by Heather Hastie | Aug 22, 2016 | Religion
Fareed Zakaria’s Why They Hate Us, updated to include the Orlando massacre, has been playing on CNN again this weekend. It’s an excellent documentary by one of my favourite commentators. (The full 40 minute documentary is at the bottom of this post.) Reza Aslan,...
by Heather Hastie | Jan 14, 2016 | Religion, USA
It’s been a while since I mentioned Reza Aslan. For myself, I don’t know whether he’s duplicitous, whether he really believes what he says, or whether there’s another explanation. I do know that much of what he says is inaccurate. It’s...
by Heather Hastie | Jan 12, 2015 | Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, International Politics, Religion
When free speech is attacked, we all suffer. So often in the past, those who have been attacked for speaking out haven’t attracted the support they should have either because of what they have to say, or who they are. We have allowed our opinion of the speech of...
by Heather Hastie | Nov 25, 2014 | Atheism, Religion
Reza Aslan’s latest Salon article worries me. Not just because of the content – that’s the same as always and like Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution is True, I’m getting a bit tired of it. What worries me is that I’m starting to recognize his style. I haven’t...
by Heather Hastie | Oct 21, 2014 | International Politics, Middle East, NZ Politics, Religion, Terrorism
Islamophobia-phobia is the fear of appearing to be Islamophobic. I have to give credit to author and television personality Greg Gutfeld (Fox News’s The Five, Red Eye) for the term. The Five is a guilty pleasure of mine, and it was while watching this show that I...
