Year: 2013

Via the genius at Gnu Atheism on Facebook.

A cleric does the “god is complicated” dance, with a large helping of “I’m more sophisticated than they are” thrown in. A doorstep fella asked him if he’d found God yet. Oh how vulgar.

It was the formulation of his question that raised my hackles. It implied that God was a comprehensible being awaiting discovery. Scratch the surface of existence persistently enough and he will be revealed.

Well yes. That would be because people like you are always talking about god – talking about god is your profession! – so it’s really not all that strange that people think you mean something by it. You treat it as a name, so people hear it as a name.

If god is not a comprehensible being, then why don’t you just stop talking about it altogether? Why are you a cleric if you don’t think god is a comprehensible being?

If we envisage God as a person clothed with epithets such as powerful, loving, just, fear-inspiring and omnipotent we are creating a manmade image. Sigmund Freud points this out in his book, The Future of an Illusion. “Religion comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality.” In other words we have an innate tendency to invent the particular God that suits our needs. Ironically this is precisely what the second commandment fulminates against. A paradox lies at the heart of the doorstep caller’s question. The more you claim to know God and attempt to delineate his nature the less likely you are to have hit the bull’s eye.

Well then shut up about it! You can’t have it both ways. If we don’t know what god is, then we should stop endlessly going on and on about it.

It is only possible to escape from this impasse by re-orienteering our thought forms. Faith is not the progressive unearthing of God’s nature but a recognition that he/she is fundamentally unknowable. The signpost points not to growing certainty but towards increasing non-knowing. This is not as outrageous as it seems. An apophatic thread, a belief that the only way to conceive of God is through conceding that he is ineffable, runs throughout Christian history.

Yes but that’s just an elegant way of saying the whole thing was an invention from the beginning and it’s time to recognize that and move on. If god is fundamentally unknowable, then there is no earthly point in using the word. If god is unknowable then maybe it’s a gas, or empty space, or a virus, or a cruel savage demon. If you don’t know, then how can there be such a profession as being a vicar? You’re not a vicar for all the other things you don’t know are you? Why are you a vicar for this one? The [unknown] that has the label “god” – why are you a vicar for it? If you don’t know what it is, why do you call it god?

Is anything left or does this destroy the very fabric of spirituality? What remains is a Quakerlike silence during which we can respond to the numinous, develop our perceptions, hone our morality and enhance our wonder at the staggering complexity of the universe. Instead of ranting at the arbitrariness and high-handed conduct of the God we have invented, it is now possible to rest in a cloud of unknowing which gives us time and space in which to reflect on the fundamental questions of life. Why am I here? How can I best deport myself in this bewildering world?

But you can do that anyway. You don’t need god for it.

Persist and the rewards are immense. There is an exhilarating sense of newfound freedom. It releases us from the burden of kowtowing to the dictates of a holy book and it relieves us of the intellectual difficulties of accepting the dogmatic assertions of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. We are liberated and can follow our own spiritual path. Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, spent a lifetime doing just this and found it uncovered an oasis of calmness and peace. “Follow my ways and I will lead you to golden-haired suns, Logos and music, blameless joys, Innocent of questions and beyond answers: For I, Solitude, am thine own self: I, Nothingness, am thy All. I Silence, am thy Amen!” Give it a whirl. I might just free you from the shackles of orthodoxy and kickstart your spiritual life.

I’ve already given it a whirl. I already don’t have the burden of kowtowing to the dictates of a holy book. I already don’t accept the dogmatic assertions of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. I don’t need apophatic theology for that; no one does.

He doesn’t care though, of course. He wants to have it both ways.

I don’t think I was aware of Alisa Valdes before. She wrote a memoir, The Feminist and the Cowboy: an Unlikely Romance. Sounds potentially good, in a way – she teaches him to understand that women aren’t lesser beings, he teaches her to appreciate horses and bad coffee. Culture clash made fun; meeting cute; oddly-matched couple models the potential for mutual broadening of horizons.

Yes but that’s not the plot. The plot is that she

falls in love with a cowboy who teaches her to reconnect with her “femininity” — and to never talk back, open her own car door or walk on the street side of the sidewalk.

Erm. That’s not a good plot. I dislike that plot. Throw that plot away and start over.

