Atheists More Intelligent than Believers, Study Claims

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Religious people are less intelligent than non-believers, according to a new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades.

A team led by Miron Zuckerman of the University of Rochester found "a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity" in 53 out of 63 studies

Even in extreme old age, intelligent people are less likely to believe, the researchers found - and the reasons why people with high IQs shun religion may not be as simple as previously thought.

Previous studies have tended to assume that intelligent people simply "know better", the researchers write - but the reasons may be more complex.

Famous atheist Richard Dawkins (ZUMA / Rex Features)

For instance, intelligent people are more likely to be married, and more likely to be successful in life - and this may mean they "need" religion less.

The studies used in Zuckerman's paper included a life-long analysis of the beliefs of a group of 1,500 gifted children - those with IQs over 135 - in a study which began in 1921 and continues today.

Even at 75 to 91 years of age, the children from Lewis Terman's study scored lower for religiosity than the general population - contrary to the widely held belief that people turn to God as they age. The researchers noted that data was lacking about religious attitudes in old age and say, "Additional research is needed to resolve this issue."

As early as 1958, Michael Argyle concluded, "Although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs, and rather less likely to have pro-religious attitudes."

A 1916 study quoted in Zuckerman's paper (Leuba) found that, "58% of randomly selected scientists in the United States expressed disbelief in, or doubt regarding the existence of God; this proportion rose to nearly 70% for the most eminent scientists."

The paper, published in the academic journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, said "Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme—the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who "know better."

The answer may, however, be more complex. Intelligent people may simply be able to provide themselves with the psychological benefits offered by religion - such as "self-regulation and self-enhancement", because they are more likely to be successful, and have stable lives.

"Intelligent people typically spend more time in school—a form of self-regulation that may yield long-term benefits," the researchers write. "More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs."

"Last, more intelligent people are more likely to get and stay married (greater attachment), though for intelligent people, that too comes later in life. We therefore suggest that as intelligent people move from young adulthood to adulthood and then to middle age, the benefits of intelligence may continue to accrue."

The researchers suggest that further research on the "function" of religion may reveal more..

"People possessing the functions that religion provides are likely to adopt atheism, people lacking these very functions (e.g., the poor, the helpless) are likely to adopt theism," the researchers wrote.

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"Elysium" 2013 Matt Damon, Jodie Foster. A Dull Sermon about Obamacare and Open Borders in the Guise of a So-so Sci-fi flic

"Elysium" is a dull sermon about Obamacare and open borders in the guise of a so-so Sci-fi flic. The didactic aspect of the film is so heavy-handed it takes you right out of the movie, out of the willing suspension of disbelief. It doesn't help that "Elysium" lacks the arresting characters, clever plotting, or wowee special effects that break science fiction films out beyond the genre's diehard fans.

It's 2154 in a dystopic Los Angeles. LA is ugly and garbage-strewn, in a futuristic way. Almost everyone in LA is Hispanic or at least speaks Spanish. Max (Matt Damon), a bald and tattooed ex-con trying to go straight, is forced into taking on a high-risk crime for Spider (Wagner Moura), a crime lord. Max has to travel to Elysium, a space station where rich white Americans live in beauty and luxury, unlike the cursed denizens of earth, who are mostly Hispanic and live in garbage strewn slums and can't get adequate medical care. Elysium has med-beds. If you lie down on a med-bed, no matter what your ailment is, the med-bed will cure you.

Spider is plotting to breach Elysium's security and take it over, thus making med-beds and Elysium's breathtaking beauty available to all. He faces formidable foes.

Jodie Foster is the white, blonde Elysium antagonist. She is trying to protect Elysium from the Hispanic immigrants and sick people in search of health care who are attempting to enter. Kruger, played by Sharlto Copley, a South African actor, is her evil tool. There is no attempt to explain why someone with such a pronounced South African accent lives in LA. In any case, Copley's performance of an enthusiastic sadist is the best thing about the film.

There is a lot of chasing. Men put on metallic costumes that give them special powers. There are your usual hyped up guns and there are also some knives and swords. A lot of this feels like expedient cheating, as it always does in fantasy movies. There are special devices that detect runaways. Max is able to elude these super smart devices by hiding under pigs. The movie never explains, as these movies never explain, the rules of such gadgetry. If a character needs to get away to advance the plot, some trick will help him to get away.

