President Barack Obama’s nomination of Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health is good news for scientists, for people of faith, and for all Americans. Dr. Collins, a preeminent geneticist and devout Christian, is highly qualified for the job because of his skills and his values.

In the 1990s he led the Human Genome Project at NIH, which helped unlock the human genetic code, a key to finding cures and treatment for a wide range of diseases. Collins also knows how to translate complex scientific concepts into plain English, which is essential given the rapid pace of technologies that affect our lives. Collins is a person of deep faith—the nation’s top scientist believes in God.

This last quality is important, for it signals that the hyped conflict between science and religion has no place, either symbolically or pragmatically, in the work of the Obama administration. And certainly there is a lot of work to do, especially in Dr. Collins’ particular policy area of interest—personalized medicine—potentially one of the most important fields of science to emerge from the Human Genome Project for everyday Americans.

Suddenly, the war between religion and science seems so “last century,” a sort of obsolete appendage that has no function in today’s world. It is true that the politicizing of certain conservative religious creeds by the Bush administration—funding abstinence-only programs in schools when factual evidence showed their ineffectiveness, for instance, or limiting the use of U.S. aid funds overseas if the recipients offered abortion counseling—did real damage and should not be minimized. But the overstepping of narrow sectarian beliefs, which was pervasive in the last administration, did not represent the authenticity of diverse faith traditions in America.

What’s more, the yell fests that have raged on TV, radio, and print, pitting atheist scientists against literal creationists—or whatever the polarized extremes happened to be—seem increasingly unhelpful to the challenges that face all of us, whether atheist, agnostic, doubter, seeker, or believer.

This is not to say that religion and science will not again be used against each other, or that creating an alliance between the two is easy. But these realms are not as oppositional as they once seemed. Most major religions continue to be shaped by advances in science, incorporating new understandings of how the world works to broaden and deepen their comprehension of the divine.

Dr. Collins understands all this. His intellectual curiosity, scientific expertise, ethical depth, and commitment to alleviating suffering make him the right man for the job. And he’s very good at explaining his faith and his science to everyday Americans. What more could the senators who need to confirm him to the post need to know?

Article also appears at The Center for American Progress.спални

In 2001 Sam Harris was a graduate student in neuroscience. But like so many people, 9/11 radically altered his life. Seeing affluent young men kill themselves and others in the name of their God led him to conclude there was something fundamentally wrong with many of the world’s religions. The fruit of his effort to expose and confront what he interprets as the violence, sexism, homophobia and inherent irrationality of the world’s largest faiths became a best-seller, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Unsurprisingly, Harris was flooded with angry hate mail, typically from people who identify as deeply religious. He decided to respond en masse with his follow-up effort, Letter to a Christian Nation (Vintage), another best-seller. Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation triggered a flood of media coverage. I spoke with Harris about his thoughts on religious fundamentalism, atheism, and terrorism.

You started writing The End of Faith right after 9/11, I wondered if you could talk about what inspired you to do that?

Sam Harris: It really was my immediate response to September 11th and continues to be my response to the fact that every time I open the newspaper, fully half of the news, often unacknowledged, is coming out of the religious divisions in our world. We are continually bearing witness to how maladapted and unnecessary these religious ideas are.

Besides writing, what can one do to push the rationality agenda?

I think it has to come from media of all types. What we need essentially is a Fahrenheit 9/11 scale wide-release documentary on this subject.

Your book proceeds from looking at the polling data on people who think that God created the Earth in seven days, which is staggeringly high; and then the percentage of people who believe that God directed evolution, which is also staggeringly high, as compared to the percentage the people who accept the scientific consensus about evolution, which is very low. But at the same time, science is winning the battle over teaching evolution in schools. It seems to me that this would be unsustainable in a democratic country if 90 percent of people actually found scientific evolution offensive. So how do you explain those numbers?

There’s a margin of error and there are subtle differences in polls. For instance, a recent Gallop poll found that 53 percent of Americans believe the universe is 6,000 years old and we evolved not from prior species but from Adam and Eve. The percentages are always massive, something like 70 percent believe in hell, 68 percent believe in Satan. There are so many specific questions being asked, it’s not just “Do you believe in God?” that I do trust the poll results, but I find them no less shocking.

It’s important to point out that this is a significant minority. This is not a majority. Something like 45 percent of us go to Church every week or more and believe very literalist things. If 44 percent of people claim to believe that Jesus is coming back in their lifetime, that is an eruption of medievalism in the heart of our democracy that I think should trouble everyone.

But there’s another 45 percent who are moderate in their beliefs, and do accept evolution. But many of them think that evolution has been guided by God. What that means in its particulars is that it’s difficult to spell out and no doubt, there are many millions of people who pay lip service to God guiding evolution, but what they really mean is that the universe is vast and mysterious and there is some kind of energy out there that maybe we don’t understand.

But if you poll people on a Friday and ask them what they are doing over the weekend, the percentage of people who say they are going to Church will be higher than the number who actually go. Isn’t it possible that these numbers skew a little bit toward religion simply because Americans feel some obligation to answer that way, for the same reason majorities say they would vote for an African-American or a Jew, but never do in the voting booth?