Well she has, kind of, but that’s because it turned out – surprise, surprise! – that the kind of guy who teaches a woman never to talk back ends up abusing her.

The book, which features a cover image of a woman’s bare legs tossed high with a cowboy hat perched atop one foot, has been heavily marketed to the anti-feminist crowd, even earning a plug from Christina Hoff Sommers, who called it a “riveting tale about how a brilliant, strong-minded woman liberated herself from a dreary, male-bashing, reality-denying feminism.”

But now the author, Alisa Valdes, a prolific romance novelist, alleges that the man who taught her to “submit,” and to enjoy it, turned out — after she wrote this love letter of a book about him — to be an abuser.

Has anyone called Christina Hoff Sommers for a comment?

It’s not that she’s entirely changed her mind, though. She considers herself a “Difference Feminist” (i.e., she sees men and women as having equal worth but as “not being necessarily the same or having the same abilities in all things”), and maintains that the cowboy helped her “to embrace my own female-ness in a way I had been trained to subsume.” She ended the email with a nod to her alleged abuser, “As the cowboy often said, there is the way things are, and there is the way we would like for things to be,” she tells me. “The only one that matters, ultimately, is how things are. We might not like it, and it might not be fair, but that doesn’t make any of it less true.”

That doesn’t make any of what less true? Feminism isn’t a truth-claim. Feminism isn’t an assertion that women and men are the same. Feminism is a moral commitment. Moral commitments depend on the idea – they are the idea – that “how things are” in the social world is not necessarily how things should be or how they have to be. The idea of equal rights, of equality, of human rights, does not depend on any claims of exact sameness. It does depend on a core of sameness, of an entity that has some sort of need for rights and equality; it rules out stones and daffodils and steam as rights-bearing entities; but it does not depend on sameness all the way down. The cowboy’s wisdom is bullshit. In the social realm, the difference between the way things are and the way we would like things to be is one way of describing the whole idea of reform, aka progress. That can lead to wishful thinking, yes, but that doesn’t mean it just is wishful thinking.

Greetings from San Jose airport. Flight delayed half an hour.

I just had a brilliant time in Santa Cruz, which I’d visited or crossed a few times before but never properly explored. This time I managed to stumble on some of the good things to see. What a town! First I stumbled on the municipal wharf, and walked out on it a little distance and admired the gaudy Seaside Attraction stuff off to one side, and also admired the gaudy Victorian house at the top of a hill off to the other side. I went to check out the Victorian house first – it’s an inn – and that took me to the road that goes along the cliff above the shore for some miles.

I parked immediately and started walking, and in a couple of minutes was rewarded with one of the best Victorian houses I’ve ever seen. It has a name, which is Epworth-by-the-sea. There are other good houses and the view from the cliff. I walked on a bit and found a statue to The Unknown Surfer, which made me nearly fall down laughing. That’s not really its name, but it is a statue to the surfer, and it is of a very stalwart, Steve Canyon type guy standing in front of a surfboard, wearing trunks. It is extremely funny and simply added to the delight of my morning. Then came the lighthouse – an extra lighthouse! thrown in for nothing! – and Lighthouse Field State Park, and the surfing museum inside the lighthouse and a plaque outside (it was long before opening time) that explained about three Hawai’ian princes who brought surfing to the US when they were at school here in the late 19th century. I didn’t know that, and it’s interesting.

Then lots more Cliff Drive until it ended at Natural Bridges State Park – which is rocks with holes carved in them by the surf. Then I went back in the same direction and visited the gaudy amusement park/boardwalk thing, which is fabulously kitschy and colorful and gorgeous. I loved it to bits. Plus there were more gaudy Victorian houses just up the hill from there. Who knew?! Not I. I think of Santa Cruz as modern and hip. I know nothing, nothing.

I started wondering why Santa Cruz is pronounced Santa Cruz, when all the other California Santas I can think of are not pronounced that way. Because Cruz is a monosyllable? That’s my guess, but I don’t know. Funny how Santa Cruz sounds quite nice while Holy Cross sounds horrible.

The Ottawa Citizen asks its religious experts about the Newtown shootings. Kevin Smith says something I really like. [scroll down]

They say He’s been banished from schools — He being the creator of the  universe, the loving, omnipotent father possessed with a tendency toward  occasional vengeance if he’s not worshipped every day. That is the sole reason  for the murders, they repeat, as much to convince themselves as for others who  must rationalize the irrational.

