First there’s the usual boring empty non-argument -

The narrow and rather meaningless argument to which Dawkins confines himself is the incessant charge that there is no “evidence” for God. And evidence, of course, is defined only within the strictures of his own empirical scientism. The problem is that faith isn’t primarily evidential, as he demands it to be, but revelatory – and we would claim no less true for all that in explaining the human condition.

Oh yes? We need a “revelation” to explain the human condition? And when we have one, it’s reliable? Please.

That contemptuously lazy pass at justifying belief in god accomplised, Pitcher gets on with the “shrill” accusation.

The shrill voice of Dawkins is gradually being marginalised by those of no more faith than him, but who nevertheless perceive mystery in humanity and, while not accepting the presence of God in the world, are prepared to face in the same direction as the rest of us and stand in awe and wonder.

God that’s bad writing. “Of no more faith than him”? Yuck. And then he moves on briskly without bothering to pick a subject for the verb, and then changes to a new one – what a dog’s breakfast. But as for shrill – George Pitcher has a nerve calling anyone else shrill. Remember him after the election, rejoicing that Evan Harris had lost his seat?

A stranger to principle, Harris has coat-tailed some of the most vulnerable and weak people available to him to further his dogged, secularist campaign to have people of faith – any faith – swept from the public sphere. The Lib Dems served the purpose of providing him with a parliamentary seat, but his true love was the National Secular Society. For a doctor, he supported the strange idea that terminally ill people should be helped to kill themselves.

I commented at the time. That’s the man who thinks Dawkins is shrill.

At any rate – Russell posted on the “shrillness” meme, and Richard pointed out that Pitcher told a big fat lie in the Mail piece. Yes, a whopper. Pitcher said Hitchens said cuddly things about Christianity near the end, “much to the evident frustration of his interlocutor Richard Dawkins.” That was rather stupid of him, since he should have realized Richard could just say “no he didn’t.” But apparently he is stupid (as well as shrill), because he said it anyway. Richard said “no he didn’t.”

I was his interlocuter in his very last interview, for the Christmas issue of New Statesman, which I edited, and I can state with total certainty that he expressed no sympathy whatsoever, generous or otherwise, for the Christian worldview. So that is a lie, and so is the “evident frustration of his interlocutor Richard Dawkins.”

Shrill George Pitcher caught in lie shock.

And in the UK – the Advertising Standards Authority has told a Christian group it can’t tell people God will heal them.

The ASA said the leaflet read: “Need Healing? God can heal today! Do you suffer from Back Pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction … Ulcers, Depression, Allergies, Fibromyalgia, Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, Sleeping disorders or any other sickness?

“We’d love to pray for your healing right now!

“We’re Christian from churches in Bath and we pray in the name of Jesus. We believe that God loves you and can heal you from any sickness.”

The ASA said it had been alerted to the adverts by a complainant, and concluded that they could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.

That would never happen here.

[gazes longingly out the window toward distant lands]

It’s cool that Khomeini is a giant. It’s cool that he has no feet. It’s cool the way his two handlers’ white gloves appear discreetly on his shoulders and at his sides, while his own hands don’t appear at all. It’s just all so dignified and holy and impressive.

 The New York Times likes it too.

Shortly after the airport arrival, another cardboard cutout made an appearance in southern Tehran at Refah School, which served as Ayatollah Khomeini’s base of operations. There, it was joined by officials, including the education minister, who sat in a large circle with the silent version of the revered leader and awkwardly drank tea.

Well now I don’t see why that would be awkward, do you? Officials sitting around with a giant cardboard Dude, drinking tea? Where does the awkwardness come in?

(Oh I bet I know. They didn’t dare burst into shrieks of laughter, yet it must have been so hard not to. Of course; that would do it.)

There’s something missing though. There should be a giant cardboard Khomeini issuing a giant cardboard Fatwa.

]]> http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/02/standup-in-tehran/feed/ 0 http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/02/atheism-in-america/ http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/02/atheism-in-america/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:08:21 +0000 Ophelia Benson http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/?p=1575 ]]> Well at least Julian now realizes that we Murkan atheists haven’t been exaggerating about the level of hostility to atheism and atheists there is in the US. He took an evidence-gathering trip here last year, and a long article in the FT talks about what he found.

As I found out when I travelled across the US last year, atheists live in isolation and secrecy all over the country. In a nation that celebrates freedom of religion like no other, freedom not to be religious at all can be as hard to exercise as the right to swim the Atlantic…The issue is somewhat neglected because it’s not usually perceptible on the coasts and in the larger cities, but the almost complete absence of overt atheism is striking at all levels of US public life, even in cosmopolitan areas.

