I have a crush
Flist, I've... I've met someone. I think what we have is really special, and I'd like to tell you about our love. Let me introduce you to my new boyfriend, ♥Reza Aslan♥!

He's an Iranian-American religious scholar, and he is SO SMART and SO REASONABLE and SO INSANELY HOT. Seriously. To get a taste of what he's like, check out his appearance this week on the Daily Show. This is the first time I saw him, AKA the moment I fell in love. And his other TDS appearances are equally awesome. I feel like a teenager doodling on my notebook. He is so dreamy, you guys, omfg.



And he's even better in long formats than in short interviews. Seriously. He just makes such subtle, interesting points, and he's so well-informed, and it is just totally fucking sexy. ♥____♥

Here's another couple of long links: an interview and a debate. I love the bit from 40:16- 46:00 of that second link so very much. I feel like he offers such an realistic perspective on the Middle East - it's not the US or Europe, it's never going to be the US or Europe, but it's also not some monolithic block of identical politics, and there are prejudices Americans have about the way it should look that make them ignore the way it does look.

I think the only thing I might like better than when he talks about Islamic fundamentalism is when he talks about religion in general. The stuff he says about religion comes closer to what I feel to be true about it than anything I've ever heard anyone say. Here he is debating Sam Harris (who is a sort of evangelical atheist) about Islam, and he's just so much, again, subtler than his opponent. His points about religion as a language to talk about truth, and the complexity of what people refer to as beliefs, are just brilliant.

Basically what I'm saying is that I would blow him.



Yours sincerely, ~*~Mrs. Kalpurna Aslan~*~

P.S. - I stole these links from quettaser before she could post them because she was too slow! You snooze, you lose, sucker.