Category: Articles

From August 17 to September 5 2011, I visited Australia. I was invited by the the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Skeptics to deliver the Canberra Lecture and to do a speaking tour of the country. It was my first visit to the country and continent. Late in 2010, I was contacted by Kevin Davies to know if I could visit Australia and deliver a lecture as part of events marking the National Science Week. I readily accepted.

What started as an invitation to deliver a lecture gradually ‘evolved’ to become a grand tour that would take me to all states in Australia. It was only the Northern Territory that has Darwin as its capital that I did not visit. I had known and worked with many Australian humanists, atheists and skeptics over the years. I contributed articles to the Australian Skeptic journal and followed with interest the activities of the vibrant skeptic and freethinking community, so I was excited by this opportunity to visit and meet with friends.

I arrived Sydney airport on September 17 from Norway where I attended the World Humanist Congress. I was recieved at the airport by Tim Mendlam, and after a few hours of transit I left for Canberra where I delivered the lecture on Witch hunts and Superstition in Africa, and met with Canberra skeptics. It was in Canberra that I saw and ate the Kangaroo for the first time in my life. I returned to Sydney(August 19) and delivered a talk at a dinner with North South Wales Skeptics. It was at the talk I met with Barry Williams. Barry is a former editor of the Australian Skeptic Journal. He was actually the one who introduced me to the skeptical community in Australia. It was during his tenure as the editor that I started writing for the journal. Most of the articles I first published in the journal were on Nigerian scams which he gave me to understand was then of interest to the readers. While in Sydney I had a lunch with atheists who also took me on a sightseeing trip. On August 22, I left for Brisbane. I delivered a talk to the Queensland Skeptics, dined with the humanists, spoke to the Gold Coast Skeptics and then left for Melbourne.

I arrived in Melbourne August 25. I gave a talk to skeptics at La Notte Italian Resturant. I gave a lecture at another event organized by the skeptics, humanists and atheists. Australian skeptic Mel Vikers and his friend Gracie Marcucci took me to the Healesville Sanctuary for sightseeing. Before coming to Australia, I thought that Australia would have a different wildlife, and I asked friends to arrange so that I could see a bit of the wildlife during my tour. I looked forwarded to seeing some animals or birds I had not seen before or seen only in photos in books or television. I was so happy to visit the Healesville sanctuary, and the animals, birds and the entire wild life I saw there left me with very deep impressions. From Melbourne, I left for the Island of Tansmania where I spoke to skeptics in Hobart. While in Hobart, my host Leyon Parker took me to the top of Mount Wellington. It was my first time to go up a mountain, and right there the temperature was around 7 degrees, from around 30 degrees I was used to in Nigeria

I also visited Adelaide where I delivered three talks to humanists and skeptics. One of my long-time friends and supporters, Dick Clifford, is from Adelaide. We have been corresponding since 1998 and had never met in person. Also from Adelaide is Mary Gallnor, former president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies. I met Ms Gallnor in India in 1999. So it was a great pleasure meeting these friends. Mary and her friend, a former parliamentarian, took me on a tour of the South Australian state parliament and introduced me to the speaker. Perth was the last leg of my tour. While in Perth I gave a talk to skeptics and presented an award to a student who won a contest organized by skeptics. During my tour, I was interviewed by ABC radio in Canberra, Sydney, Hobart etc. A journalist from a local newspaper in Gold Coast also interviewed me.

I would like to thank CSIRO and all my skeptic, humanist, atheist and freethinking friends from Australia for the successful organisation of this trip. As the IHEU representative in Africa, I have traveled a lot in Africa and overseas, but there was no trip like this.

My visit to Australia will ever remain special to me. I will always remember and treasure it. I was truly blown away by the care, warmth and friendship and hospitality I received in all the states. It was encouraging to know that many Australian friends followed my work and were interested in my writing and activism in Africa. Even as I am writing this piece I have yet to come down intellectually and emotionally from that trip. I felt at home, spoke freely, cracked jokes, met, lived and dined with people whom I could truly call friends.

Thanks to this visit I, today, feel more connected to the community of reason in Australia than before.

In March, Nigeria’s notorious witch hunter, Helen Ukpabio, is organising a Deliverance Session in the United States, according to the information posted on the web site of the Liberty Gospel Church. The event is slated for March 14-25 at Liberty Gospel Church in Houston Texas (Tel +1 832 880 8406 +1 713 530 2080). The program is said to be ’12 days of battling with the spirit for freedom.’