But what’s interesting is that they would not vote for an atheist. The same poll run with the subject of atheism produces very different results. An atheist is the only person who could not get a majority of his own party, if you stipulate that he is a qualified candidate. And that’s not true of Muslims, or Jews, or homosexuals. And so I just think there are many reasons to believe that atheism is the most reviled variable around which someone can organize in this culture.

We’ve run a lot of articles on CampusProgress.org about how you can be a good Christian and accept homosexuality, or reproductive freedom, or evolution. What do you think?

It’s a bit of a paradox. On one level I want to support these people and I argue that we do need more interfaith dialogue, more religious moderation. So religious moderation is the goal on one level, and it’s certainly better than religious fundamentalism.

But religious moderates are just reliably deluding themselves about as to where their moderation is coming from. Their moderation is not coming from looking more closely at their holy books. It’s not coming from God. It’s not coming from a plausible reading of their texts. It’s coming from the hammer blows their religious tradition is suffering from modernity. It’s coming from a collision with science and secular politics and a larger world of discourse, which is eroding the basis for their religious certainty. The reason we’re not burning religious heretics on street corners under the name of Christendom, Christianity now, like we were in Europe for five centuries, is because Christianity has been mastered and subjugated by post-enlightenment discourse to a significant degree.

Unlike most atheists who say religion can be interpreted by bad people to support their beliefs, you actually think religion is the source of bad beliefs, such as martyrdom in Islam.

If you want to explain why there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of suicide bombers in the Muslim world, I think you really need look no further than the doctrine of martyrdom and jihad that is professed ad nauseam in these jihadist circles and probably even wider circles within Muslim discourse. It explains it. And it explains why this behavior is actually sometimes independent of education or economic opportunity, or even independent of having a history of being mistreated by Western powers or anything else. It explains why we have some psychologically healthy, well-off, well-educated, and unmolested people blowing themselves up or flying planes into buildings. We really do have that in the Muslim world, and it is behavior that is utterly inexplicable without reference to what these people actually believe.

So you’re saying is that if the world converted en masse to Jainism or Quakerism that there would in fact, be much less terrorism, crime, or war?

There is no question that behavior would be different. There’s no question if your core religious belief, which trumps all others, is that non-violence is the most important thing, don’t kill people under any circumstances, not even in self-defense. If your daughter is getting raped by pirates, you are simply to watch because it is worse for you to lift a finger against the pirates. If this is the way you view the world, and I am not saying this is a good way to view the world, it has very different behavioral consequences. You know what someone who really believes that is going to do in various situations of oppression. They’re not going to blow up little kids in pizza parlors, on buses, or in discotheques just to make their point.

The funny thing about you saying Islam is to be blamed for the terrorism originating in the Middle East is that it puts you in agreement with neo-conservatives and also Christian American zealots.

It’s an interesting paradox of sorts. My argument is really orthogonal to our political discourse. What I say about Islam lines up much more to what neo-conservatives and even Christian lunatics say about Islam. And what I say about Christianity lines up with what liberals and people who think that Islam has been basically misconstrued say about Christianity. It’s a bewildering conversation to have when you try to have it in the midst of our normal political polarities. I find it inconvenient that the people who see the problem of Islam most clearly in our society are our own religious demagogues. That’s scary because we don’t want that. We don’t want religion playing both sides of board in that game. And it’s starting to. It’s certainly playing the board on the Muslim side. And there are many Christians who are angling for a showdown for biblical reasons. That’s what I’m worried about. Until liberals admit that there are tens of millions of people far scarier than Dick Cheney in the Muslim world, they’re just out of the conversation.

This article was originally published in Campus Progress.

For over two decades, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has been a leading national voice on behalf of the Muslim American community. MPAC works with policy leaders, law enforcement agencies, the entertainment industry, and others to shape policies and public opinion concerning Muslim Americans. MPAC also works within Muslim American communities to develop strong leadership and encourage civic participation.

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad is MPAC’s government relations director. She talks with Sally Steenland of the Center for American Progress’ Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative about the challenges facing Muslim Americans in a post 9-11 nation, the images of Muslims in the media, and her community’s hopes for the new administration.

Sally Steenland: Safiya, you’re the Government Relations Director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council here in Washington D.C. Can you tell us about MPAC—why it’s needed, not just for the Muslim community, but for all of us?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad:The Muslim Public Affairs Council came about in about 1988, so we have been around for about 20 years. We originated in Los Angeles as the public relations wing of the Islamic Center of Southern California, and we’ve grown to expand our offices around the country. MPAC operates on the core belief that we’re trying to create a shift in U.S. policy, and that requires more from our community, but it also requires building bridges and coalitions with other groups at the grassroots and national level. We are trying to build those bridges, but we’re also trying to create a stronger voice in the media. There is a void of thoughtful analysis of the Muslim American community, of the issues at play.

Sally Steenland: Let’s talk about some of the policy issues you are working on and some of the media issues as well. I know that you have an office in Hollywood, and you have a project on Islam. What do those projects do?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad: We instituted our Hollywood bureau about a year ago. We had been seeing a shift in public opinion of Muslims. A lot of what you see in the movies and TV is a Muslim playing the role of a terrorist. That becomes a formidable concept in the minds of Americans –that this is what Islam and the Muslim community represent. So we decided to create a Hollywood bureau which serves as a bridge between the Muslim community and the entertainment industry. We reach out to filmmakers, writers, actors, Hollywood professionals, and we talk about the issues that pertain to the Muslim American community. We also look at scripts and review shows, so we are able to say, “Look, this is how you portrayed a Muslim. Maybe you could do this instead or maybe you could show them praying in this way, in a more positive light.” And it’s actually been really positive. We’ve seen a lot of feedback from our Hollywood partners in asking us and seeking our advice.

