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For those touched most by 9/11, a turning point in faith

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:14:39 GMT

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Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest who ministered to rescue and recovery workers, says there were no atheists at Ground Zero — suddenly everyone had a spiritual life, no matter how tortured or confused.

Jay Rosenbaum, a Long Island rabbi, says he was almost overwhelmed when he arrived at Ground Zero on Sept. 12. But later, he conducted a simple prayer service in vestments that included a hard hat, combat boots and a prayer shawl. “Our mission is to look not only at the devastation there,” he said in his impromptu sermon, pointing to the shell of one tower, “but the devotion here” — the dusty, exhausted, rescue workers around him.

“It was one of the most affirming moments of my life,” he says now. “I felt this was something I was worthy of doing.”

To others, 9/11 seems to belie the notion of an all-loving, all-powerful God. Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith, his best-selling attack on religion, the day after the attacks.

Jonathan Miller, who wrote

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By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — The pope’s pilgrimage to the site of the World Trade Center revives a question asked by many of those traumatized by the terrorist attacks, including the faithful, the faithless and those in between: Where was God on Sept. 11, 2001?

On Sunday, two dozen 9/11 survivors, victims’ relatives and rescue workers will accompany Benedict XVI to Ground Zero, “the scene of incredible violence and pain” — in the words of the prayer the pope will recite in the pit where the twin towers stood.

PHOTOS: How 9/11 tested their faith

Many whose lives were changed that day are still coming to terms spiritually with 9/11. Some have taken comfort from their faith; others have found it lacking. Some have a stronger faith, a different faith or no faith at all.

Tags: 9/11, faith, sam harris.org

Amis and Islam

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:44:34 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Good read about the spat involving Amis over comments he made re: islam

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By RACHEL DONADIO

March 9, 2008

“I’m a passionate multiracialist and a very poor multiculturalist,” Martin Amis said a few weeks ago. He was on the phone from London, praising his hometown’s ethnic variety — “It’s exhilarating and moving to live in a city with so many races and so many colors” — and denouncing its fissures, particularly over radical Islam. “I don’t think that we can accommodate cultures and ideologies that make life very difficult for half the human race: women.” Amis was explaining his stance in a gloves-off row that’s been raging in the British press since last fall, when the literary theorist Terry Eagleton likened some of Amis’s statements on Muslims to “the ramblings of a British National Party thug.”

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Arguments by STanley Fish

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:37:42 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Another good read

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By Stanley Fish

March 9th, 2008

Every once in a while I feel that it might be helpful to readers if I explained what it is I am trying to do in these columns. It is easier to state the negative: For the most part, it is not my purpose in this space to urge positions, or come down on one side or the other of a controversial question. Of course, I do those things occasionally and sometimes inadvertently, but more often than not I am analyzing arguments rather than making them; or, to be more precise, I am making arguments about arguments, especially ones I find incoherent or insufficiently examined.

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