great find farhad!
upvote and a tweet for you my friend.
i have read reza aslan's "no god but god" a fantastic book dealing with islam and its current struggle between reformation and fundamentalism stagnation.
i have not read his newer book,i think i need to stop procrastinating.

The "War on Terror" is about as Orwellian as a phrase can get.

It's modern-day newspeak for unending war.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, May 24th, 2009 7:50pm PDT - promote requested by peggedbea.

*islam *religion

I think we need a wild-eyed *Christianity channel too.

Adding video to channels (Islam, Religion) - requested by kronosposeidon.

I'm sitting here with "How to Win a Cosmic War" right next to me, which I was planning to read after checking out a few videosifts. This short talk is a good intro to his most recent book, which I highly recommend. He not only explains his cosmic war theory, but gives excellent religious history lessons. My brain is not working well enough right now to figure out how to do one of those sift amazon linkie things, but hopefully someone else will come through with that.

And on an unrelated note, Reza Aslan is so cute I just want to grab him and kiss him all over!

By Aslan's (wasn't that the lion in "Narnia"?) logic the USA declaring war against Germany in WW2 "validated" Nazism, by saying we were "good" and the Nazis "evil". In other words: "Let me mix up some philosophy-quoting refrigerator magnets so I don't have to get a real job".

I would respect these moral relativists more if they were sincere. For example, they see Americans and/or Westerners as no greater than jihadist throat-cutters, who are no doubt merely expressing their unique belief system with honor killings and homicide bombings.

The only people who find no room at the table with relativists are individualists favoring free markets, free speech and limited government.

The first thing Palestinians will do if given their own state is turn it into one giant launch pad for rockets aimed at Israel.

Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us. --Golda Meir

I agree with QM. States will claim anything in order to serve their own purposes. Every war ever fought has been fought for Defense, not because it's true, but because whichever states involved claim it's true. The Nazi's claimed it, Israel claims it, the US claimed it when they attack South Vietnam. It's just what's said, words don't matter so much as ability to carry things out.

QM again attempts to relate WW2 with GWOT, never mind that one was a war against states bent on world domination fought on a global scale with multiple allies.

While the other is a war on abstract concepts like 'terror' and 'evil', with a few international allies, which has no end game and no objective other then ending 'evil' allowing for continuous warfare and aggression using the terror misnomer.

I believe QM is desperately needed in the front lines to tell the US troops who exactly is a jihadist throat slitter, an insurgent, freedom fighter, mujaheddin or a northern alliance soldier. This would be invaluable.

The Palestinian attacks are directly a result of Israel actions over 60 years.

And whats with the straw men arguments? Moral relativists? What next are you going to call Reza a liberal? LOL stop trying to package someones ideas into a format that takes away from the point they are trying to make.