Arbitrary Marks

The Arbitrary Marks household has a new member, Lucy.  She’s a 3 month old terrier-chihuahua mix and a bright, friendly little girl who is getting housebroken in the midst of a Chicago snow.  She’s also a great object lesson in philosophy.  (Kids and animals both, I think, provide fertile ground for exploring philosophical questions–which is why [...]

On my way in to work this morning, I listened to Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time on audiobook.  (Public libraries are a great way to take some of the pain out of lengthy commutes.)  I’m at the point in the prophet’s life where he has recited–then retracted–a sura that elevated three of [...]

Call it futile, call it watching a train wreck, call it what you will, but I read blogs like this one, lurk on message boards like this, and keep track of Christians that I share common ground with and vehemently oppose.
The blog entry I’m going to talk about today was written by KDNY–I don’t know [...]

Somehow, the real world of packing for a move, getting ready our wedding (Saturday!), and just general stuff to do (like take a nap on Memorial Day) has gotten the best of me.  My vlog is in pieces on the Mac, waiting to be published.  My Sharon Welch response is a series of notes jotted in my Moleskine.  [...]

A few thoughts on the PBS series “America at a Crossroads,” a teaser for my interview with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and the topic of my next vlog.

In 1980, India passed a bill that allowed non-Hindus to adopt children (prior to that time, only Hindus could adopt). However, Muslims in that country believed that the Qur’an does not allow adoption. They tried to block the law. I’ve read about this recently in Martha Nussbaum’s Sex and Social Justice. [...]

An Australian Imam is coming under fire for saying this, in the context of sexual assault on women:
“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside… and the cats come and eat it… whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat?” he asked. The uncovered meat is the problem, he went on [...]

ChaliceChick did an experiment yesterday, to see how many of her readers could correctly identify the difference between the Shi’ites and the Sunnis.  Most could, to some degree.  GetReligion has been talking about this for a while, too.  How informed are we about the divisions (political and religious) in the Islamic world that impact us?
Here’s [...]

The controversy will continue on (though not here, as I’ve said my opinion), and the Pope has given an explanation for his controversial remarks last week.  I’m reproducing it below–you can find the context, such that it is, on the Vatican website.

Here, at the University where for many years I had taught, I spoke on [...]

The fracas over Benedict’s speech is an illustrative warning for academics everywhere. What the pope quoted was offensive to Muslims, true–but is context anything anymore?  The citation provided merely a starting point for his reflections (as he said), it could have been taken out of his lecture without impacting his argument, the overall thrust of the lecture [...]