Free Republic

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — If Andy Schlafly has his way, there will be no socialists or snake handlers in the Bible. No woman caught in adultery. And, definitely, no Stephen Colbert. Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, wants to save the Scriptures from liberals with his latest venture, the Conservative Bible Project. He says translations like the New International Version have added socialist ideals to the Good Book. But his rewrite of the Bible has drawn criticism from biblical scholars, liberals and conservatives.

Vatican City, Nov 6, 2008 / 02:38 pm (CNA).- At the conclusion of the Catholic-Muslim Forum which took place at the Vatican, the participants issued a joint statement underscoring, among other themes, the importance of the defense of life as a gift from God to each person, religious freedom and the promotion of common moral values.The text states that Christians and Muslims believe that “human life is a very precious gift from God for each person, and therefore it should be preserved and honored in all of its stages.”After noting that the dignity of the person lies in having...

Archaeologists, scholars dispute Jesus documentary POSTED: 2151 GMT (0551 HKT), February 26, 2007Filmakers and researchers claim these stone boxes may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. JERUSALEM (AP) -- Filmmakers and researchers on Monday unveiled two ancient stone boxes they said may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and scheduled to air March 4 on the Discovery Channel, argues that 10 small...

I. For nearly 50 years, worries about a nuclear Middle East centered on Israel. Arab leaders resented the fact that Israel was the only atomic power in the region, a resentment heightened by America’s tacit approval of the situation. But they were also pretty certain that Israel (which has never explicitly acknowledged having nuclear weapons) would not drop the bomb except as a very last resort. That is why Egypt and Syria were unafraid to attack Israel during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. “Israel will not be the first country in the region to use nuclear weapons,” went the...

Stories about the controversy over the Pope’s remarks on Islam have featured the views of Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, who has a regular show on the Al-Jazeera television network. Demanding a personal apology from the Pope, Qaradawi declared on Al-Jazeera that “Muslims have the right to be angry and hurt by these comments from the highest cleric in Christianity.” Yet, Qaradawi, a supporter of violent Jihad, is living proof of what the Pope was warning about. Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times said that Qaradawi’s broadcasts on the Arabic TV network, which now wants to expand into the U.S. through...

As one of Stanford University's most respected Middle East scholars, professor Joel Beinin knows what terrorism looks like. So it was a shock when he saw his own face on the cover of a new book titled ``Campus Support for Terrorism,'' linking him to radical Islam. He's suing the book's publishers in what is the first counteroffensive by a professor against a growing campaign by conservative groups targeting left-leaning college educators. Conservative groups acknowledge they are watching scholars like Beinin in an effort to combat what they believe are inaccuracies perpetuated by liberal faculties on college campuses. But while many...

Scholars unearth mysteryVilla of Roman emperor raises new questions for researchers on dig in Italy Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius is depicted on a coin. Print By Jim Erickson Rocky Mountain News February 13, 2006 In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon portrays the pagan emperor Maxentius as a licentious youth and "a tyrant as contemptible as he was odious." Historians have long assumed that the reviled Roman emperor lived part-time at an 80-acre suburban villa complex until he was killed by his rival Constantine at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312....

Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws - namely, the Patriot Act - to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. The practice, called ideological exclusion, became illegal in 1990. But a recent lawsuit - brought by the American Association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the PEN American Center under the Freedom of Information Act - is asking the Bush administration to explain its decisions to revoke or deny...

For 23 years, the Socialist Scholars Conference was a big tent under which leftist activists and academics took shelter in an increasingly conservative America. Last June, however, seven of the group's 16 board members resigned, "in protest of the lack of democratic and participatory governance procedures." As a result of the split, the group's annual conference has been canceled, at least for this year. Meanwhile, the seven who quit the board quickly formed a new organization, the 2005 Left Forum, which has scheduled its debut conference for this weekend at the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown Manhattan. The new group...

In 2000, Michael Bellesiles published what the nation took to be a groundbreaking work of history. His book, Arming America, argued that Revolutionary Americans disdained gun ownership. He said the idea that individuals had a right to bear arms came from a myth created in the post Civil War era in order to justify the new boom in gun ownership. The book was an instant hit. Walter Wink of Christian Century flatly stated that the book "debunks this myth [of widespread gun ownership]" (March 21, 2001). In Insight on the News, Phillip Gold called it "a brilliant history with unintended...