How cruel to the grieving families that these self-serving defenders of their faith dare make excuses for a God who doesn’t care, or who is not there. He is  never anywhere.

Really. God is never anywhere. Why isn’t that a demerit? Why don’t god’s fans see it for what it is – if god is real, it’s a hateful abandonment, a refusal to help, a cold folding of the arms, a locking of the door from the other side.

Last sunset over the Pacific for awhile. (I’m leaving tomorrow.) Nice that it was a spectacular day and evening.

I haven’t seen any sea otters in years though. That’s no good. I used to see lots.

Ceci n’est pas un blog post. It’s just a little diary notation.

I’m reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. It begins amusingly with his telling us how he and Amos Tversky discovered – during a seminar of Kahneman’s at which Tversky was a guest speaker, their first collaboration – that even statisticians are bad at intuitive statistics.

He tells us about the resemblance heuristic, and starts with a question.

As you consider the next question, please assume that Steve was selected at random from a representative sample:

An individual has been described by a neighbor as follows: “Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful but with little interest in people or the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, he has a need for order and structure, and a passion for detail.” Is Steve more likely to be a librarian or a farmer?

First, of course I knew the obvious answer was the wrong one and I could see that “librarian” was the obvious and therefore wrong one – but I think I would not have chosen librarian even if I hadn’t known the obvious answer was wrong. I can tell you why.

It’s because I frequent libraries a good deal, and I think about things like “what would it be like to be a librarian/farmer/acrobat?” I already know that being a librarian would not be a good fit for someone who is very shy and withdrawn, because librarians spend much of their time interacting with strangers, and besides, colleagues. I also know that farming can be very solitary and even that some people choose it for that very reason.

That’s not actually why librarian is the wrong answer; it’s because there are twenty farmers for every one librarian, and I wouldn’t have considered that at all, so I would still have been wrong, but I would have gotten the right answer for the wrong reason.

I’m a terrible intuitive statistician. I’m confident of that.

Inscribed permanently above the front door.

This be none other than the house of God

That amuses me.

I’m reading comments (that is, Reasons) on Adam’s petition. They’re heartwarming. I recognize some of the names, but most I don’t. That’s good.

As a relatively new father of a girl, I wish for the world in which she will grow up to be as inclusive of people of all genders for the betterment of humankind.

—

I have two young daughters that Are skeptics and i want them to be comfortable and welcomed in skeptical communities.

—

It is bad enough that churches hold women as inferior to men. If the secular movement wishes to be a group representing people from all walks of life, it cannot tolerate those who dismiss, and worse, threaten potential allies.

I omitted names in case people don’t want to be named here. But Crommunist won’t mind.

The idea that atheism specifically must not make the changes and accommodations of underrepresented groups that EVERY OTHER COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD is making is, frankly, ridiculous. The only people who would be opposed to making improvements are people who believe that this community is perfect (i.e., people who have a ‘just friends’ relationship with reality).

Ed Brayton won’t mind.

I support this petition because the entire atheist/secular community needs to stand up and condemn these vile attacks on those trying to bring attention to a real problem. There is a serious conversation to be had on how to best increase diversity in our communities, but that conversation cannot take place with those who scream “witch hunt” and “atheist cult” and “you all just hate men” and other hyperbolic nonsense at those who are trying to affect change. Still less can it be had with those who deride those women who have rightly spoken out on this issue as “bitches” or “professional victims.” And it certainly can’t be had by those who think the right response is to publish the addresses of those women, or who send rape and death threats to them. It’s time that we all took a strong stand against such behavior in our communities.

EllenBeth won’t mind.

As the President of a Humanist organization and a feminist that has been on the receiving end of a sustained campaign of vicious harassment simply because I had the audacity to speak up, it is imperative that we stand as a community against this behavior.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Al Stefanelli thinks it’s all just too too funny.

Seattle, WA – In what is being described as a Googlesque move, seven male and two female well-known atheist leaders formed a consortium and purchased the rights to the “He Man Women Haters Club” from the producers of the Our Gang comedy series. They renamed it and issued free memberships by default to all two-hundred-million plus avowed atheists in the world.

