"Be careful what you ask for..."
On 'post-Christian' Britain: a spiritual enigma
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...ual-enigma
EXCERPTS: A few years ago, one of Britain’s leading sociologists published a fascinating paper on the rise of “no religion” as a self-designation in social surveys. [...] The most recent census may prove to be a tipping point of sorts in that national journey. The results will not be published for months, but it is being predicted that, for the first time, the number of Britons describing themselves as Christian may dip below 50%...
[...] During her research, Prof Woodhead devised what she called a “Dawkins indicator” ... Measuring factors such as hostility to faith schools, she found that though “no religionists” were more socially liberal, only a small minority were militantly secular and less than half considered themselves atheists. The largest bloc was made up of “maybes, doubters, and don’t knows”, plus a group who did believe in God, a higher power or in “something there”. The younger the cohort, the smaller the proportion of atheists.
Which makes the future rather interesting, from a transcendental point of view. Could Britain become post-secular as well as post-Christian? At least a few cultural markers tantalisingly point in that direction. [...] Perhaps the atheist Philip Larkin got to the nub of it 70 years ago, when communal Christian worship still flourished. In his poem Church Going, Larkin wrote that such places have an aura because they satisfy in us “A hunger … to be more serious”. Congregations may have since thinned out, but spiritual hunger is part of the human condition. It will find other outlets and means of expression in the years to come... (MORE - details)
Insulting the Prophet: an age old Western disease
https://5pillarsuk.com/2021/03/28/insult...n-disease/
INTRO: Blogger Hasnet Lais says that Europeans have unjustly and grotesquely insulted the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for over 1,000 years, and especially at times when they feared the rise of Islam itself. Speaking at a lecture on Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) titled The Hero as Prophet, Scottish historian and satirist Thomas Carlyle noted:
“Our current hypothesis about Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor… that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to anyone. The lies which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man are disgraceful to ourselves only”.
It’s a cruel irony that Muhammad (pbuh), having shown the utmost respect in his lifetime for Jesus (as) and his disciples, was and still remains an object of fear and loathing in European Christendom.
While the boundaries between free speech and multi-cultural sensitivities are being fiercely debated after blasphemous images of the Prophet (pbuh) were shown to pupils at Batley Grammar School, the teacher at the heart of the controversy joins a long list of medieval, neoclassical and enlightenment poets, writers and philosophers who have for generations waged a polemical assault on the Prophet of Islam, whom they depicted through a distorted lens.
Medieval caricatures. Much of the postmodern satirical depictions and character assassination of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) across cinema and literature is culturally rooted in the anti-Muhammad archives of Europe that have echoed for a millennia... (MORE)
On 'post-Christian' Britain: a spiritual enigma
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...ual-enigma
EXCERPTS: A few years ago, one of Britain’s leading sociologists published a fascinating paper on the rise of “no religion” as a self-designation in social surveys. [...] The most recent census may prove to be a tipping point of sorts in that national journey. The results will not be published for months, but it is being predicted that, for the first time, the number of Britons describing themselves as Christian may dip below 50%...
[...] During her research, Prof Woodhead devised what she called a “Dawkins indicator” ... Measuring factors such as hostility to faith schools, she found that though “no religionists” were more socially liberal, only a small minority were militantly secular and less than half considered themselves atheists. The largest bloc was made up of “maybes, doubters, and don’t knows”, plus a group who did believe in God, a higher power or in “something there”. The younger the cohort, the smaller the proportion of atheists.
Which makes the future rather interesting, from a transcendental point of view. Could Britain become post-secular as well as post-Christian? At least a few cultural markers tantalisingly point in that direction. [...] Perhaps the atheist Philip Larkin got to the nub of it 70 years ago, when communal Christian worship still flourished. In his poem Church Going, Larkin wrote that such places have an aura because they satisfy in us “A hunger … to be more serious”. Congregations may have since thinned out, but spiritual hunger is part of the human condition. It will find other outlets and means of expression in the years to come... (MORE - details)
Insulting the Prophet: an age old Western disease
https://5pillarsuk.com/2021/03/28/insult...n-disease/
INTRO: Blogger Hasnet Lais says that Europeans have unjustly and grotesquely insulted the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for over 1,000 years, and especially at times when they feared the rise of Islam itself. Speaking at a lecture on Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) titled The Hero as Prophet, Scottish historian and satirist Thomas Carlyle noted:
“Our current hypothesis about Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor… that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to anyone. The lies which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man are disgraceful to ourselves only”.
It’s a cruel irony that Muhammad (pbuh), having shown the utmost respect in his lifetime for Jesus (as) and his disciples, was and still remains an object of fear and loathing in European Christendom.
While the boundaries between free speech and multi-cultural sensitivities are being fiercely debated after blasphemous images of the Prophet (pbuh) were shown to pupils at Batley Grammar School, the teacher at the heart of the controversy joins a long list of medieval, neoclassical and enlightenment poets, writers and philosophers who have for generations waged a polemical assault on the Prophet of Islam, whom they depicted through a distorted lens.
Medieval caricatures. Much of the postmodern satirical depictions and character assassination of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) across cinema and literature is culturally rooted in the anti-Muhammad archives of Europe that have echoed for a millennia... (MORE)