What "Other faiths"?

One cannot repeat enough - - -

Another arrogant "person-of-faith" who claims to "know" what's-what about "people-of-faith" - an "academic" nonetheless - who has not the first clue about the crucial semantic role of pistis / pisteou / pisteon in the making of 'episteme' or knowledge. Every "knower" is a "person-of-faith", whether buddhist, christian, confucian, hindu, humanist, jew, muslim, naturalist, secularist, shinto, taoist, . . . etc!

Ms Katherine Marshall needs to acquaint herself with the history of philosophy, starting w/ at least Socrates & Plato and their quest for an adequate conceptions of among other key notions, knowledge itself, and moving forward to Quine on webs-of-beliefs, which, at their inner-most regions are ultimately webs-of-faith seeking, to be vindicated pragmatically or not by inter-subjective 3rd-person experience.

I trust - "fides" - that the precincts of Georgetown are not yet a buffer against such sound scholarship!

Like her Georgetown colleague Jacques Berlinerblau - another pre-posterist who puts a propositional cart before the necessary conceptual horses, Ms Marshall's thinking is a nest of conceptual confusion, at best, and rhetorical disingenuousness, at worst. Let's assume - under the principle of charity - the former.

Her use - like that of the American populist evangeloids & theocrats - of the paternalistic term "people-of-faith" implies that the rest of any given population are "non-believers", showing both conceptual and epistemic ignorance, maybe carelessness.

Like the earlier appropriation of the word 'gay' for the self-designation of a cultural sub-group, the appropriation of 'believer' & 'belief' & 'faith' by another - sometimes overlapping - subgroup sows conceptual confusion & serves only to accelerate the decay of American English.

Briefly: How may & should one designate a belief for which there is not or - in principle - cannot be empirical evidence?

Simply: Faith: Pistis! [Trusted Beliefs]

Hence: Everyone is a "person-of-faith" since everyone lives by mental states that can only be described as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen", including scientists in both their empirical & theoretical endeavors.

The cognitive state of faith, therefore, is constitutive of human nature. To think otherwise is itself a paradoxical mental state!

Check out www.spreadfreedom.com

**The Prayer for Peace **

People have been praying for peace since forever and a day without any positive results.

Remember the praying Crusaders huddled by The True Cross at the Horns of Hattin as they were being destroyed by Saladin's forces.

Those who continue to perform an action that has failed innumerable times before are not wise.

Time to try something new and different, folks.

Let the Prayer for Peace rest comfortably in its antique dustbin of history.

Meanwhile........ "Pope Benedict XVI elevated 23 churchmen from around the world to the top ranks of the Catholic Church hierarchy Saturday, telling them they must be willing to shed their blood to spread the Christian faith" (AP)

Most of the major faiths have a scandal ridden past. All of them keep scripture from the prophet centuries ago sacred. Time wears at the pages, and a false translation often festers among some faithful. Is the christian tradition on a higher horse than Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Judaism?

The veiled face of Islam,

Afghanistan.The land of terror.

Saudi Arabia(Homeland of Islam).Women can not drive.No Human Rights and No Democracy.

Iran.Women can not go to Stadium.No Human Rights.

Malasia.The last fashion *islamofascist* country.The Religious Police observing people whether they obey *the fasting* or not.People are ogligated to put their saving at *Shariat Bank*.No Human Rights.

Egypt.There had been *Kleopatra* 2000 years ago,but today *bogeywoman* in black wrap.

The veiled face of Islam,
Terror,poverty,idleness,backwardness and *empty words* such as *islam is peace*,*man and woman equal in islam(!)*.
The veiled face of Islam,
Lies,sophistry and tales.

The problem is not *who can speak for islam*.
Problem is islam.