Who Is Responsible For Words, Over Actions?

When it comes to criticizing Islamic beliefs and trying to pin down how much blame to put on the words of the Qu'ran that terrorists claim to be killing in the name of, I often find myself wavering between different viewpoints. While I very much disagree with Sam Harris and what is, in my opinion, his rather pigheaded way to approach the issue, I'm also not on the wishy-washy liberal "religion of peace" apologetics that you often hear on the other side. I definitely agree that the reasons behind terrorism are complex, multifactorial and not as simple as just pointing to a holy book and saying there! Problem solved.

The reason I bring this up is because I constantly think about this issue as it is brought up. The most recent episode of the Non-Prophets did just that when discussing the reasoning behind the Chapel Hill shooting, where an atheist shot and killed three Muslim neighbors of his, although whether "in the name of atheism" or not still remains to be determined. The hosts bring up the fact that there is no atheist dogma, and thus there is nothing inherently "in" atheism which permits, condones or encourages violent actions against others, unlike most monotheistic religious texts. This I totally agree with, but then the discussion went one step further. Russell talked about how he went to a seminar on Islam in Austin, and how while he thought their beliefs were weird, he did not feel like it was in any way reasonable to hold them responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shootings, any more than it is to hold atheists responsible for the recent shooting in North Carolina. To this Jeff hesitated, saying he didn't feel the same way, because of what was said before: Muslims have a holy book which contains violence, and atheists don't.

While he did not say it in so many words, he sort of implied a shared responsibility of Muslims towards what is written in their holy texts, if not for the individual actions of the religious followers themselves. While it is obviously not any of the Muslims alive today who are responsible for writing them, a question could be raised as to how much responsibility you have for what is written in the text that you claim to believe is the word of god.

This idea that Muslims are somewhat responsible for what their religion says is something that is also very prevalent in the right wing. This huffing and puffing about every single Muslim individual and group in American having to openly and publicly denounce every single terrorist act committed anywhere in the world before they are allowed to speak a single word in public (which many of them do, despite the fact that, in my opinion, its not their responsibility) is something seen often on Fox and the like. This got me thinking, at what point are you responsible for the words of others? They claim to believe that this text is the word of god, that is true, but there is no picking and choosing with holy books. You have to either take the whole thing or nothing. The right wing would never take responsibility for every word of the Bible (I doubt many of them believe that cotton-polyester blends are an abomination), and yet they do place a good deal of responsibility of what is written in the Qu'ran at the feet of Muslims. My question is, how fair is it to claim that someone who has not written a text has responsibility for what it says and, by extension, what others do with those words?

And, for consistency's sake, how fair is it to lay responsibility down at the feet of a person who actually did write the words in question?

Ladies and Gents, remember Bill O'Reilly?

So Bill was famously in the middle of a little controversy (and now finds himself in the middle of a larger one, but one thing at a time) involving his coverage of an abortion provider named Dr. George Tiller. O'Reilly repeatedly referred to Dr. Tiller as "Tiller the Baby Killer", along with dehumanizing him in many different ways. Once Dr. Tiller was murdered O'Reilly, never one to back down, defended his use of the term and his campaign against this man.

I despise Bill O'Reilly, so any opinion of mine on his share of the responsibility for Dr. Tiller's murder would be tainted. However, what I am asking for is consistency. 

If you think that someone who didn't write the words in their text, but simply believes in its holiness, should share some responsibility for others' actions in the name of that text, then you definitely, definitely have to think that O'Reilly, who actually composed these words, shares responsibility for what was done to Dr. Tiller. 

By the way: I in no way am comparing Jeff from the Non Prophets to Republicans, or in any way suggesting that he believes that Muslims share responsibility for the actions of terrorists. He was simply the spark that ignited this train of thought.

An Atheist's Reason For The Season

This post is appropriate for (two days after...oops) the 8th of December, which as I have mentioned before is the day in which, traditionally, the Christmas season officially starts in Italy. It is the day the trees go up, the Christmas lights come on on the streets and the Christmas markets officially begin (although I have noticed that this year, in light of the economic crisis, they were given permission to open shop earlier than usual) all to coincide with that famously confusing Immaculate Conception. I am one of those atheists that does in fact celebrate Christmas, or Mithrasmas, or Xmas, or whatever I may feel like calling it. I like it, its fun, and every year I act as Santa for my grinchy Italian family buying everyone's gifts for everyone else, so getting to Christmas knowing what's in all the packages except for my own. This does not mean, however, that I do not know plenty of people that are of Taslima Nasreen's opinion, that it is silly to celebrate Christmas:

I get surprised when ex-Christian atheists instead of celebrating a day off work, celebrate Christmas. Christmas is a Christian holiday, a religious event — it is for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Atheists don’t believe in God the father, Jesus the son or the holy spirit. Atheists are not Christians, they do not need to participate in Christian holiday.  

Well, I think that part of the answer come in her next paragraph (emphasis my own)

Many atheists even celebrate the pagan festival of winter solstice. Why do they need to celebrate a Pagan festival? It is true that many rituals of modern Christmas celebrations are pagan. But this is not a good reason to celebrate Christmas or Solstice. Atheists are neither pagan nor Christian. They don’t uphold ancient pagan superstitions, so why do so with those which happen to be popular at Christmas time? There’s nothing about ancient paganism which is any more rational than modern Christianity.

