News

Obama says that 99.9% of Muslims worldwide reject radical Islam, is he right?

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That video is from The Weekly Standard, here’s the text:

President Obama told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that 99.9 percent of Muslims reject radical Islam. He made the comments in response to a question about the White House avoiding using the phrase “Islamic terrorists.”

“You know, I think that the way to understand this is there is an element growing out of Muslim communities in certain parts of the world that have perverted the religion, have embraced a nihilistic, violent, almost medieval interpretation of Islam, and they’re doing damage in a lot of countries around the world,” said Obama.

“But it is absolutely true that I reject a notion that somehow that creates a religious war because the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject that interpretation of Islam. They don’t even recognize it as being Islam, and I think that for us to be successful in fighting this scourge, it’s very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9 percent of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we’re looking for–order, peace, prosperity.”

Now, let’s take a look at apostasy and blasphemy laws in Muslim countries, with some help from the left-leaning Pew Research.

They write:

In 10 of 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half of Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land also favor stoning unfaithful spouses.

Some of the highest support for stoning is found in South Asia and the Middle East-North Africa region. In Pakistan (89%) and Afghanistan (85%), more than eight-in-ten Muslims who want Islamic law as their country’s official law say adulterers should be stoned, while nearly as many say the same in the Palestinian territories (84%) and Egypt (81%). A majority also support stoning as a penalty for the unfaithful in Jordan (67%), Iraq (58%). However, support is significantly lower in Lebanon (46%) and Tunisia (44%), where less than half of those who support sharia as the official law of the land believe that adulterers should be stoned.

In Southeast Asia, six-in-ten Muslims in Malaysia consider stoning an appropriate penalty for adultery. About half hold this view in Thailand (51%) and Indonesia (48%).

Muslims in Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe are generally less likely to support stoning adulterers. Among those who favor Islamic law as the official law of the land, only in Tajikistan do about half (51%) support this form of punishment. Elsewhere in the two regions, fewer than four-in-ten favor this type of punishment, including roughly a quarter or fewer across the countries surveyed in Southern and Eastern Europe.

And:

Compared with attitudes toward applying sharia in the domestic or criminal spheres, Muslims in the countries surveyed are significantly less supportive of the death penalty for converts. Nevertheless, in six of the 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half of those who favor making Islamic law the official law also support executing apostates.

Taking the life of those who abandon Islam is most widely supported in Egypt (86%) and Jordan (82%). Roughly two-thirds who want sharia to be the law of the land also back this penalty in the Palestinian territories (66%). In the other countries surveyed in the Middle East-North Africa region, fewer than half take this view.

In the South Asian countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, strong majorities of those who favor making Islamic law the official law of the land also approve of executing apostates (79% and 76%, respectively). However, in Bangladesh far fewer (44%) share this view.

A majority of Malaysian Muslims (62%) who want to see sharia as their country’s official law also support taking the lives of those who convert to other faiths. But fewer take this position in neighboring Thailand (27%) and Indonesia (18%).

In Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe, only in Tajikistan (22%) do more than a fifth of Muslims who want sharia as the official law of the land also condone the execution of apostates. Support for killing converts to other faiths falls below one-in-ten in Albania (8%) and Kazakhstan (4%).

Now there is one little problem with this Pew Research data that causes them to understate the real numbers who favor adultery-stonings and apostasy-killings.

Andrew McCarthy explains in National Review:

But what is striking is that the depressing state of affairs is manifest despite Pew’s best efforts to make things seem better than they are. Principally, the survey is about Muslim views about sharia, Islam’s legal system and framework for society. It is intimated that Pew’s study is exhaustive, involving interviews with 38,000 Muslims across 39 countries. But, as my friend Andy Bostom pointed out to me this morning, guess which countries are not included in the survey? That would be Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan — perhaps the three most sharia compliant countries in the world, home cumulatively to nearly 150 million Muslims.