“Project Islam’ is a program we implemented a few years ago [to equip] communities with the skills to address difficult questions….our religion [was] put in the spotlight after 9/11 and [we] were questioned about issues that are difficult—about polygamy, the role of terrorism or jihad. Sometimes our community members aren’t prepared to answer those [questions].

Sally Steenland: When you work with Hollywood and in communities so that there’s a more accurate reflection of who Muslims in America really are, what do you think some of those obstacles are?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad: There are very few positive images of American Muslims portrayed on a broader level. So you’ll see Osama bin Laden tapes being played over and over again, where he is calling for jihad on America, but you don’t see, for example, an organization called Green Muslims that helps save the environment based on an Islamic perspective. Or you don’t see groups like MPAC that are calling out against terrorism and violence in any and all forms.

There’s a disconnect between what people are seeing and [who] Muslims [are.] Also, we’re still dealing with post 9-11 repercussions. We’re seeing an increase in employment discrimination, in cases where our community members are being questioned unnecessarily by the FBI and law enforcement.

Sally Steenland: Can you give us a sense of what a pre-9/11 world was and what a post-9/11 world looks like for the Muslim community in America?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad: A lot of my work deals with young Muslims, and the reason we’re trying to engage [them] is because many who are reaching college age right now don’t remember a pre-9/11 world. They were very young when 9/11 happened and all they’ve seen is the backlash. They’ve seen Guantanamo, they’ve seen Abu Ghraib and this is what they’re beginning to understand of U.S. foreign policy or domestic policy. What we’re trying to do is to include them to be engaged citizens, to work with government officials, to engage their local law enforcement, to be active citizens.

Some of the post-9/11 repercussions have to do with “home-grown terrorism.” I know that the Senate and various government agencies are extremely concerned about young American Muslims who are born and raised here becoming radicalized and then carrying out acts of violence on U.S. soil. This is something that hits a nerve with a lot of us because it raises you to a suspect class. You’re born and raised here, but your allegiance to this country is still in question because you could be affiliating with terrorist groups or messages that are calling for violence.

Sally Steenland: If you could advise the Senate committees that are holding hearings and the FBI and the police forces that are working on this—and maybe in some cases you are—what would you say?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad: I think the language that’s being used is extremely problematic. These hearings are called ‘Violent Islamic Radicalization,’ ‘Violent Islamist Jihadization.’ You are pushing people away from dialogue and discussion by language like that, because you’re equating violence and terrorism with our religion. Just like other religions, there are bad people carrying out acts of violence in the name of their religion…we don’t ascribe to those beliefs, but immediately are linked.

I have pushed the Senate Committees to change the language that’s coming out of our government to a more friendly, engaging atmosphere that brings young Muslims in….they’re always talking about young Muslims who are becoming radicalized, but they don’t have young Muslims testifying. They don’t have [them] coming forward to represent their own community.

Sally Steenland: Have you seen any hopeful signs based on your work?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad: MPAC has testified before Congress on these issues, and I think they are reaching out to [us] and other Muslim groups for feedback, ideas, engagement….but in some ways, like the language issue, we’ve pushed for the last eight hearings for them to change the title, and that hasn’t been effective. But they’re trying to engage us and there’s hope with the new administration that there will be a shift.

Sally Steenland: What are your hopes for the new administration?

Safiya Ghori-Ahmad: On the campaign trail where we reached out to the American Muslim community [with] the get-out-the-vote initiative, I saw that so many people felt a change in rhetoric, a shift in the tone of the government in how they are going to engage the Muslim world and Muslims in general. Young [and] older Muslims felt like they were being included in this message of change and hope.

Sally Steenland: If you had to give us a snapshot that was reflective of the realities of Muslim American communities, what would you say?

Ghori-Ahmad: There’s always a preconceived notion that when you say “Muslim” you’re thinking South Asian, Pakistani, Indian, or Arab; but in fact the majority of American Muslims are native born, so they’re African American Muslims; they’re indigenous. About 35 percent are indigenous Muslims, which is more than the other groups. Arabs come in at about 24-25 percent, then South Asians at about 18 percent, and so you’re seeing this shift, especially[with] young American Muslims, where we’re not as affiliated with our ethnic background. Many times you’ll ask young Muslims where they’re from and their first response is, “America.”

Steenland: I want to go back for a minute and talk about some preconceptions people have and some things people say that they may not be aware of. One of the things you hear people say is, “He’s a moderate Muslim” or “She’s a moderate Muslim.” And that word “moderate” is meant to be a compliment, and I think you would probably say it is not. What’s wrong with saying that?

Ghori-Ahmad: I am one of those people who don’t like being called a moderate or progressive Muslim because moderation, to me, is a mainstream term. Moderation is inherent in our religion, in the Qu’ran, in what we’re taught all our lives. You can be an American and you can be a Muslim at the same time. Right now the definition has taken on a political twist where, after 9/11, you’ll see groups use “moderate Muslims” to portray themselves as a watered-down version of being Muslim.