That's exactly it, Christmas celebrations as we know them are really bastardizations of much older pagan rituals, adopted when Christianity became big. Those who believe in a historical Jesus say that, if he did exist he most likely was born in September, so why change it all up in order to fit nicely with a pagan holiday which has nothing at all to do with Christianity?

Well, because people like their holidays and like their traditions. They are some of the best childhood memories for some people, and often they want to continue those great memories for their own kids. For Christians it was strategy: it's much easier to convince people to switch over to your religion when you tell them they don't have to change some of their favorite things about their old one, but for many atheists it's for similar reasons that we continue to celebrate it. People have been celebrating this time of year for ages, all under different names, so why can't we do the same thing this time around and have atheistic Xmas? I had some great Xmases in my time and I want to have that for my kids, the tree, the presents, the dinner, the family, all of it holds a special place in my heart and is an experience I wouldn't want to deny my future children. So what if Christians also celebrate this time of year for their own purposes? Why should that affect my celebrations with my family?

Now, do any atheists have to celebrate Xmas? Of course not! If they don't have any special memories attached to it or don't like it, then don't celebrate it! Celebrate, as Taslima suggests, Women's Day or Anti-Slavery Day, or hell make up a random date and call it My Family Day and come up with a bunch of traditions for your family alone!

The only thing that I would personally suggest, as I did to a friend of mine who does not have the happy Xmas memories that I do, is not to forgo having any holiday at all to celebrate, especially if you have kids. I know people say "well I can see my family at any time", but when life starts to get going and each family member starts doing their own thing, it's amazing how quickly time slips by until you stop for a minute and think crap, how long has it been since we've all been together in the same place at the same time?

 Having an xmas-like holiday gives everyone something to look forward to. It makes you stop and think what would my brother/sister/uncle/mother really like? What present could I get them that would make them happy? It gives you an excuse to bake cookies, make a nice meal or whatever else you don't indulge in when you're far too busy working. Most importantly, it gives everyone an excuse to drop whatever they're doing, take a break and visit with family and friends. I don't think there is anything wrong with that at all.

So as for me? I just bought my xmas tree and decorated it over the weekend listening to Nat King Cole carol for me. I then made myself a nice hot chocolate and relaxed, enjoying the beginning of the season, amazingly watching it snow outside. I was content, and I could care less that at the same time there were others boring themselves silly at mass. They're celebrations have nothing to do with me, and mine are for my benefit, not for Christianity's.




As an aside, if you haven't seen Taslima Nasreen's blog yet, do check it out. I may have disagreed with her in this case, but I do think her writing is remarkable. However I do think a trigger warning is in order: many of her posts are very hardcore: she blogs about women's rights and fundamentalist Islam, so the sad hard truth about rape, beatings and torture, including graphic images and videos, can often be found there.

Tough Questions: On The Limits of Personal Freedom

Despite my extremely patchy posting, I found that I had to re-address one last aspect of the issues that I brought up surrounding Savita. As usual, thinking about the victims of backwards, brutal religions just gets me thinking about all of the ways that these religions infringe on the rights of human beings to be healthy. I think not only about people who die because of dangerous pregnancies, but about circumcision, acid being thrown in girls faces, AIDS because of a lack of access to condoms and children dying of preventable diseases because their parents were told not to believe in a certain medicine. 

When thinking about the horrors that many religious people impose on their own, especially their children, it is very easy to say things like "You know what asshole? If your adult self wants to be a dumbass and not take a blood transfusion to save your own life go right ahead, one less idiot on this planet, but don't let your child die because of your lunatic beliefs!" I am sorry (am I? I'm not sure yet) to say that I also have said this more than once, and am usually of this opinion, but this recent tragedy has really gotten me thinking. 

First of all, any regular reader of this blog will know that I am one HELL of an advocate for personal freedom. I feel that if you are an adult, are fully capable of making your own decisions and are not hurting anyone else in the process you can pretty much to whatever you like. I have taken this idea to some pretty dark extremes, defending even things that make my stomach turn in the utmost disgust. You can see my post on incest, for instance. When that story came out about that German guy that looked for a guy on the internet who loved the idea of being eaten, then killed and ate him, I said he shouldn't get life in prison because the guy not only volunteered, he really really wanted to be eaten - and shouldn't what happens to his own life be his choice and no one else's? I once even saw a documentary about these rare cases of voluntary amputation (if I find it again, I'll update and link it), where these people cannot live with a limb and try desperately to cut it off in any way possible, finding it of course very hard to find a doctor willing to amputate a perfectly healthy limb, and thinking that if I were a doctor I'd try to help these people out. Coming from this perspective, you'd think that my being OK with an adult doing something unhealthy because of their religious beliefs would be absolutely nothing, right?

And yet, there were two examples that stuck in my mind which made it very difficult for me to continue shrugging my shoulders in the face of weird choices that I will never understand but have no interest in shaking my finger over. One of them is the case of adult women electing to be fully circumsized, which a South African friend of mine tells me is the norm in the small town where he is from. The other is the idea of a woman getting a symphysiotomy despite knowing exactly what it is and what it will do to her (and yes I know that this was not the case in Ireland). Am I just being uber sexist, and only balk at these things because they involve women? 