I don’t think the issue is “neglected” but maybe that’s because I’m thinking of my particular corner of the Internet, which talks about it all the time. At any rate: yes indeed: the almost complete absence of overt atheism is striking at all levels of US public life. This is one reason we (in this particular corner of the Internet) talk about it so much. It’s worth talking about, plus talking about it makes it less true. We talk about our absence and thus make ourselves a little more present.

This week, Barack Obama was invited to speak at the 60th National Prayer Breakfast, an interfaith gathering which every president since Eisenhower has attended.

And he accepted, too. Boy did he ever.

it’s always been an opportunity that I’ve cherished. And it’s a chance to step back for a moment, for us to come together as brothers and sisters and seek God’s face together. At a time when it’s easy to lose ourselves in the rush and clamor of our own lives, or get caught up in the noise and rancor that too often passes as politics today, these moments of prayer slow us down. They humble us. They remind us that no matter how much responsibility we have, how fancy our titles, how much power we think we hold, we are imperfect vessels. We can all benefit from turning to our Creator, listening to Him. Avoiding phony religiosity, listening to Him.

Vomit.

This is why we have to be so noisy and obnoxious – it’s because the president of a secular democracy feels obliged to talk sick-making drivel like that, which is made especially illiberal and objectionable by all the “Him” crap. He wouldn’t use language that implied that “God” is white; he has no business calling “God” male. He should leave the whole damn thing alone.

But he can’t, or at least he and his handlers think he can’t; so back to Julian’s article.

Julian talked to Harry Purdy, of Manchester, who met his GI father for the first time in 1991, and then moved to the US – only to have all his newly-found relatives reject him because he’s an atheist.

“I’ve been told things like ‘I hope you have an accident, die and go to  hell.’ So that’s what I’ve been up against.”

Friends have rejected him. “I used to be a good running friend with somebody who doesn’t live far from here. I mentioned on one occasion that I was an atheist and I’ve never seen him again … I came here knowing this was the Bible  Belt, but I didn’t realise it was a more like a totalitarian Christian society:  you’re either one of them or you’re not and there’s no in between. So I’ve learnt this lesson, to keep it to myself as much as possible.”

There’s a woman whose relatives had no problem with her babysitting for their children when she was a crack addict, but won’t have it now that she’s not an addict but is an atheist.

No wonder atheist groups talk of modelling their campaigns on the civil rights,  gay and women’s liberation movements. It is not that they claim their  persecution is on the same level but that they suggest the way forward requires  a combination of organising and consciousness-raising. “We want people to  realise that some of their best friends are atheists, some of their doctors, and  lawyers and fire chiefs and all the rest of them are atheists,” says Dennett.

And that there are a lot of us; that we’re here, and we’re not leaving; that we’re not fanged or rabid or given to eating babies.

The word is getting out, Julian notes; numbers are rising; things may be improving.

When it comes to identifying the main cause of atheism’s recent growth, most  people agree. “It’s all about the internet,” says Silverman. “The reason that  atheism is on the rise is because there is no way that a person who is an  atheist can think they’re alone any more. When I was growing up, I was the only  atheist I knew. I had to get on my bike, ride to the public library and take out  the one atheist book that they had in the whole library: The Case Against  God by George Smith. Now any atheist can go on Facebook or Myspace and find literally millions of friends.”

Or Freethought blogs…

It sits in on meetings and everything.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=38-ifm9-nxI

h/t Sigmund.

Update: I should have included a picture.

As an active-duty sergeant in the US Army, he’s leading the charge to get atheists more respect in the armed forces. In the process he is earning attention, both positive and negative, from around the world.

Mr Griffith’s most ambitious project is Rock Beyond Belief, a day-long event on the military base Fort Bragg, North Carolina, complete with children’s activities, rock concerts and a lecture by atheism’s most visible proponent, author and scientist Richard Dawkins….

Scheduled for 31 March, Rock Beyond Belief comes two years after another controversial concert at Fort Bragg, “Rock The Fort”. Sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, Rock the Fort was billed as an “evangelical event” with Christian bands, family activities, and an emphasis on spreading the gospel to the entire community.

Just what the world doesn’t need: another evangelical military. Hence the need for Justin Griffith.

Military culture is full of religious ideology and symbolism, says Griffith. For instance, he cites the traditional flag-folding ceremony, which cites faith in God in multiple instances.