Steenland: Can you talk about any generation gap that exists in the Muslim American community?

Ghori-Ahmad: I definitely think there’s a generation gap in our community right now. Often times our parents came here as immigrants, or if they are indigenous, their main priority was to build Mosques and community centers as a place for worship and gathering as a community. …..you’re seeing a shift in our generation into civic engagement and political activism. That’s a divide. The elder generation doesn’t think that is a priority. It’s sort of the immigrant mentality where, “we’re here, we want to make money, we want to have families, and we want to have a place to pray.”

But we’re seeing a more nuanced understanding of being an American Muslim in our generation where we’re trying to get more involved, whether politically or civically. I think that has caused rifts in some communities. Additionally, you’re seeing a void in some Mosques where the leadership is still the elder generation and you don’t see as many young Muslims stepping up to the plate to take leadership roles in their communities. Now that’s not universal, but those are some issues that are definitely inherent in the community right now.

Steenland: Let’s say you’re coming from a traditional community….Can you talk about the desire and appeal of assimilating and being an American, but at the same time, the appeal of tradition and of deeper roots within one’s own circle?

Ghori-Ahmad: I definitely think there is a conflict that probably many young Muslims feel in terms of, how far can we go? And these are issues we’re trying to have addressed in our Mosques and with our leaders…you do see that struggle and you’re constantly questioning, “Am I American? I’m South Asian at home.” You speak a different language, you pray five times a day, you dress differently, you eat different foods, and then it’s like you’re two lives.

I think everyone comes to a point, usually in college, where they reconcile those two identities and begin to understand what being an American Muslim is, and that you can be both. You can wear your jeans and go to the movies and talk about sports, and at the same time you can still make time to pray five times a day, you can make sure that you’re following the traditions that are set forth by the religion.

Steenland: If you had to list some of the top issues facing the Muslim American community this year, what comes to mind?

Ghori-Ahmad: Unfortunately we’re still dealing with post-9/11 issues. We’re still engaging with federal agencies and members of Congress to address issues like the Patriot Act, to address the ramifications of legislation that adversely affects the community. On the flip side, we’re also hoping that our community is beginning to understand and engage in the civic process at a more enhanced level. I think that this election brought the community to the forefront in terms of voting and volunteering for campaigns, and that was a good thing…. But we need to see more of that on the local and the grassroots [level].

Another issue is shifting from foreign policy to domestic policy. You can ask our community members, “What’s the most important issue to you?” and for the most part – this isn’t even a generational issue – you’ll hear, “Palestine” or “Kashmir” or “Afghanistan.” I think that we – MPAC – we’re trying to shift the focus from foreign policy to domestic policy because health care is just as important to us; we’re living in America. Immigration is just as important. There’s a host of domestic issues that are equally important but may not get the kind of relevance in the community that they should.

Steenlandcarrier to noise ratio: I have one last question, and that has to do with your hopes for the next four years and beyond. If you had a wand and could help shape the Muslim American community in this country, what would you like to see and what are your hopes?

Ghori-Ahmad: I really do hope that we’re going to see a more diverse administration. We’re already seeing that, but I hope to see more Muslim Americans involved in the political process, more engaged, and not just in the law enforcement field. We’re not just here to talk about national security, but to address a whole host of issues and be looked at as equal stakeholders in the progress of America and the economic outlook for America. I do think we can look beyond 9/11 and the level of suspicion that we’ve seen ourselves cast in for the last few years and move beyond that. I hope for the next four or eight years that this administration will bring change to where our community will begin to feel like they’re a part of the system.

This interview also appears on Center for American Progress.

In recent years, we have been told by a variety of conservatives that America’s founding fathers established the country under Christian doctrine—that we are a “Christian nation” and should operate accordingly.

This notion—that our country’s roots are explicitly Christian—is both foolish and wrong, for it devalues the Christian faith and disrespects the genius of the founding fathers. Christianity does not need to be endorsed by law or some fantasized re-interpretation of the Constitution in order to have meaning in people’s lives. Let’s face it. Will Christianity be seriously jeopardized if its followers learn that only one of the 56 founding fathers was a member of the clergy? Will their faith be dashed if they discover that James Madison objected to chaplains opening the proceedings of Congress with prayer? And more recently, will people ignore the Bible if the Ten Commandments aren’t posted in courtrooms or if the nativity scene in town squares shares space with a menorah? When people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” at Wal-Mart, are they attacking Jesus? For Christians secure in their faith, the answer to all these questions should be a resounding “no.”

The genius of the founding fathers is they understood that Christianity could not only stand on its own but would thrive without being written into the laws and founding documents of the country. In fact, it was likely their own “faith” that led them to this conclusion. Many of the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Monroe—practiced a faith called Deism. Deism is a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws—and after creation, is absent from the world. This belief in reason over dogma helped guide the founders toward a system of government that respected faiths like Christianity, while purposely isolating both from encroaching on one another so as not to dilute the overall purpose and objectives of either.

If the founders were dogmatic about anything, it was the belief that a person’s faith should not be intruded upon by government and that religious doctrine should not be written into governance. James Madison, for instance, was vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs. In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill “establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,” Madison wrote his “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” in which he presented 15 reasons why government should not become involved in the support of any religion.