I hope not, because there is a very fundemental difference between the two categories. The first category that I described is one in the absence of coercion. A person has a very strange fantasy, or has a rare illness that makes them need something desperately, who am I to tell them they can't have it, if they're not infringing on someone else's rights in the process? In the case of the latter, however, I don't think that is the case. If your community basically tells you you're an unmarriable slut if you elect to not be circumcised, that's not really a free adult making a free choice is it? If a woman is led to believe by her country steeped in patriarchal religion that her only worth on this planet is to make as many babies as possible no matter the cost or risk to her health, how can I possibly be in favor of that? 

The question thus becomes, would I be in favor of putting hard laws against these things that I despise? Just because I despise them, even though adults are (relatively) volutarily electing to have them?

I think that history has shown that laws are the wrong way to go about these things, especially when it comes to limiting adults. While I am in favor of laws preventing these things being done to children (as relatively powerless citizens they need extra protection), having only laws leads to one thing: back alley proceedures. I personally would invest my resources and energy into education, education, education, always. Let's talk about how these things are incredibly dangerous. Let's talk about changing our culture to something that is sex positive, not slut-shaming. Let's change people's minds.

I suppose the fundemental conclusion is this. When someone has an innate, psychological problem, such as the people who desperately want to become amputees, there's nothing you can do to remove that need inside them. They have it and they will be miserable for the rest of their lives if they are forced to keep that limb, and misery pushes people to do desperate and dangerous things. This means that we need to pick the better of two not-ideal situations: allow that person to sever that limb in the safest way possible.

On the other hand, if we have a person whose only reason for wanting something so dangerous and brutal is because they were unfortunate enough to be born into a society which tells them that they are worth less if they don't do it, well that's just not. fucking. fair. I don't want anyone to think that, and I will not want to stand idly by while the vicious cycle goes round and round. While legislation will probably do more harm than good - pushing an already unsafe proceedure underground - tackling the root, the source of the problem is the hardest but the best way to handle this unfairness. 

There's more to struggle with this, but this first part I hope is clear enough.

Forcing The Discussion

And here I am to prostrate myself at your virtual feet for by prolonged and undue absence. I was going through a writer's block, a "crap I have nothing to say, and no one cares what I have to say anyway" phase, from which I have been shocked out of in light of recent viral stories that I want to add my two cents to. 

By now, I'm sure you have all heard about Savita Halappanavar, the most recent face put on the victims of the Catholic Church's meddlings in societies to which they do not contribute.

Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.

This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.

She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped.

The dead foetus was removed and Savita was taken to the high dependency unit and then the intensive care unit, where she died of septicaemia on the 28th.

There was no chance, none whatsoever that her foetus would survive. Despite this, they chose to put the life of its mother at risk, by choosing the arbitrary standard of a foetal heartbeat as proof it was still alive, thereby directly causing her death.

I wonder, are heart transplants illegal in Ireland as well? The person's heart is still beating when it is removed for transplant, it must be in order to still be viable, but by their own logic isn't that directly killing their patient and therefore illegal?

So why am I deciding to weigh in at this point? Why is this one case so important?

I hope that this is what will finally precipitate a real discussion that we need to have regarding the liberties we give Catholic hospitals. 

Even if it is discovered that this was an isolated case, one in which her doctor was negligent and solely at fault, even if it is discovered that his actions were not in accordance with proceedure at the Catholic hospital in question, even if the administration of said hospital is absolved of any responsibility beyond any doubt, we still need to have this conversation.

This is not the first time that we are faced with the disgusting proceedures in Catholic hospitals. Take ectopic pregnancies, which have 0% chance of survival, since the foetus will burst the fallopian tube and kill the mother once it reaches a certain size. We have heard of Catholic hospitals which refuse to remove the embryo in question because of their "morals", opting instead to remove the woman's entire fallopian tube, greatly reducing her fertility and turning a simple operation into a far more dangerous one. Where was the global outcry then?

What about the sawing of women's pelvises to make them into supreme baby-making machines? 

The problem is the lack of a face, a victim, someone that the whole world rallies around. Now there is one, and with enough people paying attention we need to address the real issue: how much are we going to allow hospitals to get away with?

We need laws, real laws, limiting in explicit words what religious hospitals are allowed to do and still operate as hospitals. If Jehovah's Witnesses decide their going to open up a hospital but refuse to give blood transfusions to any of their patients, even to save their lives? Guess what, you don't get to be a hospital, you don't get a cent of govnerment money and you sure as shit aren't going to be served by ambulences that might bring an unwitting patient to your doors. If a Catholic Church refuses to save a woman's life because she has some foreign DNA inside her? Fuck you, you don't get to be a hospital anymore, end of story. 

Now, when people are really looking and really paying attention, now is the time to act.

Thinking Scientifically, Always

I work in the science field, so I know all too well that scientists and atheists are pefectly capable of cognitive dissonance and all kinds of backwards thinking that we often accuse others of doing. Although we are human, of course, we should know better given our training, so it makes me so angry when I see people in my field of work not applying their critical thinking skills to anything outside of the particular experiment they happen to be working on.

In this case I suppose I shouldn't have expected much more, since the person in question is also a die-hard Catholic (albeit one with an extensive historical knowledge and very much a "the whole thing is one big allegory and full of copying errors so it's all to be taken with a grain of salt" type Catholic). Still, she was perfectly able to crawl right under my skin when I happened to bring up how disgusted I am with what is going on in Greece.