The group consists of Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Co-presidents, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Ronald Lindsay, President, Center for Inquiry; Rebecca Hale, President, American Humanist Association; David Silverman, President, American Atheists; David Niose, President, Secular Coalition for America; August Brunsman, Executive Director, Secular Student Alliance; D.J. Grothe, President, James Randi Educational Foundation and Elisabeth Cornwell, Executive Director, Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

The consortium, known collectively as the “Bi-hemisphere International Trust for Collective Humanism” or B.I.T.C.H, has renamed the He-Man Women Haters Club. The new name they have chose is ‘Atheists.’

Geddit? Bitch? Funny, right?

WCNN Interviewed David Silverman about this bold move. Silverman responded with,

“We’ve been long considering how we can exert enough pressure on atheists to convince them to embrace misogyny. The boys and I were sitting down for hours already over beers and chips, trying to find a good way to redefine atheism as a club for misogynists only, preferably white ones, but we’re not picky.

“Then the girls came back from making us some sammiches, and joined the discussion. Annie suggested that we look at the way Google sort of gave everyone who has a gmail account a membership in Google+. Brilliant, right?

“Well, then Elizabeth suggested we try and buy the Little Rascals thing, you know, and then just rename it Atheism and then include all the atheists. We looked at each other, and suddenly realized this was a great idea.”

The move was largely successful, mainly because most of the world’s atheists are clueless about what goes on with atheism on the Internet. This didn’t stop a small but persistent group of radical feminists on the Internet, who immediately opposed the idea. A petition was set up on Change.org in the form of a letter written by Adam Lee, an atheist blogger, who stated in the letter that atheism is being dominated by white males. Lee suggested that if this doesn’t stop, it will usher in the zombie apocalypse. Lee, incidentally, is a white guy.

Amanda Marcotte, another white atheist, appealed to her social network to,

“Fight back against pressure to define atheism as a club only for misogynists”

Hahahaha – see? No I don’t either, but I’m sure it’s really really funny if you do see.

Avicenna has a brilliant post about Saudi Arabia’s way with executions and foreign domestic workers.

Be warned – it’s ferocious stuff. The place where it all happens has several names.

Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest travel destinations on the planet. It is every Muslim’s duty to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and why not see the sites while you are there?

And one of the sites is the beautiful Qasr al-Masmak, which is an old medieval fort which is next to the Grand Mosque. But when you go visit there is something else to see.

A few hundred metres away is a plaza between the mosque and the fort. It’s ringed by a few benches and has palm trees. Sometimes there is a souk (Market) there. But to the more trained eye there is one thing you should notice.

There is a single drain in the middle. You will be advised to visit during the week (Saturday to Thursday) and avoid it on Friday. It’s not the rush really. You see this place goes by many names. Al Safa Square or Al Dirah Square. The Square of The Grand Mosque. The Chop Chop Square.

You  are now standing on the execution ground for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where around 2 people a week meet their gruesome and public end. It is one of the last places you can witness an execution or public punishment. It is also where judicial amputation takes place. If you were to go on Friday you can expect front row seats to such a spectacle, in the same vein as the women who used to take their knitting to the guillotine. And it’s also where Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan maid; was beheaded on Wednesday. At the time of her alleged crime she was a minor who shouldn’t even be HIRED let alone executed.

Read on.

In Pakistan – a guy gets ten years in prison and a large fine for misquoting a Hadith.

After a trial spread over 14 months and conducted in an uneasy environment, Additional District and Sessions Judge Raja Pervez Akhtar jailed a blasphemy accused for 10 years and imposed a fine of Rs200,000 on Tuesday evening.

…

Convict Ghulam Ali Asghar, a resident of Chinji village in Talagang tehsil, was booked on Nov 17, 2011, on a charge of blaspheming the Holy Prophet (PBUH) by misquoting a Hadith in Punjabi language.

Judge Raja Pervez Akhtar acquitted Ghulam Ali Asghar of the allegation levelled under 295-C (the section which forbids blaspheming the Holy Prophet [PBHU]), but imprisoned him for ten years under 295-A (which forbids outraging religious feelings) and also imposed a fine of Rs200,000. The convict will have to undergo an additional jail term of six months if he does not pay the fine.

Ten years in the slammer. For misquoting something from a very old collection of sayings.

Avicenna reports on the progress of the case against the guys who raped and murdered Jyoti Singh.