In his first term as president, Thomas Jefferson declared his firm belief in the separation of church and state in a letter to the Danbury, Conn. Baptists. He said: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”

A treaty of peace and friendship between the United States and Tripoli that was approved by George Washington explicitly stated: “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…” This treaty was negotiated by the American diplomat Joel Barlow during the administration of George Washington. Washington read it and approved it, although it was not ratified by the senate until John Adams had become president.

Finally, and most obviously, if the founding fathers intended to include Jesus, the Bible, or other particular aspects of the Christian faith in the founding of our nation, they would have expressly done so. However, the two references to religion that are in the Constitution contain exclusionary language. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . .” and in Article VI, Section III, “… no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

The founding fathers’ purposes were clear. They had no intention to found the country according to Christian doctrines. Having said that, it is important to add that this exclusion in no way devalued the importance of the Christian religion in their minds—nor should it in ours. Christianity is thriving in America, and so is Judaism, Islam, and other religions. Rather than listening to those who distort history and pit one faith as superior to others because it is more “American,” we should instead be working together on a shared spiritual vision—to empower the poor and marginalized, heal the planet, bring relief to those who suffer, and bring peace to our precious world. We should instead be grateful for the wisdom of our founding fathers who purposely devised a government and a nation based upon the Constitution that gave people the freedom and liberty to practice their religion. This system has worked amazingly well for over 200 years and is the envy of many countries ensnared in sectarian strife. Our history is one to be proud of, for it allows religious and political freedom, both of which are precious commodities in today’s world.

“In my dungeon even the pope himself would confess, that he is a witch!”
-A German inquisitor during the time of the witch trials

Well, I have to admit, when I first came across the term “water boarding” it conjured in my rather naive mind images of white beaches and sun tanned, healthy bodies gliding on surf boards along the foamy crests of breaking waves.

Even within the respectable Oxford English Minidictionary, which is always by my side while I am writing, I was not able to find any information about the term. There is simply nothing between “water bed” and “water cannon”.

Yet I soon found out it is an inquisitive technique for the purpose of interrogation. That means: getting information out of a suspect, who is reluctant to part with it. I learned also that the method is not new at all. Accounts of it’s usage date back to the time of the Spanish Inquisition under the (in)famous Inquisitor Tomas De Torquemada. At that time it was used to extract confessions from suspected heretics and witches with the holy purpose of destroying their sinful bodies by burning them on the stake and so to send their hereby liberated souls for further torment to hell.

Let us now have a thorough, inquisitive look at the method itself.

It is of course my duty here, before we proceed with graphic details and gory descriptions, to give a warning to immature readers of all ages and equally towards those with sensitive nerves and impressive minds, that they may continue their lecture here only at their own risk of nightmarish and disrupted sleep.

Water boarding (For Beginners):
The person (from whom we desire to extract any kind of truth) has to be tied down on a kind of plank or board. The position should be so, that the person is not able to move hands and legs. There has to be special care for the immovability of the head. The board has to be placed into a position so that the feet of the person are elevated; this means for clarity: the head has to be in a deeper position than the feet.

The person is now ready for interrogation!

In the next step a moist piece of cloth is spread across the face. It is very important to cover the mouth and the nostrils at the same time. The purpose of the moist cloth is, of course, to make the process of breathing a little difficult (to say the least). As we are mammals (even so-called higher mammals, to be precise), so we depend on steady supply of fresh air. Suspension and interruption of this supply leads to uncomfortable feelings (depending on the time frame of suspension of air supply).

We do not want the person in question to suffocate, we rather want him or her to talk to us. Always remember, we are talking here about a method of interrogation for the sake of divining truth.

It is very important to lift the moist cloth from time to time with the purpose of giving time to breath and talk. It is equally important to keep the cloth from getting dry. Anybody can breath with ease through a dry cloth, so we will have to keep it moist by pouring water on it at regular intervals.

Effects Of Water Boarding:
Depending on the duration of the process the victim will have a more or less intense feeling of slow, dry drowning. In addition to the above bondage the victim will be mostly blind folded and totally at the mercy of the torturers. Prolonged gag reflexes will set in almost immediately with the first pouring of water. Intense feelings of pain will slowly spread across the chest, the lungs and the whole body will erupt with spasmodic seizures.

In a historical book written by a monk as an eyewitness, I read a description of this torture applied to a young Spanish woman.

In this case, the water torture was combined with a system of bondage, which prevented the victim from slipping into the oblivion of unconsciousness. For this purpose, ropes were tightly fixed around the arms and legs and in certain intervals tightened, so that the pain kept the victim in full awareness. The torturers had to weave a steady rhythm of loosening and tightening of the ropes and the application of water.

I shall never forget the vivid picture the monk painted in my imagination: the pale body of the woman surrounded by the black hooded interrogators, the spasms which shook her, the tiny rivulets of blood running down from her arms and legs, the coarse and labored breathing…

Advantages Of Water Boarding:
Compared with many other tortures, it leaves no marks on the victims body, while at the same time exposing the victim to the same kind of intense discomfort that can be derived from the more cruder forms of torture.

It is also cheap. Torture with electricity, for example, is much more expensive. Continue reading on page 2.

Earth Day is passed. You turned off unnecessary lights, picked up some trash on the road, and maybe even planted a tree. Now what?