In case you haven't heard, A 27 year-old man in Greece has been arrested and faces up to 2 years in prison for making fun of a Greek Orthodox monk, Geron Paisios. He created a Facebook page in which he called the monk Geron Pastitsios, a type of Greek lasagna, possibly using it as an extended parody linking the monk to Pastafarianism. To face 2 years in jail for something so asinine is ridiculous and something I expect of Iran or Saudi Arabia, not the country that invented democracy. My colleague doesn't agree, or rather, she doesn't believe it.

"Greece is a civil country", she says, "so he must have done something far worse than what you think. You're an idiot if you think that online newspapers are 100% reliable, so he must have said something horrible. Besides, you're not allowed to offend people, you can sue someone for saying terribly offensive things, maybe that person doesn't go to jail but there is a precedent in other civil countries. So, whatever, I'm sure he deserves it".

Oh deary me. A part from her horrible mangling of free speech and libel laws, the core of her argument is so rotten I almost fell out of my chair. What in the hell kind of scientist are you?!

You don't get to work your way backwards from a conclusion, I tried to explain. Of course you can't assume that newspapers have all of their facts straight, but that is entirely besides the point. We have a certain amount of evidence: I have read many articles about this, and they all say the same thing regarding his "crimes". With the evidence that we have, my conclusion is that no, Greece is not behaving like a "civilized country", not even close. That does not mean that this conclusion cannot change based on new evidence that can arise later, however I really don't care how mercilessly he poked fun at the guy, he could have inserted the guy's face into this NSFW cartoon and plastered it all over Facebook, unless he credibly threatened followers of the cult or some similar real crime was committed, my conclusion remains the same: Greece is not to be considered "civilized" so long as they have these totalitarian laws.

You know what the real problem is? Even putting it in the hypothetical: let's say that all he really did was call this guy a pasta name. Let's say for the sake of argument, it is 100% confirmed that that is all he did. Would you be willing to revise your conclusion then? Her answer was still no.

This is about not wanting to see what lies in front of you, not about not being able to or not knowing how. It's about her being religious, and she wouldn't want anyone calling Ratzinger Pope Spaghetti, so she just wont admit that one of the core and most important principles of a free country are being slowly but surely crushed underfoot. 

And ultimately, this is about not thinking what you do in life has any importance outside of the lab. If I was to think in this way regarding an experiment she'd be the first to kick my legs out from under me in utter disgust. 

I, on the other hand, was attracted to this line of work specifically because I value the importance of thinking scientifically, and I think it is the best, most fair, most objective and therefore most humble way to view life.

If you ever see me working backwards from a conclusion, slap me.

Repost: Sharia Law In The UK

I received this email from Maryam Namazie, a woman whom I greatly admire and instrumental in the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar (which still hangs proudly on my wall). I want to repost it here, because I think it is something that more people, especially those of you that live in the UK, need to be aware of.



 Dear Friend,

We are writing to you today to ask for your urgent and immediate support.

As you may have seen in the papers recently, there is growing evidence that young children – some as young at 5 years old – are being “married” to older men in Sharia courts across Britain. This is increasingly being sanctioned by the Islamists who run Britain’s network of Sharia courts, and there is evidence that this practice is growing.

Recent Investigations

A recent undercover investigation by the Sunday Times found imams in Britain willing to “marry” young girls, provided this was carried out in secret. The imams had been approached by an undercover reporter posing as a father who said he wanted his 12 year old daughter married, to prevent her from being tempted in to a "western lifestyle".
 
Imam Mohammed Kassamali, of the Husaini Islamic Centre in Peterborough, sanctioned the marriage, but stressed the need for total secrecy. He stated: “I would love the girl to go to her husband’s houses (sic) as soon as possible, the younger the better. Under sharia (Islamic law) there is no problem. It is said she should see her first sign of puberty at the house of her husband. The problem is that we cannot explain such things (the marriage) if the girl went tomorrow (to the authorities).”

Abdul Haque, who officiates at weddings at the Shoreditch mosque, east London agreed to carry out the formalities of the wedding. However, he told the reporter that he should “tell people it is an engagement but it will be a marriage”. He added: “In Islam, once the girl reaches puberty the father has the right, the parents have the right, but under the laws of this country if the girl complains and says her marriage has been arranged and she wasn’t of marriageable age, then the person who performed the marriage will be jailed as well as the mother and father”.



Earlier this year, it was also reported that at least 30 girls, some as young as 9, were “married” in sharia courts in one London borough alone. Clearly, child “marriages” are an abomination; they are nothing short of religiously-sanctioned child rape and paedophilia.

Sharia proponents deceptively say that forced marriages are unacceptable under Sharia and that both bride and groom must choose to marry as if that is the issue at hand. Islamists have gotten away with years of misogyny against Muslim women under cover of “choice” and are now using similar language with regards children. Nonetheless, child welfare must take precedence irrespective of religious beliefs. This is something we must urgently remind the Government of. Sharia courts are a scandal and must be stopped.

Arbitration and Mediation (Equality) Bill

One important way to tackle this matter is to galvanise support for the Arbitration and Mediation (Equality) Bill introduced to the House of Lords last year by crossbench peer, Baroness Caroline Cox. The Bill is due for a second reading in October.