“These things have been here for years. It’s tradition,” he says. “How do we go about getting them out?”

Prior to planning the concert, he registered his complaints against the army’s spiritual fitness test, a campaign that he continues. That test, implemented last year as part of a wider resiliency and suicide-prevention program, rates servicemembers on the strength of their spiritual life.

He’s also working to ensure that servicemembers can have “atheist” listed on their official military records. “It took me a year and a half to get my records changed to atheist. When I told them I was atheist, they put ‘no religious preference’,” he says. “I told them that’s unacceptable. I do have a preference, and that’s atheism.”

Similar to my view of god. It’s not just that I don’t believe in god, I also dislike god.

Through his efforts, Mr Griffith has become a figurehead within the atheist movement. His blog gets around 100,000 hits a month and he says he puts in about 40 hours a week of activism on top of his military duties. In July, he was appointed the military director of American Atheists.

“I definitely have a bigger microphone now,” he says.

BBC links to FTB! I think that might be a first.

Prior to planning the concert, he registered his complaints against the army’s spiritual fitness test, a campaign that he continues.

Uh. Seriously? But that was the whole point – to say that Jesus and Mo is not the kind of thing that should be banned or bullied into silence or concealment.

Maryam replied, sardonically,

I decided to use it. I couldn’t find a photo of us kneeling down in submission and agreeing not to offend but that also showed a demand for free expression. I guess that’s because it doesn’t exist… Jesus and Mo is the point.

Along with a post on the subject.

But another student who thought it was a bad move entered the fray -

It was an idiotic, attention seeking, and potentially dangerous decision. The point of this rally is free speech. The point of this rally is not to inflame. The original publishing of the cartoons was satirical, funny and definitely not an attempt to offend, whereas this is either an attempt to offend or sheer idiocy. If the leaflets get onto campuses then it certainly won’t help Athiest societies’ causes, with the union and with fellow students. There’s no issue with saying, at the rally, “ooh look, this isn’t offensive at all, but some people got offended and tried to stop this being published” and showing the pictures, but distributing the pictures on leaflets in this fashion is, as [student #1] said, a very bad move.

So the rally shouldn’t advertise the rally with the picture that is the very issue the rally is about. So if there’s a violent racist incident and people call a rally to protest racist violence, the rally shouldn’t be advertised with photographs of the violent racist incident? War protests shouldn’t mention The War? Occupy Wall Street shouldn’t mention Wall Street?

It’s mind-boggling.

From Maryam’s post:

Some atheists are not happy with One Law for All’s use of the Jesus and Mo cartoon on leaflets to promote the 11 February Day in defence of free expression. They feel that since the Jesus and Mo cartoons have been deemed offensive, it is best not to use them.

But that’s the whole point isn’t it?

We’re rallying in order to say that the right to offend is part of free expression. No one needs to rally for inoffensive speech, do they?

And if I hear one more hypothetical on why we shouldn’t offend if we can avoid it, I might just scream. The latest one: ‘If a Muslim comes to your house you will not plaster the Jesus and Mo cartoon all over to offend them on purpose now will you?’

Religious discrimination is irrefutably on the rise at LSE. Both the Atheist Society’s efforts to publish inflammatory “satirical” cartoons in a deliberate attempt to offend Muslims, and the ‘Nazi themed’ drinking games serve to highlight a festering undercurrent of racism.

What does really lie behind the claim that religious communities cannot be the target of racists?

Is atheism the road to social progress?

Why do Marxists defend religion?

That’s illiterate. “Religious discrimination” is somehow related to Nazism, and then it turns out to be a matter of racism, but then whoops it’s back to religion again – and all the wheels fall off with a resounding clatter.

But more to the point, notice the vicious language about the LSE ASH. Note the “efforts to publish” when the site of “publication” was the group’s Facebook page. Note the malevolent paranoia of “inflammatory.” Note above all the (one could say “inflammatory”) accusation that that was a “deliberate attempt to offend Muslims.” Note, in short, the frothing hatred of secularism, free speech and discussion, and failure to grovel before religious taboos.

In the next paragraph, note the “religious communities,” which sweeps all Muslims into the group “invariably outraged by even the most anodyne criticism of or jokes about their religion.”

Note it all, and hope they learn to think better soon.

It starts with thanks for support from various groups (including One Law for All) and a chronology of the exciting events of the last couple of weeks, the first being an invitation from the SU to come in for a chat.