The poster lists the categories of people invited to ‘come and recieve freedom from the Lord’. It asks ‘Are you in bondage – Having Bad dreams – Under witchcraft attack or oppression – possessed by mermaid spirit or other evil spirits – Untimely deaths in family – Barren and in frequent miscarriges – under health torture – Lack of promotion with slow progress – Unsuccessful life with disappointment – Financial impotency with difficulties – Facing victimization and lack of promotion – Stagnated life with failures – Chronic and incurable diseases?

Helen Ukpabio is a Christian fundamentalist and a Biblical literalist. She uses her sermons, teachings and prophetic declarations to incite hatred, intolerance and persecution of alleged witches and wizards. Ukpabio claims to be an ex-witch, initiated while she was a member of another local church, the Brotherhood of Cross and Star. She later founded the Liberty Gospel Church to fulfill her ‘anointed mission’ of delivering people from witchcraft attack. Ukpabio organizes deliverance sessions where she identifies and exorcizes people – mainly children – of witchcraft. Headquartered in Calabar in Southern Nigeria, the Liberty Gospel Church has grown to be a witch hunting church with branches in Nigeria and overseas.

The activities of Helen Ukpabio including her publications, films (like the End of the Wicked), and sermons are among the factors that fuelled witchcraft accusations of children in the region.

This was captured in a documentary, Saving Africa’s Witch Children, which was broadcast in 2008 on BBC channel 4 in the UK. Thanks to the activities of a UK based charity, Stepping Stones Nigeria, and its local partners, the problem of witchcraft accusations of children and the ignominous roles of Ukpabio and her Liberty Gospel church and other ‘superstition miners’ were brought to the attention of the world. Since the broadcast of the documentary, Ukpabio and her thugs at the Liberty Gospel church have been campaigning to undermine Stepping Stones Nigeria and its efforts to tackle and address the problem of child witch hunting in Nigeria.

They brought several lawsuits against SSN and its partners, and lost. They have embarked on a smear campaign using local journalists to publish reports in the media which portrayed the projects of SSN in Nigeria as fraud.

In 2009, Ukpabio mobilized her church members who invaded the venue of a local seminar on witchcraft and the rights of the child organised by Stepping Stones and the Nigerian Humanist Movement in Calabar, Cross River State. They beat me up and stole my personal belongings. While the police were still investigating the matter, Helen Ukpabio and her church members went to court. They sued me, SSN and its partners, asking that we pay them millions of dollars in damages for depriving them of the right to believe in witchcraft. Again they lost.

The police have yet to arrest and prosecute Ukpabio and her church members for invading and disrupting our seminar, for attacking me and stealing my personal items. Police have yet to bring this woman to justice for abusing children in the name of delivering them from witchcraft and for inciting violence, hatred and persecution against persons accused of witchcraft.

Efforts must be made to stop this evangelical throwback from spreading her diseased gospel in the US.

Mileva Marić: The Other Einstein.

A short film written and directed by Alana Cash (Vibegirl Productions)

“Mileva Marić: The Other Einstein”, whose writer and director has also made films on Anna Freud and Marie Curie, is worth detailed analysis because it contains claims about Marić’s alleged collaboration on Einstein’s epoch-making work in physics in the early period of his scientific career some of which are in wide circulation and stated as fact in a number of books. This provides another opportunity for subjecting these claims to close scrutiny.

Before moving on to significant contentions it is worth noting a couple of less important errors and misconceptions in the early section of the film. The narrator states that in the period when Marić attended a Serbian secondary school in Novi Sad (1886-1892) she “earned the nickname ‘the holy one’ because she was consistently at the head of her class”. Why academic prowess would lead to such a nickname is obscure, and indeed Marić biographer Desanka Trbuhović-Gjurić reports that the reason she was called “Svetac” (the Saint) was on account of her reserved and pacific character (1988, p. 22). The narrator goes on to say, oddly, that “She would later learn that Albert Einstein had the same nickname in school”, though this is not recorded in any of the major biographies of Einstein, nor in any of the many others I have read. These errors are compounded a little later when the narrator says that “Each had earned nicknames because of their superior intellect”.