The Government has so far declined to support Cox’s Bill. They do not believe there is a parallel legal system in operation. They also insist that everyone has full right of access to the British courts. This is simply not the case. There are many with little or no English language skills, trapped by community pressure, who believe Sharia courts operate as real courts and who regard their decisions as legally binding. The idea that they can easily instruct a high street solicitor to help them access their full rights under UK law is far from reality.

The Government must be pressured into taking immediate action, including by supporting Cox’s Bill, and shutting down Sharia and religious courts. If child welfare takes precedence then the Government is duty-bound to take action.

Sign our new petition in support of Baroness Cox’s Bill; tell the Government that enough is enough! Please sign it now.

Help Us

Baroness Cox has said in the past that her Bill was inspired by One Law for All. To donate to our important work, please either send a cheque made payable to One Law for All to BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK or pay via Paypal.

. We need regular support and also for supporters to commit to giving at least £5-10 a month via direct debit. You can find out more about how to join the 100 Club here

If you shop online, please do so via the Easy Fundraising’s website. It won’t cost you anything extra but can help raise much needed funds for One Law for All.
We look forward to your immediate intervention in this matter.

Best wishes,

Maryam Namazie and Anne Marie Waters

Spokespersons

One Law for All

BM Box 2387

London WC1N 3XX, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731

onelawforall@gmail.com

www.onelawforall.org.uk



I bolded that last part because this is an amazing discovery for me. You're saying that I get to feel good about shopping for embarassing numbers of books and DVDs on amazon without having to feel guilty AND not spending any more on them?! It costs nothing to sign up, they take no percentage of what you raise for the website, and you get to shop the way you normally do AND contribute to your cause of choice. Win-win-win, I just signed up four minutes ago. Amazon here I come!

What Exactly Is A Cult?

As I mentioned yesterday in my post about Scientology, for some strange reason I'm in a cult-documentary phase at the moment, and by now I think I've seen every single one of them that I can find on youtube (except the ancient aliens one from the history channel, I refuse). What struck me was that, despite my searching "cult documentary", I never really knew what to expect when I watched one of the videos, mostly because of the extremely diverse views as to what constitutes a cult.

Sometimes the documentaries would be strictly about extremely violent and sociopathic cults, like the Manson family or Aum Shinrikyo. These were the kind of documentaries that I liked the least, dealing mostly with the shock value of these heinous crimes in the oh-my-god-how-did-he-convince-these-people-my-lordy sense. Incidentally I would have found them far more interesting if they were presented in the context of the psychology of sociopaths, Stokholm Syndrome etc, rather than pure awe at how good people can go so terribly wrong given a charasmatic enough leader (as if it were that simple). Either way, in this case it was evident that the writers were considering the word "cult" in the strictest sense, a small brain-washed group of puppets controlled by an evil Satan-like leader. In other cases I would get the documentaries about an organizations that are recognized officially as religions in many countries. Others yet considered cults to be people who believe in things that are just far too silly and out there to be taken seriously (as if a parthenogenic teenager that popps out a guy that can walk on water is somehow more probably than space aliens coming for our bodies when we die). I saw some instances where the people proudly announced that they were in fact part of a cult, and others (none more so than the Scientologists) that could not find a single more offensive word to describe themselves. Suddenly I'm very confused.

What exactly is a cult? What is a religion? Can we come to a consensus as to what the two words mean and how exactly they differ? 

Now my favorite snarky response to this question is one I heard a while ago from my father, who in turn saw it on a t-shirt: The only difference between a religion and a cult is numbers. I can definitely agree with that assessment (especially when referring to people who think that cults are simply people who believe "crazy" things), but let's take a closer look for a second.

This is the part when we go back to the dictionaries, and let's see if we can get a little consistency.

Oxford English Dictionary:

cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object:

       1. a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members

religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods

            1. a particular system of faith and worship

            2. a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion


Merriam-Webster: eek, this is a long list

cult: 1. formal religious veneration

         2. a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents 

         3. a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents

         4. a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator

         5. great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad 

religion: 1. the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion>    

            2. (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

            3. a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 

            4. archaic : scrupulous conformity

            5. a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith 

dictionary.reference.com:

cult: 1. a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.

         2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers

         3. the object of such devotion

         4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc

         5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols  

religion: 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs

               2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects

               3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices

               4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc

               5. the practice of religious  beliefs; ritual observance of faith

Crap, my head hurts just looking at all that. Doesn't seem that anyone can really agree can they?

Well, for starters, there is obviously a lot of overlap between what constitutes a religion and what constitutes a cult, which of course is quite obvious. If we take away all of the overlap, what do we really have left?

1. a relatively small group of people

2. practices regarded by others as strange or regarded as unorthodox

3. imposing excessive control over members

As I said before, the second one is quite subjective and based on nothing particularly concrete- should we call creationists a cult? AIDS-denialists? 9/11 truthers? perhaps, but as I said earlier, I don't see anything in the core beliefs of the main monotheistic religions that makes them more reasonable than these other logic-defying beliefs, so unless we want to abandon the distiction between the two words entirely I would be wary of this point here.

The first one is interesting in that it falls into the snarky comment that I made earlier. I suppose those that believe that this is the main distinction are the ones that find absolutely nothing wrong with being referred to as a cult and even adopt the label with pride: they are the few people who actually got it right and so be it. 

