Stumpy Jesus now squats on freeway, saluting a pair of semi-trucks.
Year: 2010
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Amanda Marcotte on “feminist” anti-feminists
Sarah Palin is not the first.
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Massimo Pigliucci on Texas education and ideology
The latest disturbing result of a long effort by right wing fundamentalists to undermine public education.
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Hitchens on that speech of Chuck’s
P. Charles surrounds with every moon-faced spoon-bender, shrub-flatterer, and water-diviner within range.
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London June 20: Rally against Sharia and religious laws
Hundreds will be demonstrating in London against Sharia and religious laws and in support of secularism and universal rights on Sunday 20 June 2010. The rally organised by the One Law for All Campaign will be held from 1400-1600 hours at Richmond Terrace junction with Whitehall opposite Downing Street (SW1A 2). (Please note venue change from Trafalgar Square made by police; closest underground: Westminster.)
On the day, the Campaign will make public its new report entitled: Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights. In the report One Law for All outlines what Sharia law is, how it is practised in Britain and exposes the way in which Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are circumventing British law and human rights legislation. The report also reveals the gross injustices to women and children in particular and reiterates the need to end Sharia and all religious courts on the basis that they work against, and not for, equality and human rights.
After the One Law for All rally, there will be a march organised by Iran Solidarity from 1600-1700 hours. The march will move from Richmond Terrace Junction to a protest at the embassy of the Islamic regime of Iran. According to Spokesperson, Maryam Namazie, “whilst racist and far Right groups like the English Defence League and the British Nationalist Party blame ‘Muslim immigration’ for Sharia law in order to further their inhuman agenda, it is people living under Islamic laws or the many who have fled Sharia and sought refuge here who are the principal victims of Islamism, and in the forefront of the struggle against it. Within this context, the One Law for All Campaign and the fight against Sharia law in Britain is an important front in the ongoing battle of people in Iran and everywhere against Islamism and for freedom, equality and secularism.”
The march will culminate in a protest rally in front of the embassy of the Islamic regime of Iran (16 Prince’s Gate, London SW7 1PT; closest underground: Knightsbridge). The event will end at 1730 hours.
Notes:
1. Confirmed speakers and performers at the London rally include: AK47 (Street Poet); Asad Abbas (Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain); R Y Alam (Poet); Adam Barnett (Musician); David Fisher (Singer/ Songwriter); Lilith (Street Poet); Lyrical Agent (Emcee); Rony Miah (Lawyers’ Secular Society); Maryam Namazie (One Law for All and Iran Solidarity); Gerard Phillips (National Secular Society); Naomi Phillips (British Humanist Association); Fariborz Pooya (Iranian Secular Society); Brent Lee Regan (Emcee); Yasmin Rehman (Women’s Rights Campaigner); Gita Sahgal (Activist); Muriel Seltman (Activist); Sohaila Sharifi (Equal Rights Now); Peter Tatchell (Human Rights Campaigner); and others. We will also screen a segment of a major new film for HBO called For Neda by director Anthony Thomas.
2. June 20 marks the day when 27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan was shot dead by the Islamic regime of Iran’s security forces at a protest in Tehran. Her demand for freedom in the face of all-out repression has made her a symbol of people everywhere. According to Maryam Namazie, “It is very apt for us to remember Neda in our battle for equal rights in Britain or wherever we happen to live. Neda’s murder and Sharia law in Britain are intrinsically linked; both are the result of the rise of the political Islamic movement of which the Islamic regime of Iran is a cornerstone.”
3. To read responses to Frequently Asked Questions, go to:
http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/about/faq/. The responses are entitled:
The affinity between the far right and the Islamists; Islam matters because of political Islam; Secularism is an important vehicle to protect society; We will have nothing to do with the English Defence League; Criticising Islam is not racist; Laws should safeguard rights not violate them; There’s no place for Sharia law in Britain; The right to asylum is a basic human right; and many more.
4. To donate to the crucial work of One Law for All, please either send a cheque to our address below or pay via Paypal by visiting: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/donate/. We need regular support that we can rely on and are asking 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 at the above link.
5. For more information, contact:
Maryam Namazie
One Law for All and Iran Solidarity
BM Box 2387
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
onelawforall@gmail.com
iransolidaritynow@gmail.com
www.onelawforall.org.uk
www.iransolidarity.org.uk
http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com
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Knock three times for ‘yes’
Michael De Dora said in a comment on Falling at the first post
Scientific claims are probabilistic explanations based on observation and empirical evidence, and are subject to disconfirmation. The God claim is nothing of the sort. We can’t scientifically measure God or God’s interaction with the world, and the God claim is not falsifiable.
Why can’t we scientifically measure God or God’s interaction with the world? One reason could be because god is not there. Another reason could be because god is especially hard to measure for some reason. If it’s the latter we just need better instruments. I think the reason De Dora is suggesting is that god is in principle incapable of being measured. But if that’s the case, De Dora needs to explain further – how he knows that, why it is the case, what it implies for claims about god, and similar.
It’s not at all clear to me that we can’t try to scientifically measure god or god’s interaction with the world – and of course people have made such attempts, as with the intercessory prayer study. If we try, and find that it isn’t possible because there is nothing to measure, then it would seem fair to conclude that there is no reason to believe there is such a god, and that therefore there are good reasons to believe there is not such a god.