Religious communities across the country are taking long-term, sustainable steps to help reduce global warming. Faith groups are greening their houses of worship and advocating for policies and lifestyles that protect the planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants, joining scientists, policymakers and environmental advocates as protectors of the earth. Here are 20 things these communities are doing to combat global warming.

Moral principles

• Providing a moral voice to the climate change crisis. Virtually every holy text has a mandate to protect the environment and help those in need. These moral imperatives call for strong action to address the climate change crisis as the globe continues to warm and more than 1 billion impoverished people in the United States and around the world become increasingly vulnerable to harsher climates.
• Pointing to religious teachers and spiritual figures for guidance. Guidelines for conscientious lifestyles come from spiritual thinkers as diverse as St. Augustine, Saint Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Dalai Lama; as well as spiritual concepts such as Judaic Kosher practices, Native American shamanism, and Buddhist reincarnation.

Worship day practices

• Building sustainable sanctuaries. Congregations are saving thousands of dollars and preventing tons of CO2 emissions from entering into the atmosphere by developing energy-efficient church buildings. Regional Interfaith Power and Light offices provide audit evaluations and recommendations to churches to green their buildings, from changing their light bulbs to installing solar photovoltaic generators.
• Making pulpit pledges. On Sunday, tens of thousands of American clergy linked their worship texts to environment care, many using the materials provided by the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Working Group, “Celebrating and Caring for God’s Creation.” Thousands committed to the year-round Earth Day Network “Global Warming in the Pulpit Pledge” to preach and teach on global climate change as a moral issue.
• Gathering for eco-friendly holy dinners. Muslims from Washington, D.C. to Chicago gather for potlucks that encourage eco-conscious ways of living as an integral part of faith and a holistic world-view. They’ve created eco-halal and hosted green Iftar meals during Ramadan.
• Observing lo-watt Shabbat. Jewish families and communities find ways to conserve energy during the weekly Shabbat—a time to slow down and remember that everyone is part of the earth.
• Going green for Lent. Some Christians committed to helping reduce global warming by taking on a “carbon fast” and making other sacrifices to live more environmentally friendly as part of this year’s Lent observation.
• Using e-bulletins and eco-cups. Faith communities are conserving resources and reducing garbage when gathering for worship and fellowship – from putting out e-bulletins in place of paper ones to bringing ceramic coffee cups to church, using recycled and recyclable kitchenware, collecting for recycling materials, and composting as a community.

Local community services

• Greening low-income housing in Harlem. The Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement – a coalition of over 90 congregations – is constructing an 85-unit development that features a Green Grid Roofing system.
• Using green thumbs to grow greener foods. Congregations around the country are planting community gardens and gardens for correctional facilities, developing community-supported agriculture programs, and supporting local urban farming organizations for healthy, fresh, sustainable food sources.
• Making a home for all of Earth’s creatures. Churches from California to Idaho to North Carolina are restoring prairie lands and other wilderness areas, reintroducing a home for native wildlife on the church and community grounds. Earth Keepers, a coalition of 10 faiths and over 150 congregations across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, have joined together to protect the regional environment there.

National partnerships and advocacy

• Joining together across faith traditions. Religious leaders have joined together to create national, interfaith partnerships to advance environmental care (care for the earth and conscientious energy practices) and climate justice (assistance to communities move vulnerable to the effects of climate change).
• Joining with scientists to devise concrete actions. Faith groups attended the National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment as key partners in educating the public on the facts of climate change.
• Creating a youth movement. The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Renewal Network mobilizes youth leaders to develop greener lifestyles and campaign for sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, and smart solutions to the climate change crisis.
• Demanding comprehensive and conscientious climate care legislation. United Church of Christ Director of Economic Justice and Environmental Justice John Hill testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Subcommittee last month that, “the faith community supports strong and quick action to address the dangers of climate change while ensuring that solutions mitigate rather than compound economic injustices.”
• Petitioning the president and Congress for bold federal action. The national Interfaith Power and Light Action Center has generated thousands of letters petitioning for energy efficiency standards, fuel economy standards, green stimulus funding, and clean energy tax incentives.
• Committing to tread lightly and act boldly. Catholics are committing to the Catholic Climate Covenant, reducing their carbon emissions and aiding the poor who will feel the impact of climate change the most.
• Working to build the green collar economy. Faith-based advocacy partners in Michigan have joined with business, labor, and environmental organizations for the Green Today, Jobs Tomorrow conference put on by the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth.

Global services

• Advocating for the world’s marginalized groups – the forests, animals, and ecosystems. Restoring Eden is a grassroots church and campus ministry that advocates for “the least of these” in the modern political arena and facilitates practical service projects that benefit the indigenous peoples that rely on health natural resources.
• Planting trees with purpose. Floresta is an international NGO that helps people in desperate environments find development opportunities that protect the land, sustain local economies, and build faith. They have planted over 4 million trees and made over 6,000 small business loans worldwide, helping more than 100,000 people in 234 villages lift themselves out of poverty.

This article is being published with permission of the Center for American Progress

Editor’s note: This is part one in a series of articles featuring the sacred sites of the world’s religions.

Hinduism’s holiest city, Varanasi draws a million pilgrims each year. Their mission is to pray, to wash away their sins in the Mother Ganges River, and to die.