The narrator reports that in the summer 1896 Marić enrolled at the Zurich University Medical School to study medicine, but after one semester she acted on her first preference for studying physics. Dr Rudolf Mumenthaler (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [ETH, formerly Zurich Polytechnic] Library), then takes up the story and states that the final diploma she obtained at the Swiss Higher Girls’ School in Zurich for the academic year 1895-1896 did not suffice for her to gain entrance to Zurich Polytechnic, so in late summer she entered and passed the Polytechnic entrance examinations. On this he is mistaken in that he makes no mention of the fact that Marić passed the Matura (university entrance level examinations) in the spring of 1896 at Bern Federal Medical School (which enabled her to enter the Zurich University Medical School immediately afterwards). Normally obtaining the Matura would suffice for entry to Zurich Polytechnic, but for some reason Marić was required to take the mathematics entry examinations, for which her grade average was a moderate 4.25 (on a scale 1-6) (Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, pp. 33, 35, 60).

In the detailed critical examination below statements made in the film will be in bold type, followed by my comments.

Narrator: In many ways Albert and Mileva were alike… and now [at Zurich Polytechnic] they were seeking the same degree.

The four-year course for which they enrolled in 1896 was not for a degree. It was to obtain a diploma to teach physics and mathematics in secondary school.

Narrator: At the end of her first semester at Swiss Poly Mileva left for the University of Heidelberg to audit the lectures of Philipp Lenard, a famous professor of theoretic physics.

Philipp Lenard was primarily an experimentalphysicist. (It was actually after completing a full academic year at the Polytechnic that, in early October 1897, Marić went to Heidelberg.)

Note: The brief discussion of the Lienard-Wiechert equation by a physicist that occurs at this point has nothing to do with Lenard.

Regina Balmer Capella (editor, Paul Haupt publishers): She arrived in Zurich as one of the first women to make their studies in mathematics and she was a brilliant student…”

The oft-repeated claim that Marić was a brilliant student needs closer examination. She certainly obtained excellent grades in physics and mathematics in her final year at the high school she attended in Zagreb from 1892-1894. That was two years before she enrolled at Zurich Polytechnic, immediately prior to which she had attended the Higher Girls’ School in Zurich in 1895-1896. Her biographer Trbuhović-Gjurić provides details of her teachers and subjects studied, but does not record her 1896 leaving diploma grades. Nor does she record Marić’s grades for the Matura examinations she took in 1896. All we have at this time are her grades in the mathematics component of the Polytechnic entrance exams, for which she obtained a very moderate grade average of 4.25 on a scale 1-6. So we are not in a position to say she was a brilliant student at pre-university academic level, and her grades in the Polytechnic mathematics entrance examinations do not indicate that she was. Moreover, her end-of-semester grade average for the first year at the Polytechnic was a rather low 4.2, and she failed to achieve a 5 in any of the five topics she took that year, hardly indicating she was a brilliant student. (Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, pp. 26, 33, 35, 43, 60.)

Regina Balmer Capella: …and then she met Albert and in the beginning they shared the work, they shared the studies, and just after she came back from Heidelberg… she realised that she was in love with Albert, and then she began to go behind him, and began to aim for his work and not any more for her personal work.

Here we’re in the realms of “it must have been so” (to explain Marić’s eventual failure to obtain a teaching diploma). There is no evidence for Capella’s contention that Marić began to neglect her own studies and aim for Einstein’s work. They mutually enjoyed studying together, and Einstein was keen to share his extra-curricular reading with her, but there is nothing to demonstrate that she subordinated her academic work to his. On the contrary, such evidence we have (in their student correspondence) indicates that she was a conscientious student who studied hard (at her parents’ home) prior to examinations. Several letters testify to Einstein’s regularly encouraging her in her studies – in these early years of their relationship he harboured the expressed wish that they would eventually forge a joint future devoted to science. (That if anything Einstein supported Marić rather than the other way round is suggested by Einstein’s writing to her in late 1901: “Soon you’ll be my ‘student’ again, like in Zurich.” [Letter, 19 December 1901])

It is worthy of note that Marić’s end-of-semester grade average for the first year at the Polytechnic was 4.2 (scale 1-6), whereas her grade average post-Heidelberg (1898-1900) during which time she became emotionally involved with Einstein was a considerably improved 5.1 (Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, p. 43). Even allowing for the fact that she was stronger in the subjects (e.g., physics topics) studied in the second half of the course, this hardly indicates that she subordinated her studies to Einstein’s.

Narrator: Einstein attended lectures [at the Polytechnic] of Hermann Minkowski on his development of four dimensional space-time and from this they [Einstein and Marić] began to formulate the basis of the special theory of relativity.