[…]In point of fact, sharia is the law of Saudi Arabia and Iran. These countries profess themselves as reflections of the true Islam (Saudi Arabia from the Sunni perspective, Iran from the Shiite) in which no law but sharia is necessary and no departures from sharia are permissible. Sudan (a Sunni Muslim country) is already close to the Saudis and Iranians in this regard and is sure to be more so when it finally adopts a new constitution (which it has been threatening to do for several years).

Iran has about 87 million people, Sudan has about 42 million people, and Saudi Arabia has about 31 million people. These are strict Islamic countries and they were left out of the survey.

So, what are we to make of Obama’s comments now? Are Democrats like Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton accurate enough in their beliefs about the world that we should have confidence in their foreign policy? If they really believe these obvious false assertions, and they are making decisions based on these delusions, then how much does that set back the causes of freedom and democracy in the world? It seems to me that the first rule of protecting the good and fighting against evil is to be able to identify which is which.

Polemics

Study: non-family daycare linked to anti-social behavior in children

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From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Academics at Oxford University discovered that exposure to some forms of early education contributed to bad behaviour and could be linked to emotional problems.

The study, based on an analysis of infants from almost 1,000 families, showed that the strongest influence on children came from within the home itself.

Children raised in poor families with high levels of parental stress or mental health problems were most at risk of developing emotional problems by the time they started school, it emerged.

The research also uncovered trends relating to children who were in formal child care — away from their parents.

The disclosure will revive debate over the best way to raise children amid a surge in the number of under-fives enrolled in nurseries and with childminders in the past 20 years. Figures from the Department for Education show that 441,000 children under five are in day nurseries while another 272,000 are being looked after by childminders.

[…]In the Oxford study, researchers recruited 991 families with children aged three months. Mothers had an average age of 30.

Researchers assessed children at the age of four through questionnaires about their behaviour and emotions completed by teachers and parents. They also observed care provided by mothers and observed non-parental care for at least 90 minutes for those children placed in formal childcare settings.

The report, published in the journal Child: Care, Health and Development, said that “children who spent more time in group care, mainly nursery care, were more likely to have behavioural problems, particularly hyperactivity”.

The study, led by Prof Alan Stein, of Oxford’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that “spending more time in day care centres, over the total period was a predictor of total problem scores”.

“Children who spent more time in day care centres were more likely to be hyperactive,” it said. “Children receiving more care by childminders were more likely to have peer problems.”

The authors added: “The findings in relation to childminding suggest that it might be out of home care rather than group care that raises the risk of behavioural difficulties.”

The researchers also tracked other forms of early years care and found benefits to different approaches.

They found that children who spent more time in pre-school playgroups – normally for a few hours a day, rather than a full-time nursery – had fewer problems.

More time with a nanny in parents’ own home predicted higher levels of “pro-social behaviour”, showing willingness to help others, it emerged.

The study said: “These findings suggest that interventions to enhance children’s emotional and behavioural development might best focus on supporting families and augmenting the quality of care in the home.”

A study like this will be useful when debating people with open minds, but hardcore feminists and socialists, who want women to work in order to fund bigger government, will not be moved. Because for them, it’s not about evidence. It’s about ideology. That’s why we have to be careful about letting people like that get elected.

Commentary

Fighter pilot discusses apologetics and Christian living in new book “One of the Few”

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"One of the Few" by Jason B. Ladd
“One of the Few” by Jason B. Ladd

Here is the blurb for his new book:

Author, Marine, and Iraq War veteran Jason B. Ladd has just launched a pre-order campaign for his new book One of the Few: A Marine Fighter Pilot’s Reconnaissance of the Christian Worldview. He has until March 22 to reach his goal or it’s back to the drawing board. Read about him and the book below, and then check out his pre-order campaign at

http://publishizer.com/one-of-the-few

The link above has the table of contents and chapter summaries.