French Scholar Urges Training Courses for Imams PARIS, December 2 (IslamOnline.net) - Most French imams lack the necessary religious, social and legal background to carry on with their duties, said a French Muslim scholar. “No more than 10 per cent of imams are religiously qualified for the job,” Daw Meskine, Secretary General of the French council for imams, told IslamOnline.net. He also admitted that some imams are unfamiliar with the social culture and laws of the French society. Meskine said he proposed, in his capacity as a member of the state-supervised committee on training imams, upgrading existent imams schools. “Institutes...

BERKELEY, Calif. - At the birthplace of the free speech movement, campus radicals have a new target: the faculty that came of age in the 60's. They say their professors have been preaching multiculturalism and diversity while creating a political monoculture on campus. Conservatism is becoming more visible at the University of California here, where students put out a feisty magazine called The California Patriot and have made the Berkeley Republicans one of the largest groups on campus. But here, as at schools nationwide, the professors seem to be moving in the other direction, as evidenced by their campaign contributions...

Editors' preface: A noted historian of the Middle East has said the following about the legacy of scholars who devoted their careers to the study of the region: The giants of the recent past tend to be largely forgotten as soon as they are dead if not before, especially if what they have written isn't what is now considered fashionable or central … They are criticized when they are in error, but their achievements are forgotten.[1] While this is largely true in the English-speaking countries, it is not true in France, where a few French "giants" of Islamic and Arab...

www.VetsforBush.NET BOSTON MANIFESTO: Veterans & Vietnam Scholars Declare Overwhelming Opposition to Kerry >> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIQUE STUDY, BY VIETNAM VETERANS, SETS THE VIETNAM RECORD STRAIGHT A recent poll of military personnel shows that those fighting the war in Iraq overwhelmingly support President Bush over John Kerry. The American public is almost evenly divided on the issue of Iraq. What do the soldiers know that the rest of the public doesn't understand? In the same vein, Vietnam Veterans overwhelmingly oppose Kerry. About two and a half million servicemen and women actually went to Vietnam in the ten years of major American involvement....

SPOKANE, Wash. - Scholars who want to know why people hate are gathering at Gonzaga University in hopes of shaping a new academic discipline to study a prime motivator of people's behavior. "Hatred is the most destructive aspect of human history," said Ken Stern, an organizer of the conference and the American Jewish Committee's expert on anti-Semitism. Hate is not a new problem nor is it confined to one region, he said. And too little is known about why people are disposed to hate others. "It impacts all aspects of our lives, and is not just a matter of a...

Turbans of the mind are disallowing and disavowing proper intellectual engagement with Islam. Aldous Huxley once defined an intellectual as someone who had found something in life more important than sex: a witty but inadequate definition, since it would make all impotent men and frigid women intellectuals. A better definition would be a freethinker, not in the narrow sense of someone who does not accept the dogmas of traditional religion, but in the wider sense of someone who has the will to find out, who exhibits rational doubt about prevailing intellectual fashions, and who is unafraid to apply critical thought...

From the issue dated October 4, 2002 http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i06/06a01801.htm A Lost Buddhist Literary Tradition Is Found Scholars decipher a stunning findan unknown canon in an ancient dialect By PETER MONAGHAN Seattle In certain cliffhangers on late-night television, dashing and strangely underdressed archaeologists in faraway places unearth artifacts of uncertain provenance. The discoveries cast new light on an ancient civilization. In reality, archaeologists are less swashbuckling, but once in a great while they do turn up objects -- ancient manuscripts, say, inscribed in little-known languages -- that have that effect. Through some stunning finds over the last decade, researchers studying early Buddhist manuscripts here...

WASHINGTON- Pinch-hitting for the boss, Vice President Dick Cheney awarded medallions Tuesday to 141 Presidential Scholars from high schools across the nation and saluted the students as post-Sept. 11 symbols of American pride. Cheney presided over the medal ceremony at the Daughters of the American Revolution auditorium after President Bush bowed out in order to fly to Arizona and survey wildfire damage. Being vice president, "is not that bad a job" - except that "it takes a while to get used to being a character on 'Saturday Night Live,'" Cheney quipped to the students. They were selected by the Education...

Two and one-half hour panel/Q&A session on "Is Higher Education Compatible with Patriotism?" just concluded on C-Span2 but will be repeated at 5:20 AMEDT. Panel was sponsored by the pretty-much-conservative National Association of Scholars. A promising tone was set by the moderator, Gertrude Himmelfarb, who began by observing that the title of the program brought to mind a more fundamental question - "Is Higher Education Compatible with Education?" - then answered her own question - "No". A couple of like-minded speakers including Walter Berns followed, but unfortunately, for balance apparently, the panel also included a couple of leftwingers - William...