Author: Shadia B. Drury

It is ironic that America has embarked on the monumental project of teaching the world about democracy at a time when its own democracy is in a state of decay and degeneration. It seems to me that the most important lesson that America can teach the world in the twenty-first century regards the conditions that …

It is hard to imagine a greater misfortune for the world than being saddled with a superpower whose exaggerated perception of its righteousness and innocence fuels its belligerence. The only thing worse is having an enemy that is just as arrogant, self-righteous, and belligerent. There is nothing new about such smug, myopic self-righteousness of course. …

Freedom of religion is a hard-core American value that is rarely questioned. It was supposed to be the ultimate solution to the grisly wars of religion that ravaged Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But religion is rarely satisfied with liberty. It invariably seeks dominance. It is akin to a wild beast that cannot …

If God is powerful enough to stop earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and tsunamis, then why doesn’t he? In the first part of this essay (FI, October/November 2011), I argued that C.S. Lewis, in his efforts to resolve this “problem of evil,” ends up defending a hideous God who purposely inflicts gruesome suffering and death on innocent …

The so-called problem of evil belongs to Christianity in a way that it does not belong to Judaism or Islam. In Judaism and Islam, God’s power is fundamental, but his goodness is questionable. When the God of the Old Testament behaves badly, the Israelites usually talk back. Every time God decides to slay the Israelites …

Although exaggerated and flawed, the “Orientalist discourse” contains an undeniable kernel of truth. What is the Orientalist discourse? What are its flaws? And has it been dealt a death blow by the revolutions in the Arab world? The Orientalist discourse is a fancy term that was popularized by Edward Said in his celebrated book, Orientalism …

In an effort to defend religion against the well-aimed broadsides of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, some have argued that the “new atheists” are liberals who are disturbingly unaware of the debt that their values owe to Christianity. In particular, John Gray and Terry Eagleton maintain that the celebration of liberty and individuality has its …

Some defenders of religion have argued that religion is like sex—efforts to repress or eradicate it are futile, unrealistic, and inhuman because it’s part of human nature. Repressing religion is like repressing sex—it is not only impossible, it’s disastrous. Like sex, religion doesn’t go away; it comes back with a vengeance in the most outlandish …

From the very moment of its invention by Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity has been in need of reinvention. So unpalatable was the religion of Jesus that the overwhelming success of Christianity could not have been possible had it not been for the ingenuity of the Catholic Church. To triumph, the Church had to obscure the …

In an effort to distinguish his administration from the rhetoric of global tyranny characteristic of his predecessor’s, President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that America’s foreign policy is not bent on imposing American values and culture on the world. Instead, he says that the goal of American foreign policy is to defend universal values—values that …

The death of Irving Kristol on September 18, 2009, at the age of eighty-nine is a reminder of the long and tragic journey that American conservatism has taken. Kristol is the founder of American neoconservatism, which replaced the old-fashioned conservatism associated with the so-called Rockefeller Republicans. The latter was not ideological: its policies were not …

In the first part of this essay (Free Inquiry June/July 2009), I argued that the three main ideologies involved in World War II—liberalism, communism, and fascism—were secular grand narratives modeled on the so-called great religions. I focused on the concept of a grand narrative and on liberalism and how its progressive conception of history as …

Exactly one hundred and fifty years ago, John Stuart Mill published On Liberty, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx published the Preface to a Critique of Political Economy (all 1859). So, in 2009, we celebrate (or lament) the 150th anniversary of the roles played by these three big ideas in …

There are two misconceptions about fascism that must be laid to rest. The first is that fascism is the name of German and Italian regimes that are part of the dark history of Europe in the twentieth century. The second is that the appeal of fascism is due to the evil in human nature. I …

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have adamantly opposed Turkey’s bid to join the European Union on the grounds that Turkey, a Muslim nation, does not belong in Christian Europe. They worry that the i nclusion of Turkey, coupled with Muslim migrations into Europe and the declining European birthrate, will undermine the Christian character …

During his recent visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a series of speeches that reverberated with a strange tone of unreality. He presented his church as a champion of religious freedom and tolerance as if his American audience, and the whole world, were in the grip of the most dreadful case of …

Below, the author concludes her examination, begun in the last issue of Free Inquiry, of the negative effect of religion on conscience. —EDS. In 1232, Pope Gregory IX established a system of “legal” investigations to stamp out heresy. The Dominicans (Domini Canes, or Hounds of the Lord) were granted the exclusive “privilege” of conducting the …

The voice of conscience is widely considered a noble guide to moral conduct, but not everyone agrees that it is reliable. Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelic Doctor” whose philosophy became the official doctrine of the Catholic Church, did not totally trust conscience as a guide to action. He thought that conscience was intimately connected to the …