It is the third that I find the most telling, and the one that I think the one factor that tied all of those documentaries that I saw together: the excessive control. The splitting up of families, of not allowing members to speak to or interact with anyone outside the faith. The strict rules with which they control every aspect of their followers' lives, eliminating the chance that they think for themselves. 

This aspect is unfortunately found, in a diluted form, in pretty much every religion there is: you can talk to outsiders, just not marry them. You can marry them, but only if you convince them to convert. You can marry someone who does not convert, but the children you have must be raised in the faith. You can talk to your child who decides to leave the faith, but you must be deeply ashamed of them and worried for the fate of their soul. You have to fast for a month. You don't have to fast for a month, just no meat on Fridays. You can eat meat on Fridays, just not on Fridays during Lent. On and on and on it goes. 

When these rules and restrictions become less and less reasonable and cause the people following them to be less able to integrate into their society, we begin to call that religion a cult. There are also many religions that follow all three of these criteria but that are simply referred to as "fundementalist religions", but is there really a difference? Either way, does it really matter?

What do you think when you hear the word "cult"? Is there anything that these dictionaries have left out, but that you would have included in the definition?

            

   

 

Scientology, What A Joke

Recently for some reason I've been watching a load of documentaries on cults. Call it a bizarre and fleeting fascination with the crazy crap of the world, or that my store of wacky information needed some adding to for when I am talking to people that know less about these things than I do, either way I came across this episode of Panorama that I had seen a couple of years ago while living in Ireland. Of all the documentaries that I have seen so far on cults, this one is definitely the most aggravating and difficult to watch thanks to the yippy little mutt known as Tommy Davis.

Sweeney keeps apologizing for the way he reacted at the end to Tommy goading him, but I honestly don't think that he had anything to apologize for. I am amazed at how calm he had managed to remain for so long, when if it were me in his situation, I would have gotten very snarky with that asshole far, far earlier.

At the end of the day, Tommy Davis should realize that Sweeney did not need to present a biased view of Scientology or lie about anything. All he would have had to do was show back-to-back clips of Tommy Davis getting in his face, he did a bang up job of making Scientology look awful all on his own. I hope his bosses give him a raise, because if there is anyone that was on the fence about the way Scientology to begin with, all they had to do was look at the appalling way that jerk-off behaved himself and the way they were constantly keeping tabs on the BBC, spying on them and harrassing them.

Sweeney does one better instead, and came out with this follow-up which I had not seen

When you have time watch both of them. Sweeney refused to be intimidated by their ridiculous scare tactics and schooled them in this second documentary in the best possible way. OK I concede your ways are better than mine, I would have just snarked my way under Tommy Davis' skin and would have had to leave it at that. Bravo.

Oh and one more thing, where are the pro-life right wingers when it comes to calling out an institution that actually pressures many of its female members into getting an abortion?! Is it because they will never dare touch a religion that isn't Islam, or because they don't go after people with money? 

Or maybe, unlike Sweeney, they're just too chickenshit

Repost: Charles Negy Is A Boss

Thank you TYTUniversity for bringing this highly amusing and inspiring story to my attention

For too long I've been reading stories about the rapid decline of the quality of higher education in the United States, so I was very grateful that for once I got to see a story that doesn't make me lose hope in colleges in the US.

I tracked down the full letter from reddit, and if you also can only see a truncated version of it posted there, here it is:

Hello, Cross-Cultural students, I am writing to express my views on how some of you have conducted yourself in this university course you are taking with me. It is not uncommon for some-to-many American students, who typically, are first-generation college students, to not fully understand, and maybe not even appreciate the purpose of a university. Some students erroneously believe a university is just an extension of high school, where students are spoon-fed “soft” topics and dilemmas to confront, regurgitate the “right” answers on exams (right answers as deemed by the instructor or a textbook), and then move on to the next course.

Not only is this not the purpose of a university (although it may feel like it is in some of your other courses), it clearly is not the purpose of my upper-division course on Cross-Cultural Psychology. The purpose of a university, and my course in particular, is to struggle intellectually with some of life's most difficult topics that may not have one right answer, and try to come to some conclusion about what may be “the better answer” (It typically is not the case that all views are equally valid; some views are more defensible than others). Another purpose of a university, and my course in particular, is to engage in open discussion in order to critically examine beliefs, behaviors, and customs. Finally, another purpose of a university education is to help students who typically are not accustomed to thinking independently or applying a critical analysis to views or beliefs, to start learning how to do so. We are not in class to learn “facts” and simply regurgitate the facts in a mindless way to items on a test. Critical thinking is a skill that develops over time. Independent thinking does not occur overnight. Critical thinkers are open to having their cherished beliefs challenged, and must learn how to “defend” their views based on evidence or logic, rather than simply “pounding their chest” and merely proclaiming that their views are “valid.” One characteristic of the critical, independent thinker is being able to recognize fantasy versus reality; to recognize the difference between personal beliefs which are nothing more than personal beliefs, versus views that are grounded in evidence, or which have no evidence.