In other words if god is so spooky and weird and ineffable that we can’t measure it or its interactions with the world, or investigate it in any other way, then we have zero reason to think it exists, and a lot of reason to think it doesn’t exist, or at least to think that we can’t possibly know anything reliable about it. If god is immune to all empirical investigation, then that means we have no way to know anything about it, so it is in effect non-existent, as far as we’re concerned.
Doesn’t it?
Update: Or to put it another way, as Ben reminds me –
inference to the best explanation.
That clears that up.
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Widen that division
Oliver Kamm put the matter concisely and well.
Byrnes is not [at] that level*, but his views are reactionary and illiberal. They thereby illustrate a fundamental difference of values within the Left. I’m concerned to widen that division as far as I can.
Same here. I want there to be a vast gulf between the Left that opposes reactionary illiberal views and the “Left” that sucks up to them.
*The level of writing an article titled “Milosevic, prisoner of conscience.”
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It is easy to manipulate memory
It’s important to remember that.
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Pope says priests are a gift to the world
Made no mention of child-rape by priests in Ireland, Germany, Austria, the US and elsewhere.
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More Guardian god-coddling
‘The concepts of equality, democracy and the right to be treated justly were gifted to the nations by the Bible.’
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Oliver Kamm on Sholto and sharia
Byrnes’s views are reactionary and illiberal, and illustrate a fundamental difference of values within the Left.
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Madeleine Bunting is excited about something
Big Ideas, insights, intriguing, failed, soul-searching, progressive, Enlightenment, Eurocentrism, Islam, the west, progress, optimism.
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A schism between the nice people and the demons
Another columnist does a bang-up job of describing explicit atheists in such a way that everyone will take care to hate them.
the split also underscores a serious and widening schism in the broader community of non-believers, between those who want civil engagement with people of faith, and even cooperation where possible, and atheist “fundamentalists” (as Kurtz and the old guard call them) — true believers in godlessness who belittle religion and religious people at every turn, and yet by doing so can wind up sounding like the very enemy they are trying to defeat.
That’s wrong. It’s false. It’s inaccurate. We are not “fundamentalists” in any meaningful sense, we do not belittle religion and religious people at every turn, some of us don’t belittle religious people at all, and we don’t sound at all like “the enemy.” And notice how sweetly reasonable the other side of this “schism” is made to sound – all they want is civil engagement with people of faith, and who could say boo to that?
So, once again, we are given an unsubtle reminder that we are Other and unacceptable and to be maligned.
“Although we” [quoting Paul Kurtz] “are skeptical of religion, we nonetheless have a positive statement to make. We want to work with religious people solving our planetary problems. This represents a basic philosophical difference.”
No it doesn’t. Explicit atheists have sworn no oath of refusal to work with religious people solving our planetary problems. There is no basic philosophical difference about that. We don’t walk around with “Explicit Atheist” labels on our clothes, so there is no barrier to our working with anyone to solve our planetary problems. It’s a non-issue, one that’s been worked up to make explicit atheists look stupid and evil.
The wider debate among secularists over whether to engage religious believers, or whether snark and sneer are the best ways to defeat faith and rally unbelievers to atheism, seems destined to continue.
Same thing. Exaggerated at best. Snark and sneer is not all we do. David Gibson is himself uncivil and inaccurate. Bad journalist. No cookie.
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Equality begins at home
They get it in Sweden, it appears.
“I always thought if we made it easier for women to work, families would eventually choose a more equal division of parental leave by themselves,” said [former deputy PM Bengt] Westerberg. “But I gradually became convinced that there wasn’t all that much choice.”
Sweden, he said, faced a vicious circle. Women continued to take parental leave not just for tradition’s sake but because their pay was often lower, thus perpetuating pay differences. Companies, meanwhile, made clear to men that staying home with baby was not compatible with a career.
“Society is a mirror of the family,” Mr. Westerberg said. “The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home. Getting fathers to share the parental leave is an essential part of that.”
Sholto Byrnes please note. The family isn’t some wholly private realm that has no effect on the broader society, for good or ill. Family law is not something that can be shrugged off as a minor matter that is not worth worrying about.
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One version of Center for Inquiry ‘schism’
With plenty of rude language for overt atheists and tender language for the people who hate them.
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Gender equality in Sweden
‘Society is a mirror of the family. The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home.’
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Steven Pinker on moral panics over new media
Media critics write as if the brain takes on the qualities of whatever it consumes.
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Ben Goldacre on the superstition effect
Confidence tends to improve performance.
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Falling at the first post
Mary Midgley begins badly.
Science really isn’t connected to the rest of life half as straightforwardly as one might wish. For instance, Isaac Newton noted gladly that his theory of gravitation gave a scientific proof of God’s existence. Today’s anti-god warriors, by contrast, declare that Darwin’s evolutionary theory gives a scientific disproof of that existence and use this reasoning, quite as confidently as Newton used his, to convert the public.
No they don’t. So why should we pay any attention to the rest of what she says? If she can’t even get the first paragraph right, why trust her?
No reason, so I won’t bother discussing the rest of what she says, which is just sentimental gesturing. But it’s interesting that people keep cranking this kind of thing out, without even bothering to improve it. God is special, God is nice, today’s anti-god warriors are nasty. For this Comment is Free needs a philosopher?
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Bangladesh: paper allowed to resume publishing
But the editor of the opposition daily is still in jail, charged with sedition.