I live in a non-futuristic, garbage-strewn slum. We have had liberal, Democratic government for generations. See Detroit. We've been hearing the same message for generations, the same message "Elysium" sends: "It's us versus them. We are human; they are cold and cruel. They live lives of perfect bliss. Their health problems are all taken care of. They only way for us to achieve anything is to take what they have."

This message, even in a grade C sci-fi flick, is toxic. Liberals do not help us, the poor, by telling us that we have nothing of value in ourselves, that it is only through taking what the rich have that we can have lives of value. Poor people do not benefit by discounting what they have and living lives of passive, deluded envy, focusing on what the rich have rather than focusing on their own skills and blessings, and cultivating their own opportunities.

If the Earthlings of "Elysium" succeeded in their goal, it wouldn't end there. It would end as the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Iranian Revolution and others ended: with terror, torture, rape, chaos, and "meet the new boss; same as the old boss." The real revolution starts when we look within and outside ourselves with love.

The Stuff We Don't Talk About; Sexual Assault in Academia

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I'm thinking of doing a couple few blog posts about the challenges of the last year or so, that began with a forced hurricane evacuation and went on to multiple cancer diagnoses. I wanted to talk about the things that people did that helped, and how this time has affected my faith life.

In my mind I went over this challenging time, and I realized that there was one event in there that I have not talked about much.

Realizing that I hadn't talked much about this event got me to thinking about what we talk about, what we don't talk about, and why.

I was assaulted. I was grabbed, dragged, threatened, and the assailant left a wad of his spit on my face in his attempt to "kiss" me. I pushed him off and got away and I was okay and I am okay.

I wanted to talk about why I didn't want to talk about it.

I didn't want to talk about it because I feared that listeners would pelt me with unsolicited advice. I didn't want to talk about it because I feared that listeners would work to turn my story into their story. I feared that listeners would work to make my story into something that it was not, and that they would be doing this in a well-meaning way, and I'd just to have smile and say "Thank you" to be nice, while really feeling frustrated.

I didn't want to hear "You must go to the police!" Because going to the police in this instance would have accomplished nothing positive. I didn't want to hear, "Oh! You must be so traumatized! Here! Quickly read and memorize 'Our Bodies Ourselves!'" I wasn't traumatized. Upset yes, traumatized, no. I felt fine as soon as I got home and closed my door and took a long shower.

I didn't want people deciding that this was the worst thing that had happened to me, and that I had to be treated like a basket case. I wasn't a basket case, and this wasn't the worst thing that happened to me.

The obvious lesson: if a woman comes to you with news like this, please let her control the conversation. If she wants to go to the police, go to the police with her. If she knows that going to the police won't help, then please don't hound her. If she just wants to talk it out, talk it out with her.

Let her decide how best to deal. For me, it was a closed door and a hot shower.

I didn't want to mention it because I feared that I would not be heard as me talking about my own life. I feared I would be heard as someone making an accusation against someone else. I didn't want to go there. I have no interest in revealing his identity to anyone, although I did tell a few trusted confidantes. I don't care about him at all. I want, rather, to talk about my own experience, and its pertinence, if any, to others.

I didn't want to mention it because so much opprobrium attaches to women who make accusations. Is she telling the truth? Was she dressed provocatively?

Here's what happened. A very dear friend found out I'd be crossing paths with a professor and author. This friend urged me to introduce myself to this man, as a friend of a friend. Perhaps this professor could help my work, my friend said.

I did. I introduced myself to the professor. I mentioned my friend to him. For the record, I was dressed in an oatmeal linen shirt, buttoned up, navy blue cotton sweater, black wool slacks, and flat-heeled, black leather loafers. I spoke only of scholarly work. I said nothing personal about myself. I initiated no physical contact with him.

It was that man who did it.

I got away.

I don't know that I was ever in any real danger. I was able to overpower him. My reaction was more one of disgust than fear.

I told a scholar about what happened. This scholar wrote back, and this is a cut and paste from his email, "He is a notorious womanizer and has attempted to force himself on a number of people in highly inappropriate surroundings."

It bothered me that this scholar knew I'd be meeting this serial molester, and did not warn me in advance. It bothers me that a man with this kind of record has been able to get a pass to do it again.

Why talk about this?

It happens. Even to old, conservatively dressed women like me. It happens in academia. Given that academic success is so heavily predicated on the relationships one has with others with power, I bet it happens a lot, although I don't know. I just did a quick google search and hit upon this webpage that claims that "42 percent of college women who are raped tell no one about the assault." That sad statistic is part of why I am posting this. Just, to say it. To say it happened.

I can say this about the assailant. He is published and well connected. But as a human being, he is a complete loser.