Friday 20^th

In the meeting, the LSESU advanced that we were not providing a safe space for Muslim students to interact, as the pictures on our Facebook page were offending Muslims.

But again – why is an Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society expected to provide a safe space for Muslim students to interact? Why is that an issue? Are all student societies expected to provide a safe space for their own opposites to interact? Wouldn’t such an expectation render all student societies utterly meaningless and void? Or is it only the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society that is expected to do that? But in that case…why the fuck?

On the 25th the SU clarified this point somewhat:

When activity comes under the banner of the Student’s Union it should be open to all members…….. The images which are posted there present a clear barrier to entry for a large number of students at LSE……. the cartoons has caused not only reflects negatively on the LSE SU brand but more importantly has caused significance offence to our members.

So there we have the fundamental confusion: the confusion of being open with having no “barriers” when barriers are understood as “anything some students might dislike.” The activity is open to all members, but that doesn’t require it to be attractive to all members. At that rate there could be no musical society, because some people dislike music; there could be no socialist society, because socialism would “present a clear barrier” to free-market libertarians; there could be no feminist society, for reasons which there’s no need to spell out.

ASH made the same point crisply in response to the SU:

Disagreeing and even being offended by some of the contents of a social space do not represent a barrier to entry.

It must be dispiriting to be at university with people who have to be told that.

January 30^th

We asked the SU to “cite the relevant literature that shows conclusively that “Muslim students cannot look at pictures of the prophet Muhammad”.” No answers received.

The LSESU Socialist Workers Society posted the posters on campus that included the following statement:

“The Atheist Society’s efforts to publish inflammatory “satirical” cartoons in a deliberate attempt to offend Muslims serve to highlight a festering undercurrent of racism.”

Budding George Galloways, all of them.

…we have now changed the name of the Facebook group back to “LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society”.

During the two weeks of the on-going investigation, the LSESU has not been able to justify their request to remove the ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoons from our website and their request to change the name of our Facebook group with reference to the LSESU constitution or bye-laws.

The SU answered our letter, but was still unable to state explicitly the effective and binding bye-laws on which their request has been based. Therefore, we are back to our old name, and will stay with our name until the SU can prove to us that we are in violation of any of their regulations or bye-laws.

We await further developments.

This week it’s bankers. Yes bankers, who are so hard done by, being allowed to trash the global economy for the sake of stuffing their own wallets and then allowed to keep their wallet-stuffing jobs and continue getting gigantic bonuses to reward them for trashing the global economy in order to stuff their own wallets. Naturally they need defending by the fearless non-conformist quirky gang at Spiked.

The mad pursuit of Fred Goodwin and his ill-gotten knighthood confirms that bankers are the new paedophiles. Bank bosses are to posh commentators what paedos were to hacks at the News of the World – wicked creatures one can rail against in order to feel puffed-up and Good.

Pffffffff. One could just as easily say the same of O’Neill. He doesn’t know that that’s why people “rail against” Fred Goodwin, any more than I know that he writes this kind of coat-trailing shite in order to feel clever and Savvy.

Of course, the difference between the old tabloid wars against paedos and the current moralistic hounding of bankers is that the latter has been sanctioned by the influential chattering classes, giving it a reach and clout the News of the World‘s crusade against paedos never achieved.

Brilliant; he sounds like Terry Eagleton heaping scorn on “Islington man” from whatever blighted slum he would live in if only he hadn’t become so prosperous over the years.

There’s lots more of this formulaic bullshit; read it all if you like that kind of thing.

First question was

What made you want to write a book about censorship?

Now what do you suppose he said.

Firstly, it was watching a Russian oligarch with a criminal record using the libel law in Britain to silence all newspapers that wrote articles about him. Secondly, a great feminist writer, Ophelia Benson, co-wrote a book called “Does God Hate Women?” which was denounced overwhelmingly by the liberal press in Britain, including the paper I write for, the Observer. So once you start with an idea, the logic of the book then takes over.

That’s not bad. Almost worth having one’s book overwhelmingly denounced by the liberal press.

It was you know. I went over it all at the time, naturally, but not everyone who is reading now was reading then, so just by way of a reminder or a quick background – that’s exactly what happened. The Independent denounced it, the Observer denounced it, the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ denounced it. BBC 3′s Night Waves invited not one but two defenders of religion to tell me how wrong we were and how feminist Islam and Catholicism are. One of the best and least mendacious reviews the book got was in – wait for it – the Church Times. Seriously.