Last class meeting and for 15 minutes today, we addressed “religious bigotry.” Several points are worth contemplating:

1. Religion and culture go “hand in hand.” For some cultures, they are so intertwined that it is difficult to know with certainty if a specific belief or custom is “cultural” or “religious” in origin. The student in class tonight who proclaimed that my class was supposed to be about different cultures (and not religion) lacks an understanding about what constitutes “culture.” (of course, I think her real agenda was to stop my comments about religion).
2. Students in my class who openly proclaimed that Christianity is the most valid religion, as some of you did last class, portrayed precisely what religious bigotry is. Bigots—racial bigot or religious bigots—never question their prejudices and bigotry. They are convinced their beliefs are correct. For the Christians in my class who argued the validity of Christianity last week, I suppose I should thank you for demonstrating to the rest of the class what religious arrogance and bigotry looks like. It seems to have not even occurred to you (I'm directing this comment to those students who manifested such bigotry), as I tried to point out in class tonight, how such bigotry is perceived and experienced by the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the non-believers, and so on, in class, to have to sit and endure the tyranny of the masses (the dominant group, that is, which in this case, are Christians).
3. The male student who stood up in class and directed the rest of the class to “not participate” by not responding to my challenge, represented the worst of education. For starters, the idea that a person—student or instructor—would instruct other students on how to behave, is pretty arrogant and grossly disrespects the rights of other students who can and want to think for themselves and decide for themselves whether they want to engage in the exchange of ideas or not. Moreover, this “let's just put our fingers in our ears so we will not hear what we disagree with” is appallingly childish and exemplifies “anti-intellectualism.” The purpose of a university is to engage in dialogue, debate, and exchange ideas in order to try and come to some meaningful conclusion about an issue at hand. Not to shut ourselves off from ideas we find threatening.

Universities hold a special place in society where scholarly-minded folks can come together and discuss controversial, polemic, and often uncomfortable topics. Universities, including UCF, have special policies in place to protect our (both professors’ and students’) freedom to express ourselves. Neither students nor professors have a right to censor speech that makes us uncomfortable. We're adults. We're at a university. There is no topic that is “off-limits” for us to address in class, if even only remotely related to the course topic. I hope you will digest this message, and just as important, will take it to heart as it may apply to you.

Charles Negy

Charles Negy, you are a Boss. Keep fighting the good fight!

Book Review: God Is Not Great

My laptop is still on the fritz, but I have a little time at work today to squeeze this one in...

A while ago, when ordering my bulk book package from Amazon, I realized that I have never actually read any of Christopher Hitchens' work. He was certainly not as likeable as other atheist contemporaries of his like Stephen Fry, but nevertheless I recognized in him a monstrous intellect that could only be admired, even if not fully agreed with. Why not then, I thought, get a couple of his most famous books and see for myself? Well the first one I read was God Is Not Great, and holy hell he makes a devastating case.

The first chapters of the book justify one of his most famous positions: "religion poisons everything". He goes over some terrifying things that have been and are still done in the name of religion, and brings up a very good point about how religion facilitates these atrocities. I have explained in a previous post that I am fully aware that bad people in the world will do bad things and that in many cases it is not their religion that "made them" do it, it just gave them a good way to get away with it. What I missed in that post however is this other aspect that Hitchens touches on in this chapter: Religion causes people to accept terrible things, things they would normally cry out against in disgust and horror had they not been done by a religious figure, and this attitude is something that greatly stunts our ability to evolve and move forward as a society.

Case in point: if you found out that Hitchens went about sucking on injured baby penises, spreading herpes as he did so, you would cry out in outrage for his arrest and many for his lynching, and I would be right there alongside you. How disgusting, vile and cruel! Well, it's actually not illegal in New York City to do so thanks to mayor Bloomberg, if you're a rabbi that is. That's right, in a passage of the book that made my skin crawl and I had trouble believing was true, there is a practice amongst a faction of Jews whereby the rabbi, after cutting the foreskin off of a little baby, puts that bleeding injured penis in his mouth and sucks the foreskin off. Babies started getting venereal diseases this way, at least one of them died, but Bloomberg did not make the practice illegal, lest he offend the Jews. Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone think that this would not be headline, national news with the perpetrator in isolation in prison for his 0wn safety, if he was hacking away and sucking on and infecting baby penises for any reason other than a religious one?

While the God Delusion is more of a philosophical reasoning behind atheism, this book focuses on organized religion, how it was invented by men, how it has done far more harm than good and in the world and how it is silly to believe in such a fabrication. It does not address mysticism or deism, so its a book that many more people are going to agree with. The style he adopts in his writing is so similar to his style of speaking that I could almost hear his voice in my head, a-mile-a-minute touching all the right points though never in profound detail, which means that this one book has added a dozen others to my reading list. The vastness of his knowledge is astounding and his personal experiences remarkable, he truly led a full, if too short a life.

He is obviously not a scientist, so do not expect a book about how evolution and cosmology makes the belief in a creator irrelevant (although I applaud his attempt at understanding the science and alluding to it, albeit superficially). Do also expect that cocky arrogance that Hitchens was so famous for, and you probably wont agree with him on every point. It is not perfect, for one thing he did trip over himself in the brief section he dedicated to abortion, but the best part of this book is that it is an excellent stimulant for debate. It touches on pretty much everything that he could think of, just enough to give you a taste, and almost every sentence can be used as a jump-off point for an hour-long discussion. I would have loved to have the opportunity to sit and chat with him, and be awed at how I could never keep up with his mind.

