Religious Scholar Takes Fox News Host to School

On July 26, author and religious historian Reza Aslan was a guest on "Spirited Debate", a FoxNews.com webcast about religion hosted by Lauren Green. Aslan was on the program to promote his new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. The interview has gone viral and Ms. Green has been heavily criticized. Words such as "the worst", "most embarrassing", and "cringe-worthy" have been used to describe her interview with Aslan. You can watch and see if the criticism is apt or not.



The merits of Ms. Green's opening question regarding why a Muslim would write a book on Christianity is debatable. One could argue that it was designed for those not familiar with Aslan's work. This theory may be giving Ms. Green too much credit though. However, once Aslan gave his response, Ms. Green sounded downright silly when she asked why he'd be interested in the founder of Christianity. If Pamela Geller was on "Spirited Debate" promoting one of her books about Islam, do you think Ms. Green would have questioned why a Christian is writing about Islam?! After watching the interview, it may appear to some as if Aslan wears his academic credentials on his sleeve. However, I think it was unfortunately necessary for him to repeatedly state his credentials because Ms. Green couldn't get off her talking point of whether or not he was qualified to write the book in the first place. As a side note, I'm willing to bet Aslan knows more about Christianity than many of the so-called Christians walking around.

During the interview, Ms. Green read criticisms of the book by two theologians and someone watching the webcast. Nothing wrong with that. However, the interview would have been much better if she also read passages from the book itself and then asked Aslan questions related to them. Ms. Green also accuses Aslan of trying to conceal his Muslim background. At this point she should have stayed down because Aslan easily dismantled her claim.

Until this past weekend, I had never heard of Reza Aslan. However, I think this interview will serve to raise his profile in a positive way because he calmly and eloquently stated his reasons for writing the book. Although I was familiar with Ms. Green's previous work reading news updates on the Fox News channel, with this interview many others are probably seeing her for the first time. The word "inauspicious" comes to mind.

Reza Aslan's interview with Lauren Green has proved to be a win-win for him. In addition to thoroughly schooling Ms. Green, Aslan has seen sales of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth skyrocket. While it was selling steadily before the interview, as I write this post it is the #1 book on Amazon.com.

Victoria Jackson Voices Her Concerns About Communism to Bill O'Reilly

As readers of this blog may recall, I have occasionally done humor-based posts called "Sunday Funnies". Now today's post has its share of humor, but it's of the unintentional variety. Recently, Bill O'Reilly did an interview with actress/comedian Victoria Jackson in which she discussed her political evolution. If you're familiar with Ms. Jackson's actions over the last few years, you know what to expect. At any rate, here is what she gave us:



Her rantings are so obviously off the charts that it's pointless to waste time debunking them. In the aftermath of her appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, Ms. Jackson wrote an article on her website in which she discusses how her segment was deceptively edited by someone at Fox News. When I first watched the segment, I was puzzled by Ms. Jackson's reference to "them" when she was talking about communists. It appears she was referring to her children, but Fox News apparently edited this out. If this is true, Fox News made Ms. Jackson look like a paranoid lunatic for thinking there are communists in our government who are going to kill her for being a Christian. If we are to believe Ms. Jackson was the victim of deceptive editing, she's only a paranoid lunatic for thinking there are communists in our government who are going to kill her kids for being Christians. Ms. Jackson also mentions that her comments about books which prove President Obama is a communist were edited out as well. If that's true, the folks at the Factor may have done her a favor by leaving that nonsense on the cutting room floor.

We often hear conservatives (in particular, the ones at Fox) slam Hollywood for its liberalism. However, these same people cannot wait to line up and kiss the proverbial asses of Hollywood conservatives. Since Fox's raison d'etre is to promote the Republican/conservative brand, you'd think they would do a better job of featuring prominent and credible Hollywood conservatives. Although I disagree with their politics, I haven't heard anything outrageous from the likes of Kelsey Grammer and Gary Sinise. Why not invite them on more often? Maybe Fox has and their calls aren't being returned, I don't know. At any rate, how is Fox News advancing Republicanism/conservatism by giving the time of day to a washed up D-lister (at best) with zero credibility like Victoria Jackson? 