The Mother Ganges is considered an actual deity in the Hindu pantheon. They regard the river itself to be the Goddess Shakti. Hindus venerate the river as a giver and life, but also as a means of liberation from life.

Dying on the river’s sacred banks is believed to free oneself from samsara, the endless cycle of death and rebirth. Breaking the reincarnation chain will allow Hindus to achieve spiritual liberation, or moksha. Moksha is similar to Buddhist enlightenment in that it is liberation from earthly desires and the suffering that follows it. Moksha is the ultimate goal for a Hindu, and the Mother Ganges is the fastest way to achieve it.

Pilgrims take a spiritual bath in the Ganges

Along with ash and human remains, the brown-colored river is polluted with raw sewage, and industrial chemicals. But the toxic water is not enough to dissuade the pilgrims from bathing in, and drinking the water, as the sacred connotations of the river far outweigh trivial mortal issues.

According to legend, the Hindu deity Shiva, who is considered the most fertile Hindu god, discovered the city of Varanasi 5,000 years ago. Because of this, the city is filled with phalluses. Stone phalluses decorate temples and emerge from sidewalks. Real phalluses can be spotted on the Hindu holy men called sadhus, whose only clothing is the ashes from the cremation gnats, spread over their bodies.

Hindu god Shiva

Along with being one of seven sacred cities of Hinduism, Varanasi is also sacred to Buddhists, being one of four pilgrimage destinations designated by Gautama Buddha himself. It is said that the Buddha gave his first sermon on the basic teaching of Buddhism in the holy city.

Imagine if George W. Bush Barack Obama took a copy of the Bible and cut out his favorite passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, “there, that’s a better version.” That probably might cause a bit of a stir, don’t you think?

Well, that’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson did to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He searched the Gospels for Jesus’ greatest teachings, tossing all of the miracles and inconsistencies into the wastebasket, and reassembled the clippings into what he called “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” He titled it The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

“I have performed the operation for my own use,” he wrote in a letter to John Adams, “by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter, which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill.”

Of course, Jefferson kept his doctored version of the Gospels out of public eye and only shared it with friends and family, never meaning to have it published. Even in a time when Deism was a very popular belief system, Jefferson, no doubt, knew that a cut-and-paste version of the Bible might be something that a public figure would want to be associated with.

The Jefferson Bible was not published until well after his death in 1904 when Congress ordered the publication of 9,000 copies. Today, the Jefferson Bible is widely available online and in a number of print editions.

In the Jefferson Bible, there’s no angel telling shepherds watching their flocks by night that a savior has been born. There is no water being turned into wine. No walking on water or feeding 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Jefferson retains the crucifixion but there is no resurrection. Jefferson’s book finishes this way: “There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.” The End

Happy birthday Mr. Jefferson, and thanks for your book.

Sources: My copy of The Jefferson Bible, The Religion of Thomas Jefferson, and good old Wikipedia

“There is a fascinating paradox in the Bible,” says Eva Etzioni-Halevy, child Holocaust survivor and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. “The women lived in a male-dominated society, in which they had few legal rights and their position in the family and society was far from equal to that of men. At the same time they are described as strong personalities, who did not just sit around and bemoan their fate. Instead, they used their femininity to take destiny in their own hands and shape it to do their bidding.”

This paradox has inspired Etzioni-Halevy to write a series of novels based on the lives of these biblical women, the most recent of which is The Triumph of Deborah (2009).

Not About Religion interviewed Etzioni-Halevy about the novel and her “Women in the Bible” series.

Can you describe your religious background?
Having spent the war years in Italy, I came to what was then Palestine in 1945. As a child I was very religious, but as I grew up I abandoned Judaism and Israel to seek greener pastures in other countries and other cultures, first in the United States and then in Australia.

While I lived in Australia I began seeking my roots. I returned to Judaism and to Israel, and today I am what you might call a “born again” religious Jew.

The biblical account of Deborah is quite brief. How do you create a novel based on what little we know about her?
The story of Deborah in the Bible is indeed brief, but in “The Song of Deborah” [Judges 5] there are a few hints about her life and the political situation at the time. We know that she had children. Yet the Scripture tells us that she went off with warrior Barak to his hometown in another part of the country, and there is nothing to indicate that her husband Lapidoth accompanied her.

I found this very intriguing. I asked myself, what would her husband have to say to this? What would ANY husband say if his wife went off with another man and left him to do the baby-sitting? This is what triggered my particular interest in the story and I built the plot around it.

Of course, I also filled the blanks through research and imagination.

Is there a lot of research that goes into your writing?
Absolutely. I have been doing extensive research that spanned over several years, and includes scouring the Bible itself for all hints it yields about social structure, family structure, the position of women, adultery, foods, cosmetics, diseases, medicinal herbs, and more.

I did not have to travel far, since I am so fortunate as to live “on location” so to speak, that is, in the Holy Land. I could not have written those stories had I lived anywhere else. My research included visiting the locations in which the plots of the novels took place. I visited some locations of The Triumph of Deborah twice, and it was awesome to see the castle in which part of the story takes place, still in existence, though in ruins!

[I have] visited a variety of excavations, such as Hazor, Tel Quasila and more, which showed the layout of houses and temples, the devices used for cooking and pressing oil and wine in the period described. [I have also] read a variety of books and encyclopedias on ancient Israel, its historical background and social structure, as well as that of the Canaanites, Philistines and Moabites.