From the back cover:

“Unsatisfied with his secular worldview, Marine fighter pilot Jason B. Ladd shares the struggles he faced during his search for truth and a reasonable defense of the Christian faith.

His mission began with a realization: though ready to defend his country, he was unprepared for his most important missions as a husband and father. Drawing from his military experience, Ladd warn seekers about spiritual apathy and teaches Christians tactics for withstanding spiritual attacks. Birthed from a legacy of service, One of the Few speaks from the spirit of a man reborn—with the soul of a Marine, the mind of a fighter, the heart of a father, and a commitment to the Son. Join him as he uses fighter pilot fundamentals to embark on the greatest mission of all: the pursuit of truth.”

Jason B. Ladd is a Christian apologist, F/A-18 Weapons and Tactics Instructor, and Iraq War veteran. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Peace, War, and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001. Jason writes articles for FIGHTER FAITH, a website he founded to help others lead with conviction, embrace parenthood with joy, and develop a worldview capable of answering life’s biggest questions. He and his wife, Karalyn, are the parents of six children.

Here’s the aircraft that Jason flies:

F-18 Hornet configured for strike mission
F/A-18 Hornet configured for strike mission

I actually met Jason at a recent SES National Apologetics conference, and it was great fun talking to him. He has a real interest in Christian apologetics and he sees how important it is for Christians to have a defensible worldview.

If you want to see a sample of Jason’s writing, check out this post on his blog.

This is interesting:

Christianity is more than a belief system. It is a away of life. The principles derived from Scripture inform the head and guide the heart. The Christian worldview is one of the few where philosophy corresponds to the human experience with coherence and consistency.

But inevitably, events will occur which threaten to shake the foundations of our world. We lavish God with praise when his blessing fall upon us, but when tragedy strikes, praises turn into questions.

Why does there have to be suffering?

This is one of the most important question you can ask, and it’s the topic of a recent book by Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale titled “Why Suffering? Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life Doesn’t Make Sense”.

Abiding by a spiritual code means following a perpetual pattern of study and application. Once a search for truth yields the fruit of discovery, a growing hunger for more knowledge can threaten this balance.

The study of Christian apologetics is about the desire to give answers for anyone with questions. It’s about deepening your understanding of why you believe what you believe.

Just as a scientist must leave the lab and work in the field, the apologist must recognize when to stop studying and start applying what he or she has learned.

This happened to me recently. Life threw a curveball, and the questions started coming. It was the moment for which all previous studying, thinking, praying, and contemplating was intended: to help someone cope through a time of suffering.

Zacharias writes:

“At least as important as the question of why there is suffering is the question of how we will face the pain”1

The question is not just how we will face the pain, but whether we can help others through their own pain.

 

I’ve always understood my Christian faith augmented by my study of military history and military biography. Before I started meeting lots of Christian apologists on the Internet, I thought I was the only person who viewed living out a Christian life in strategic ways, where you make decisions about what you invest in and study with a view of knowing enough about what is true to render yourself impervious to the slings and arrows that life can throw your way. It’s interesting to see how people who are trained for actual war-fighting like Jason talks about his faith and how he built it up with apologetics. So you learn apologetics first to take care of yourself, and you make other moves to protect yourself from the things that take away people’s faith.

In my case, I play defense by saving money in case something happens to my health or my job. I try not attempt things that I can’t complete, and I have a pool of resources and a network of friends to support me. Once you have this foundation, you can then turn outward and build up other Christians – protecting them from challenges to their faith and unexpected losses and suffering. Supporting them, encouraging them and connecting them to other Christians to make them more resilient.

It’s really fascinating to be a Christian and take this tactical view of your life. You find yourself constantly reading and studying and earning and saving so that you are able to withstand threats and protect others from threats. It’s a very practical view of the Christian life, it’s not passive. I find that most often it’s those with a career in law enforcement (e.g. – J. Warner Wallace) and the military (e.g. – Jason Ladd) who take this tactical approach to their faith.