent with a devastating counterrevolutionary social and cultural program."

A little pompous, but provoking and informative all the same.

One expects the debt-ceiling mess to involve a lot of ostentatious chest-pounding on both sides, for despite the fact that this is a deadly serious issue - the fact that we're even considering incurring an intentional catastrophe via a default is incredible, a testament to the bottomless stupidity inherent in our political climate - this whole debate is primarily an exercise in political posturing. That Republicans are holding up what should be a routine, if unpleasant, decision to raise the debt ceiling in order to portray themselves as the uncompromising defenders of the budget-balancing faith (a howling idiocy in itself, given what went on during the Bush years) is obvious to most rational observers. It's the obvious play for the lame-duck party entering an election year, and they're playing it, with the requisite hysteria. But what is becoming equally obvious, to both sides, is that the Obama White House is using this same artificial calamity to pitch its own increasingly rightward tilt to voters in advance of the 2012 elections.

We are at a pivotal moment in American history, and many Americans watching the deficit talks in Washington are confused, perplexed, angry and frustrated. This country, which has paid its debts from Day 1, must pay its debts. Anyone who says it is not a big deal for this country to default clearly does not understand what he or she is talking about. This is a nation whose faith and credit has been the gold standard of countries throughout the world. Some people simply say we're not going to pay our debt, that there's nothing to really worry about. Those are people who are wishing our economy harm for political reasons, and those are people whose attitudes will have terrible consequences for virtually every working family in this country in terms of higher interest rates, in terms of significant job loss, in terms of making a very unstable global economy even more unstable. Our right-wing friends in the House of Representatives have given us an option. What they have said is end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So when you're 70 under their plan and you get sick and you don't have a whole lot of income, we don't know what happens to you. They forget to tell us that if their plan was passed you're going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs you're getting today. They we're going to throw millions of kids off health insurance. If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens? And what happens today if you are unemployed and you're not able to get unemployment extension? What happens if you are a middle-class family desperately trying to send their kids to college and you make savage cuts to Pell grants and you can't go to college? What does it mean for the nation if we

The Dove World Outreach Center, A Fringe Religious Group, Plans The "International Burn a Quran Day" For September 11 To Remember 9/11 And To Take A Stand Against Islam Instead, What They Will Accomplish Although They Are Small In Size And Even Smaller in Reach, Is An Incredibly Large And Unnecessary Backlash Against The West.

NBC has Sharif el-Gama as one of it's People of the Year. The developer of the proposed mosque at Ground Zero is lobbed softball questions by Matt Lauer and you can watch a video clip preview.