Virtually everything written in my novels about social and family structure, food, etc. is based on one or more sources. For example, all the foods mentioned in the novels are mentioned in the Bible, and/or have been discovered in excavations. The layout of houses and cooking devices described in the novels are based either on what I saw myself, or on articles in Biblical Archaeology Review, or both.

Is it important that you remain faithful to Scripture as you write, or do you merely use scripture for basic ideas?
To me it is very important to remain faithful to the Scripture. My novels don’t deviate from the Bible by even a hair’s breadth. But as mentioned before, the biblical stories are brief and leave many gaps. Those I filled out with my own interpretation and imagination, but more importantly with my identification with the women of the Bible and the sense that this is how things truly happened.

What was your initial inspiration for creating this series?
During the years in which I made my journey back to Judaism, I began to read the Bible on my own, and I discovered what an amazing set of books it is. I found it to be full of the most dramatic and the most traumatic stories about people who lived thousands of years ago, and yet are so similar to us in their anxieties, hopes and desires. I began to identify in particular with the women of the Bible and I felt as if I knew them personally and they had become part of me. Continued on page 2

If Daniel Johnston were born in a different time and place, he might have been burned as a heretic or confined forever to an insane asylum. But in this age, the self-taught singer-songwriter, given to paranoid delusions about Satan and violent outbursts, has become a revered figure in the underground art and music world. He has just published his first book of art, simple called Daniel Johnston.

The astonishingly prolific singer-songwriter and visual artist planted himself into the Austin, Texas, music scene in the early ‘80s and went on to become a cult figure among musicians and pop-music fans through the dozens of self-made cassette tapes he recorded and distributed over the next decade or so. The tapes’ titles range from the brutally direct (“Songs of Pain”) to the cheerful (“Hi, How Are You”). Their covers are adorned with Johnson’s simple drawings of naked baby-men, or alien frog creatures with large eyeballs perched on the ends of long antennae.

The tapes look and sound deceptively primitive. Johnston has the kind of voice that is definitely an acquired taste: a passionate, high-pitched quaver that see-saws in and out of tune, and ahead or behind of the beat, according to its own weird logic. But the songs themselves, which have been praised (and covered) by the likes of Sonic Youth, Tom Waits, Pearl Jam, Beck, and the Flaming Lips, are sometimes difficult to listen to for another reason: they are so raw and so brutally honest that it’s hard to distance yourself from the tortured soul who wrote them.

That quality is exactly what Jeff Feuerzeig seeks to convey, and often does, in his heartbreaking documentary “The Devil and Daniel Johnston.” As its title suggests, the film is like an old blues ballad, an ode to an enigmatic character who is both very human and so outlandish he almost seems like a cartoon. “I am the ghost of Daniel Johnston,” the 1985-era Johnston declares in the film’s opening moments, and this phantom haunts the entire film.

Johnston, now in his mid-40s, grew up in a family of right wing, Christian fundamentalists in New Cumberland, VA. He was a gifted teenager who spent much of his time drawing wild cartoons (disembodied, floating eyeballs have always been one of his trademarks) and making clever little home movies with his older brother. In scratchy clips from old Super 8’s, we see Johnston playing dual roles, as himself and his mother, who, in her hair curlers and housecoat, yells at him mercilessly and feeds him a green Kool-Aid and popcorn concoction for breakfast.

Johnston had a room in the family basement that he turned into a mini-archive of comic books, magazines, cassette tapes and vinyl albums. (The room he lives in as an adult, in his parents’ current home in Waller, Texas, is a re-creation of that earlier room.) As a teenager, Johnston recorded his thoughts and feelings onto cassette tapes. Later, accompanied by piano, he would turn those thoughts into painfully direct and heartfelt songs, which he would copy and distribute to friends and strangers alike.

Johnston was a smart, creative kid who somehow lost his footing on the way to adulthood. His mother, distressed by his wild drawings and even wilder imagination, tried to coerce him into respectability, calling him “an unprofitable servant of the Lord.” (Johnston’s lifelong best friend, an artist and poet named David Thornberry, recalled that Johnston responded by calling himself “an unserviceable prophet of the Lord.”) As much as they tried to set him on the “right” path, enrolling him at a Christian college in Abilene, Johnston’s voracious creativity could not be suppressed and soon bizarre illustrations of eyeballs, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Captain America began flowing from him at a somewhat alarming rate.

Johnston eventually left Abilene and enrolled at an art college, Kent State, which was a much better fit for his unique sensibilities. At Kent, Johnston would meet the girl of his dreams and life-long muse in Laurie Allen. As Johnston tells it, she would inspire a thousand songs in him. But as it were, a lifetime with Laurie was not in the cards and it was around this time that Johnston would begin his long and devastating downward spiral. Before completing college, Johnston ran off and joined a carnival without telling his parents or siblings of his whereabouts. Forced to quit that gig, (apparently, he was beaten up by a carnie thug for hogging a porta-potty) he found himself in Austin, Texas where he landed a job cleaning tables at a McDonald’s. There, he fell in with a group of local musicians, among them singer Kathy McCarty, who came to recognize the extraordinary but rather delicate nature of his talent. Next Page