Thoughts On: Defensible Arrogance

I have mentioned before that I have a friend that is struggling to accept the fact that she is losing her faith, and so I suggested that she read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a book I know has helped a lot of people in her same position. The other day she tells me that she is having a very hard time reading it, because despite the fact that she agrees with much of what he says, the arrogant tone with which he says it is putting her off. “There are millions of people around the world that have faith”, she told me, “are you saying that they are all stupid? Are you presuming that you are more intelligent than all of those people, that they have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the philosophical conversation, that you are smarter than all of them, simply because they believe?” Now I do not presume to speak for Richard Dawkins and I do not know how he would answer this specific question (though I am sure there are some videos of him responding to similar questions floating around, as he is often accused of this smugness), but there are a few points of contention that I would like to bring up.

First of all, I pointed out that The God Delusion is a book about the reasons why one should not believe, and that if there is a believer with something to offer they are by no means prohibited from putting forth an argument in contradiction to something in the book and hashing it out. Secondly I pointed out that the “smug” tone of the book would not be nearly so criticized if he was taking shots at Bigfoot believers, reptilian conspiracy theorists or AIDS denialists. She agreed with me on both points, but still maintained that the tone of the book is something that is unnecessary and off-putting.

I am not going to sit here and pretend that Richard Dawkins has no arrogant or smug bone in his body, that is not true and I am perfectly aware of it. I also realize that I was talking to someone that wont be derisive to anyone, not even the stupidest idea alive will make her snarky towards them, so this was not an issue of putting religion on a pedestal. However, here comes one of my extended analogies to address her initial question: there are millions of believers around the globe, are you saying that they are all stupid?

First of all, there mere presence of numbers of people that believe a certain thing is a terribly piss-poor reason to give credence to that particular idea or theory. The classic example is 1000 years ago the vast majority of the world believed that the Earth was flat, it does not mean that “there might be something to that” and it does not mean that everyone who thought that way was stupid: they just didn’t know any better.

To second that point, let’s say that I wrote a book similar to The God Delusion but about racism. I hate racism, I think it is an incredibly stupid belief system, and my frustration in having to deal with multiple racists throughout my career prompted me to write a particularly scathing book about all the reasons that I think the concept of racism is ridiculous, regardless of how mild or extreme, and that it should be renounced altogether. I truly believe that I am right and that the evidence backs me up, and I go on to cite all of the reasons why racism has had a terrible, poisonous influence on society as a whole, how it has impeded education and how the genetic variability within races is higher than the genetic variability between races and that thus annihilating the basis for racism.

You may come up to me then and rightly say hey, you realize that there are millions of racists around the world, and that they outnumber people that are not racist? (Not to suggest that all people are racist the way die hard Nazis are, which would be more analogous to the Westboro Baptists and Al Qaeda fundamentalists, but it is true that the majority of people around the world do have some prejudices based on race). Are you saying that those millions of people around the world, those who outnumber you, are all stupid, or bad people? The answer to that question is no.

There are plenty of stupid people around the world, and there are plenty of smart ones as well. There are stupid racists and smart racists, and then there are a bunch of people that are in the middle. There are plenty of people that do not have access to good education, have not heard the evidence against racism, and have never sat around to ponder the question because honestly they have more important things to worry about like how to feed themselves and their families. There are plenty of people that have never traveled outside of their town of birth, have never seen someone of a different race and are thus very understandably wary of the unknown. This does not mean that the people that fit this description are terrible people, or that they should be considered “just like the Nazis”. Many people of this description are very good people, they help out in their communities and are amazing, empathetic people. They do these things because they are good people, not because their racism towards other tribes or colors causes them to want to help out people of their own color and tribe.

There are also people that go on TV and spout hateful racism out to the masses, trying to convince as many people as possible to give them money, power and status. There are people that believe them, follow them and do unspeakable things in their name. Many times these people are intelligent, often times they are charlatans that do not believe their own hype, and sometimes they are stupid but possess a flair for rhetoric. I, as the author of this book, should be allowed to point this out for the awful, hurtful crap that it is, without having to constantly repeat “yes, I am aware that not all racists are like that!”. Also, the fact that a large portion of racist people do not harm others and are good people does not mean that I should not be allowed to attack the core principle of what they believe, or that I cannot express that I believe they would be even better off if they let go of their racism altogether and all of the fear, mistrust, anxiety and hate that comes with it.

At this point you might say that it is a false analogy, because racism is something that is undoubtedly hurtful to society, to which I say exactly! That is what many of these authors are saying about organized religion as well! Nowadays it’s OK to vilify racism and its loudest proponents, but even 150 years ago it most certainly was not. To even mildly suggest that maybe African Americans were also human beings, Like Harriet Beecher Stowe did in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, got her the same kind of hate mail and death threats that many prominent atheists get today, including a package containing an African American’s severed ear. The two points are more similar than you may think.

Anyway, I suppose the main point is that yes, despite the arrogant undertone of the book, there are always going to be instances in which people will feel that an arrogant undertone is perfectly justified. The question in the end becomes, is it justified in this case? And if not, what is the real reason that it annoys you?

Is it really because you have a zero tolerance for smugness in any shape or  form and are never smug about anything yourself, or is it because some fragments of religion’s historical pedestal still remain in your mind?