What I wish – I wish we were more frank about sexual assault, not just the kind that occurs on dark streets late at night, but that occurs in white collar environments. I wish I had received better training in this reality, and I wish young girls out there now were receiving such training.

Lavender Bath Salts and Turkish Food. Life's Little Pleasures

Lavender. Source: Wikipedia

Two little things pleased me a lot recently: Lavender Bath Salts and Toros Restaurant.

I received an email from one Oleg Kitashin asking me to try a free sample of his Lavender bath salts and post a review on Amazon. I tried them and I loved them. The scent really brought me back:

…When I was a little girl, my mother had a flower garden: roses, irises, bergamot, and lilies. The luxurious roses were the stars, of course, but they were never my favorite. Maybe their blowsy, rich red blooms were just too obvious. Lavender grew off by itself, against the fence, in poor soil near the road. Its dusty grey leaves and tiny purple flowers were my favorites in the garden.

In high summer, I would pick a bit of lavender leaf between my fingertips, crush it, and sniff. Oooo. That scent of lavender brought me into a different world than my small New Jersey town. The fragrance just swept me away. Many sensuous scents we women love, like frangipani, invite us to sit back, relax, let down our inhibitions. But, oh, ho, ho, not so with lavender. The scent of lavender invigorates. It demands that you be your best self. It is the Katherine Hepburn of flower scents…

If you want to give Oleg's bath salts a try, the Amazon page for his product is here.

Sedef (mother of pearl) inlay. Source

My beautiful and talented student took me out to lunch at Toros Restaurant in Clifton. The street had the grim, littered, possibly dangerous look of so much of this corner of post-industrial New Jersey.

We entered Toros and a different world. You immediately encounter beautiful and intricate inlaid furniture. We ate next to red walls, under a stained glass ceiling. Turkish artwork – real sabers, a painting of a costumed woman and her goat – and lamps with beaded shades festooned the walls.

I'm not a foodie, and to me writing about food is like dancing about architecture, but I loved the food, and I wasn't hungry again for the next twenty-four hours. I was especially intrigued by kazandibi, a desert not quite like anything I'd ever had before.

It was the kind of place that, even before my dish arrived, I couldn't wait for the next time I'd visit. I phoned HIM while I was there, telling him we had to go together.

Here's the Toros website.

You can see the inlaid couch and table to the lower left. 

Kazandibi, a dessert unlike others I've tried. Recipe

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One Year Ago Today ... I Was So Scared

A year ago today my wallet was stolen and I needed to replace my driver's license because I'd just been diagnosed with cancer and I needed the driver's license for surgery the next day. 

And I am alive today. And I've been told I will survive. 

There are three cancer stories I haven't told many people yet. At least I think I have not. 

Here is one.

After that terrifying day before surgery, running around trying in ninety-degree heat to replace my IDs, on an empty stomach, because I was not allowed to eat, and after swallowing a noxious diuretic, I arrived back in my apartment, alone, because I am always alone, no friends, no family, and slumped in a chair, exhausted, realizing I wouldn't be able to do much of anything till surgery early the next morning. 

I turned on the computer. An email immediately came in. "How are you? I have am concerned about you."

It was the kind of message one likes to receive, an expression of concern, at exactly the right moment. 

Problem -- I had no idea who was sending it. I did not recognize the sender's name at all.

"Who are you?" I asked. 

She was a complete stranger. I had come across her name in a book. I had sent a query to her several years ago. She had never responded. I had forgotten the query, and her. For some reason, at that minute, this complete stranger decided to send me a kind note asking after me. 

My adventure a year ago today is here.

The Ivory Tower. What You Are Not Allowed to Say. The Hell in Small Things.

Will anyone understand this blog post? It's about matters as tiny and picayune as flea buttholes. It's about matters as big as being told you have cancer, and you can't get medical care, because you have no health insurance, because you are an adjunct professor, because even though you have a PhD you don't think and talk and act like the people in power, and so you'll never get a full time job, and never get health insurance, so just go die, already.

It's about that moment when power says to you , "Sign this. And we will give you brownie points. And if you accrue enough brownie points, you will be a bit closer to power, and maybe, just maybe, you will be allowed – oh, health insurance. Or maybe not. We'll see. But we will dangle this in front of your eyes in hopes that you bite."

It's about education. It's about the next generation. It's about what you are and are not allowed to say. It's about young people being taught to hate my faith. It's about young people never being taught what the word "gulag" or "Kolyma" means. Or what the Red Army did as it moved West.