Final Results of the Recent "Would You Vote for an Atheist" Poll

In the recent poll in which I asked whether or not you'd vote for an atheist, over 3/4 of voters said they would. Here are the final results:

Yes: 76%
No: 24%


Admittedly, this poll was a very small sampling. However, if it's an indication of how a majority of Americans feel, it could bode well for atheists who want to enter the political arena. Still, it's doubtful we'll see a noticeable increase in atheist politicians on the national stage.  I think the potential outrage by believers would make most atheist politicians reluctant to come out of the religious closet. If it was revealed there were more non-believers currently serving as elected officials, I wouldn't be surprised. Who knows, we may have already had  prior presidents of the U.S. who were atheists.

Please Take A Moment To Vote In the "Would You Vote for an Atheist?" Poll... Thank You

When deciding which political candidate gets our vote in any election, there are many things to consider. For some,  a candidate who believes in a higher power is very important. However, I couldn't care less whether or not a politician is a believer. Although I used to be an atheist, I converted to agnosticism several years ago. I can hear some of the conservatives who might be reading this say, "I knew that dirty progressive Malcolm had to be a Godless heathen! I knew it!" My feeling is that religious beliefs and a core set of values don't always go hand in hand. Just think of the countless number of elected officials who have been busted for all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. I'm willing to bet that a majority of them professed to believing in a higher power.

Although it's obviously not mandatory, I'd love to hear what reasons you have for voting the way you did in the blog poll. If you'd like to share your reasons, you can do so in the comments section of this post.

Guest Post by Monique About the Recent Lowe's/All-American Muslim Controversy

As you may know, there recently was a controversy involving Lowe's decision to pull their ads from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to write a post in a timely manner. However, I recently visited moniqueblog and noticed that she wrote an excellent piece on the topic. I asked Monique if she'd be willing to let me borrow it for Diversity Ink and she kindly obliged.

 

“All-American Muslim”: The Lowe’s controversy

Credit: Wikipedia
 
I actually intended on talking about this controversy a whole lot sooner than I am, but I’m talking about it now. Recently, Lowe’s has been in the middle of a firestorm concerning their initial support–then non-support–of the TLC show All-American Muslim. According to myfellowamerican.us:

“ [L]ast week Lowe’s Home Improvement pulled its ads from the TLC show All-American Muslim in response to an organization claiming the show “falsely humanized Muslims in America.” The Lowe’s controversy has exposed more Islamophobia in America. This issue falls directly in line with what the My Fellow American project is trying to prevent and overcome in America.”

According to this post, the main group behind the statements about humanization is the fringe group the Florida Family Association.

I’m more than appalled at how some people have the nerve to say that this show about HUMANS ”falsely humanize[s]” HUMANS. Let’s get some things straight here:

• Islam is not only a religion, it is the second-largest religion in the world and is growing every day.
• Not all Muslims come from the Middle East. Islam has a very big community in the United States. In fact, some of my own family members are Muslim. Basically, ANYONE can be a Muslim–you don’t have to look like a certain person to be a Muslim.
• Islam, Judaism and Christianity are ALL RELATED. They stem from the same stories and teachings. If you respect one of the three, you should respect them all, since they are all related to each other.
• Saying that Muslims are being “falsely humanized” is not a very Christian-like thing to say. It’s not a very spiritual thing to say period. It’s gross and stupid.

So that’s my stance on this. Lowe’s should be the bigger person in this situation and actually stand for acceptance of all people. Let’s face it–it’s not just Christians who shop at Lowe’s. Muslims like home-renovation just as much as anyone else, and Lowe’s profits should diminish once some clientele stops showing up.

If you want to voice your opinion about this, make sure to go to My Fellow American. You can also share your own stories of acceptance as well as watch the short film on Muslims in America.

More reading:

The Huffington Post–A new Lowe for Anti-Muslim Bigotry

Adweek–Lowe’s in Facebook Hell as Racist Comments Pile Up

Rachel Maddow Shines a Light On Holiday Cards, Past and Present

In the aftermath of the publication of this year's White House holiday card, some on the right predictably used the occasion to criticize President Obama. Below is the link to an article by Fox "News" Radio reporter Todd Starnes. The article includes comments by Fox contributor Sarah Palin.

Todd Starnes article

In addition to this criticism being predictable, it's silly as well. Rachel Maddow points out the silliness of this criticism in the following clip. She also discusses the Fox News/Fox Business Christmas cards released this year. Speaking of those cards, are the sheep supposed to represent news viewers in general? Also, I noticed the words "Merry Christmas" were absent from both cards. Does this mean Fox is now leading the war on Christmas?! Say it ain't so!

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