Manohar Lal Sharma has been named as the Defence Lawyer for the Delhi Rape/Murder case which he is planning to plead “not guilty” to. And boy is he a real piece of work. Remember how Anil from AVfM said “women have it better than men”? I probably have to apologise to him (And to Astrokid), because Sharma has it figured out.

Well Manohar Lal Sharma is all about women. In his infinite knowledge about the female body has analysed the case meticulously and found that in his experience there are no rapes of “respected ladies”. In addition the male companion was wholly responsible for the incident as the unmarried couple should not have been on the streets, particularly with such a weed since he was incapable of defending her against six armed dudes. It’s his fault for being so bad in a fist fight and it’s her fault for not checking his ability to fist fight.

“Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady,” Sharma said in an interview at a cafe outside the Supreme Court in India’s capital. “Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect.”

It was Jyoti Singh’s fault, in other words, because she was the kind of dirty slutty woman who isn’t respected.

Where’ve I been? Writing my column for the Freethinker, which was due…today, which by rights I generally take to mean the end of the previous day since it’s 8 hours later over there, but this time I didn’t manage it.

It poured with rain here last night and then it stopped, so now it’s all clear and whitecappy and gorgeous.

Ron Lindsay requests input for the annual meeting of heads of secular organizations.

I’d like your input on these two questions: 1. What specific steps do you think
secular groups should take to increase diversity within our movement, in
particular with respect to the participation of minority groups? 2. As you are
aware, there are some stark differences of opinion within the movement about the
appropriate understanding of feminism and how feminism (however defined) should
influence the practices and mission of secular organizations. How do you think
these differences can best be narrowed or resolved?

Personally, I don’t think they can be, but others are more optimistic. Chime in if you feel like it.

Saudi Arabia beheaded a Sri Lankan domestic servant today. She was convicted of murdering her employer’s baby.

Rizana Nafeek smothered the infant to death after an argument with the child’s mother, her employer, said the ministry in a statement carried by SPA.

She was beheaded in the Dawadmi province near Riyadh.

Nafeek who was only 17 when the incident occurred in 2005, had always maintained that the baby had choked to death when drinking from a bottle.

Allah is great, merciful.

Credit where it’s due: way to go Chris Stedman. He has a post at CNN’s religion blog – CNN! lots of eyeballs! – saying Kyrsten Sinema shouldn’t treat the word “atheist” as a contaminant.

Seriously, way to go!

Preamble: Synema’s a None, and some have called her a nonbeliever or atheist. But…

Sinema doesn’t actually appear to be a nonbeliever. In response to news stories identifying her as an atheist, her campaign released this statement shortly after her victory: “(Rep. Sinema) believes the terms non-theist, atheist or non-believer are not befitting of her life’s work or personal character.”

As a nontheist, atheist and nonbeliever (take your pick), I find this statement deeply problematic.

It is perfectly fine, of course, if Sinema isn’t a nontheist, and it is understandable that she would want to clarify misinformation about her personal beliefs. But to say that these terms are “not befitting of her life’s work or personal character” is offensive because it implies there is something unbefitting about the lives and characters of atheists or nonbelievers.

Why yes it is and yes it does, but I wouldn’t have expected Stedman to say so. I like having my expectations overturned. (Well, sometimes. Some expectations. Others not so much.)

Prominent individuals like Powell rightfully decry anti-Muslim fear-mongering in politics, but few speak out against those who wield accusations of atheism as a political weapon.

Whether people don’t see it or simply aren’t bothered isn’t clear, but it remains a problem.

I respect Sinema’s right to self-identify as she chooses, and I don’t wish to speculate about her religious beliefs. But while I celebrate that she is comfortable enough to openly identify as bisexual, I find her response to being labeled an atheist troubling.

Why not instead say that she’s not an atheist, but so what if she was?

The 113th Congress is rich with diversity. As an interfaith activist, I am glad to see the religious composition of Congress more closely reflect the diversity of America. As a queer person, I’m glad that LGBT Americans are seeing greater representation in Washington.

But as a proud atheist and humanist, I’m disheartened that the only member of Congress who openly identifies as nonreligious has forcefully distanced herself from atheism in a way that puts down those of us who do not believe in God.

We are Americans of good character, too.

Yeah!