It's about tiny, stupid things and big fat things that could land on your head.

Just the facts, ma'am.

I asked James P. Leary, a genuine scholar and mensch, to recommend work to me that addresses folklore on the internet. Prof. Leary recommended the work of Prof. Trevor J. Blank.

I asked a journal if I could receive a copy of a recent scholarly book edited by Prof. Blank for review. I received a copy and began to read it. I quickly saw that I was not the best audience for the book. I contacted the journal editor and said so. The journal editor insisted that I keep reading and submit a review. He said he was open to receiving a negative review.

I continued reading. I finished reading. I spent hours, over the course of three days, on the review.

I submitted the review to the editor.

I was in turmoil the entire time. I'm an adjunct professor. I want a full time job. If my review were published, it would irritate people who have more power than I, who, if they were ever to see an application from me for anything, might very well reject that application.

Why can't you just get along and go along? Prof. Dundes told me to do that. He could see that I was opinionated, and that I questioned everything. He could see that I was not like other people in academia. He told me to get along and go along until I got tenure. Prof. Dundes and I were debating this very point at the time of his death. His last email to me arrived a day before he died.

The journal editor wrote back.

The editor said that my review was petty and unscholarly.

The editor said he wanted to change the review extensively.

One example. One of the articles in the book recommended scholarship inspired by Marxism. In my review, I said that this scholar had "cast his lot with the force responsible for 94 million deaths in the twentieth century."

That's it. Fifteen words. I could have written many more. Here are a few words: Katyn, the ethnic cleansing of the Caucasus, Pilecki, show trials. I didn't say these words. I just typed in fifteen words indicating why Marxist scholarship doesn't really attract me.

The editor objected to my fifteen words. He wrote, "Does one have to mention all bad things in the world in order to discuss some of them? I think people are quite well aware of the ravages of the Communist regimes… but what about this piece suggests that it must be discussed?"

Oh. My. God.

The Nazis performed groundbreaking research on hypothermia. They performed this research by torturing helpless prisoners. There have been decades of debate: should we use this data accumulated by an evil regime?

I admire that debate.

I don't understand the mind that says "Does one have to mention all the bad things in the world" when a scholar recommends Marxism and another scholar mentions that Marxism was the justification for the murder of tens of millions of human beings, and Marxism has never come to terms with that pile of corpses.

I did not argue with the journal editor. I said, as I said in an earlier email, I am not the best reviewer for this book.

My review is below. The first three paragraphs praise the book in appropriate ways. Trouble starts in the fourth paragraph.

Tradition in the Twenty-First Century: Locating the Past in the Present. By Trevor J. Blank and Robert Glenn Howard. (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2013. 225 pp. Bibliography, index.)

I grew up in a small town where few wanted to discuss film. After the invention of the internet, I was able to connect with passionate movie fans. As I spend hours at the International Movie Database discussing film with complete strangers, feeling the camaraderie and pique I feel in face-to-face interaction, I wonder how this activity meshes, or doesn't mesh, with the definition of "community." After a celebrity dies, year after year, pranksters post a running joke on the deceased's imdb page, "Jack warned him." I wonder about the definition of "tradition." As I scroll through Facebook feeds, I come across urban legend themes: sliced onions absorb influenza; rat urine on soda cans kills consumers. I wonder if folklorists illuminate these phenomena, and how I can present their insights to my students.

These thoughts brought me to Trevor J. Blank and Robert Glenn Howard's new book "Tradition in the Twenty-First Century: Locating the Role of the Past in the Present." The back cover promises that this book "offers a comprehensive overview of the folkloristic and popular conceptualizations of tradition from the past to the present." The book lives up to this promise.

In their introduction, the editors remark on an evergreen concern of folklorists. Do folklorists study dying material, and, if that is true, do folklore scholars have anything to offer contemporary people? Folklorists tend to be anti-modern. Can they be lured into studying the Internet? The editors insist that folklorists' emphasis on tradition can offer much to illuminate "today's globalized, media driven, and technologically infused world." The editors review definitions of tradition from Stith Thompson, Alan Dundes, Dan Ben-Amos, Linda Degh, Henry Glassie, Robert Georges, Michael Owen Jones and others, factoring in whether or not a given scholar's definition is amenable to technologically mediated communities. Some definitions "open folklore studies to the important work that needs to be done in the new global, mediated, and technology driven contexts of the modern world…folklorists must strike a subtle bargain between the perception of the traditional as that which is handed down from the past and the technologies that are changing the means and scope of those 'handing down' processes."

"Tradition in the Twenty-First Century" is influenced by current academic trends toward anti-Western, anti-white, anti-male, and Christophobic attitudes. For this reader, that influence lessened the value of the book.

Stephen Olbrys Gencarella's "Critical Folklore Studies and the Revaluation of Tradition" recommends folklore scholarship inspired by Marxism. Gencarella offers a tidbit of queasily intimate self-exposure. He "trembles" with a "crippling," "debilitating" phobia of mushrooms, he reports, information that has no pertinence to his scholarship.

That self-exposure may be meant to humanize or endear, but he has cast his lot with the force responsible for 94 million deaths in the twentieth century. This choice of inspiration for folklore scholarship renders the editors' objection to oppressive power in colonialism selective outrage – the pains of African and Latin American subjects of Western colonial power matter to the new folklore scholar; the Eastern European, Chinese, and Cambodian victims of Marxism do not.

As an example of the kind of folklore scholarship he would like to see, Gencarella recommends the following. If, at family reunions, Italian Americans suggest that their families include quinoa in their meatballs, and if their families reject the quinoa, and if the scholar suspects that they reject quinoa because of prejudice against Hispanics, the scholar must encourage them to accept quinoa in their meatballs. Thus, the folklorist may "serve as a friend to a given community by calling it to more noble aspirations." No doubt a folklorist urging Muslims to sample pork would be expelled from the tribe as a holdover of colonial hegemony.

Robert Glenn Howard opens his piece, "Vernacular Authority: Critically Engaging 'Tradition,'" with the kind of anecdote carefully honed to disparage Catholicism while exculpating the teller from any charge of bigotry. Howard quotes a Filipina in such a way that a priest, and Catholicism, look bad. It is the Filipina, not Howard, who can be made to voice anti-Catholic sentiment.

Howard goes on to misrepresent Catholicism's position on homosexuals. Catholicism is a "hegemony that rejects their very identities." Howard exhorts folklore scholars that they "should value" action "against the hegemonic assertions of" Catholicism, "an institution hostile to … individuals in our society."

In fact, Catholics choose to be or not to be Catholic; Catholics are famous for living lives at odds with doctrine. Thus Howard's term "hegemony" is inaccurate. Howard misrepresents Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Contrary to Howard, Catholic catechism teaches that homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."

Tellingly, Howard gives a free pass to Neo-Pagans who make demonstrably false claims about their beliefs. Howard's book announces itself as caring about victims of misrepresentation, but he expresses no concern for the hostile Neo-Pagan misrepresentation of a group he himself attacks: Catholics. His book voices concern for the underrepresented; as Espenshade and Radford have demonstrated, Christians are underrepresented on elite American college campuses.

Casey R. Schmitt's "Asserting Tradition: Rhetoric of Tradition and the Defense of Chief Illiniwek" describes how both sides of the debate over a college football mascot cite tradition. White students at the University of Illinois dressed as Native Americans and danced before football games. Native American and other activists jousted about whether or not this could continue. Both sides cited tradition to make their points. According to Schmitt, such displays are "culturally disrespectful" and "unjust." It "perpetuates white hegemony and promotes cultural imperialism by seizing authority to speak for marginal traditions and then remaking them as dominant groups see fit…Violence remains violence. Insult remains insult."

Schmitt's Native Americans feel about Chief Illiniwek the way I felt about Howard's take on Catholicism. Consider: sexualized images of priests and nuns are standard fare at Halloween, including Gay Pride parades. I know of no effort by Catholics to ban them. In fact, I wore a sexy nun costume on Halloween – at my Catholic school. What would folklorists say about the difference between these costumes, and Catholics' tolerance of them, and the successful efforts to ban Chief Illiniwek? In other words, should scholarship not be consistent? If some costumes offend folklore scholars, why don't others? Current scholarship picks and chooses groups to privilege.

Not all the articles in "Tradition" are heavily politicized. Merrill Kaplan offers a straightforward comparison between nineteenth-century folklore archivists and internet archives like Snopes. She methodically points out differences and similarities, and they are fascinating. Toward the end of her article, Kaplan accuses herself, in good Marxist fashion, of privileging herself. That is thankfully brief.

"Tradition," as the title promises, spends a great deal of time defining the word. Elliott Oring, Tok Thompson, Lynne S McNeill, and Simon J. Bronner all contribute articles that attempt new definitions, while citing previous ones.

"Tradition" did not offer me the scintillating insights into my imdb and Facebook experiences for which I had hoped. The introduction did offer a sound platform for folklorists to venture forth and find those insights, though. For this reader, the politics got in the way, and the repeated attempts to define tradition did begin to feel repetitious.

I am an expert!!! With a PhD! Reza Aslan's Embarrassing Buffoonery

I have a PhD and you'd better not forget it! 

I have a PhD and I teach creative writing so this book is all truthiness. 

Reza Aslan is an Iranian-American creative writing professor at UC Riverside. At 15 he converted to Christianity. Later he converted back to Islam. His dissertation in Sociology was entitled "Global Jihadism as a Transnational Social Movement: A Theoretical Framework"

On 26 July 2013, Lauren Green interviewed Aslan on Fox TV about his new book "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth." Green focused on asking Aslan why a Muslim would write a book about Jesus. Questions like this are standard. Authors are often asked what interested them in the topic of their work. I am Polish-American, I write about Polish-Americans, and people ask me why I write about Polish-Americans. So far so good.

Aslan became huffy and assumed a pose of high dudgeon. I have a PhD, he kept repeating. Since I have a PhD, of course I am qualified to rewrite Christianity. Aslan also said that he possesses the academic credentials to write about Jesus because he speaks New Testament Greek. According to one transcript, Aslan mentions that he has a PhD FOUR TIMES.

Look – real scholars do not talk like this. That Aslan talked like this is proof that there is something rotten in Denmark.

First, I've been lucky enough to meet and spend time with real scholars and others of high achievement: Alan Dundes, Francis Collins, Sir Edmund Hillary, Lech Walesa. When I studied with Alan Dundes, he was the top scholar in the world in his field. I spent hours with this man. He NEVER referred to his academic credentials. Never. No matter who challenged him – and students, journalists, fellow scholars, and even I challenged him daily and aggressively. Dundes, like all truly great men, simply never flaunted his credentials. He didn't have to. He was the master of his field. He let the facts, which he had at his fingertips, speak for him.

Second, I have a PhD. So do lot of people who are currently receiving food stamps. It's a big deal to your mom when you get a PhD, but not to anyone else. A PhD qualifies you for just about nothing. A PhD means that you are the world expert in one teeny, tiny thing – the topic of your dissertation. Aslan did not write his dissertation on Jesus or Christianity or the history of religions or the New Testament. He is lying about his PhD.

Third, after receiving a PhD, a scholar must "publish or perish." He must publish peer-reviewed scholarship recognized by others in his field. Aslan hasn't published original scholarship on Jesus. He is lying about his qualifications.

Fourth, Greek is hardly sufficient for New Testament scholarship. World class New Testament scholars may have reading knowledge of Greek AND Hebrew AND Aramaic AND Latin AND German AND French. And maybe an Ancient Near Eastern language like Hittite. Aslan is proud that he has studied Greek? Feh.

Aslan is telling the world that he, Aslan, has the academic credentials to discredit Christianity, and he does not. That makes him a pompous, shameful liar.

I heard Aslan interviewed on Imus. Aslan said that the Gospels were written long after Jesus' death, and that their authors lied. These falsehoods have been disproven by real New Testament scholars. For a review of their work, check out Lee Strobel's excellent book, "The Case for the Real Jesus."

Even the left-leaning Guardian UK lambasted Aslan's book. Excerpts from Stuart Kelly's review:

In Zealot, Reza Aslan, "to be as kind as possible, trudges down some very well-worn paths; its contribution to studies of Christianity is marginal bordering on negligible; and its breathless style suggests hasty thought…

To take just one example: the Romans are said to display 'characteristic savagery' on page 13 and are 'generally tolerant' on page 14…parts of it are closer to Jesus Christ Superstar than any serious undertaking…there are plenty of books that do a more scholarly job, and are written more eloquently…

The major flaw in this work [is this]. Aslan simultaneously disparages and relies on the gospels. If a verse fits, he snatches it: if it contradicts his thesis he takes it as proof of the unreliability of the source. When he requires Celsus, the vehement antagonist of Christianity, to be true, he takes his work as such (without ever mentioning we only have Celsus in fragments preserved in Origen's rebuttal); when he wishes it otherwise, Celsus is 'so clearly polemical he cannot be taken seriously'."

***

Andrew Kaczynski at Buzzfeed collected a series of Reza Aslan's twitter posts. Aslan calls those he disagrees with fat and stupid, says that they speak through their ass, and he uses the f word liberally to insult others. His twitter posts sink even lower than that. They can be read here.