Einstein did not use Minkowski’s four dimensional space-time concepts in his 1905 special relativity paper. As Cornelius Lanczos writes on Einstein’s paper, “today these questions are handled in a totally different way, having at our disposal the four dimensional Minkowskian approach, which was not available in 1905” (The Einstein Decade, 1974, p. 136). In any case Einstein did not begin to formulate his theory as published in 1905 for several years after attending Minkowski’s lectures. As for Marić’s supposed involvement, there is not a single letter of hers that expresses any ideas on, or indeed any particular interest in, the ideas on the electrodynamics of moving bodies with which Einstein regaled her in some half-dozen of his letters during their student years. Nor is there any indication in Einstein’s letters of her mentioning the topic in her letters that were not kept by him at the time, as surely there would have been given his enthusiasm for the subject.

Narrator: Professor Wilhelm Fiedler intimidated Marić and gave her an unsatisfactory grade in projective geometry.

Like numerous such contentions one finds in the literature, this sounds plausible – until one examines the evidence. First, it is evidence-free, another contention of the “it must have been so” variety. Second the documentary evidence is inconsistent with the contention. Fiedler lectured on three topics, descriptive geometry, projective geometry and geometrical location. Of these, it was only in projective geometry that Marić obtained a poor grade (3.5). Are we to suppose Fielder intimidated her in this subject, but not in the other two for which she received respectable grades (grade 5 in geometrical location)? That geometry was not her strong point is evident from two other directions. In the Polytechnic entrance mathematics examination she took in 1896, her grade in descriptive geometry was a rather poor 3.75 (scale 1-6). And in a letter to Einstein at the time she was “cramming” for her intermediate diploma exam in late summer 1899, she described geometry material as “the hardest to master” – and indeed she obtained only 3.75 in projective geometry, while achieving a moderately good grade 5 in analytic geometry. (Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, pp. 60, 61, 63.)

Narrator: Einstein often skipped classes to work in the laboratory where Mileva would join him to work on their own experiments.

When Einstein skipped classes it was mostly in order to follow up his extra-curricular interests in theoretical physics. The above can only refer to the work they were doing individually (not joint experiments) in the laboratory for their respective dissertations, both on heat conduction. (Letters, Einstein to Marić, 30 August/6 September 1900; 13 September 1900; 28 May 1901.)

Narrator (on the final diploma examinations in 1900): Although her grade point average was passing, inexplicably Marić was denied a diploma by the Board of Examiners.

It is quite extraordinary that at this point no mention is made of the fact that in the mathematics component of the final diploma examinations Marić’s grade was a very poor 2.5 (scale 1-6). (No other student in their small group obtained less than 5.5 for this exam.) Far from it being inexplicable, this alone suffices to explain why she failed to obtain a teaching diploma in 1900. Given in addition that her grade average for the end-of-semester grades in the mathematical topics differential and integral calculus, analytic geometry, projective geometry and differential equations was a very moderate 4.2, it is entirely explicable why the Board of Examiners declined to award her a diploma for teaching mathematics and physics in secondary schools. (Note: Marić’s grade average for the final diploma examinations was 4.0 (scale 1-6), which might have earned her a diploma were it not for her very poor grade in the mathematics component, theory of functions.) (Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, p. 64.)

Narrator: It is likely that she experienced the bias of professors who did not see a future for a woman in the sciences.

Having failed to disclose the manifest reason for Marić’s failure to obtain a diploma, the film now resorts to an evidence-free “it must have been so” explanation. In regard to the suggestion that the examiners “did not see a future for a woman in the sciences”, it should be emphasized (never stated in the film) that the qualification was for teaching physics and mathematics, not for a career in science. Even if they had a bias against a woman taking up a scientific career, there is no reason to suppose they would object to her teaching the subjects. Moreover, according to Marić’s close friend Helene Kaufler (later Savić), prior to the examinations the physics professor Heinrich Weber had provisionally offered Marić a post as an Assistant (though Kaufler wrote to her mother that Marić did not wish to take up the offer, preferring instead to apply for a position as a librarian at the Polytechnic.). (Popović 2003, p. 61.)

In any case, John Stachel has documented from the ETH records that some women had already graduated from the mathematics and physics teaching diploma section at Zurich Polytechnic (and no doubt several more from the science teaching diploma section as a whole). (Stachel 2002, pp. 30)

Narrator: A year after graduation Albert had not obtained a permanent job because of his poor grades and bad study habits.

It is not the case that Einstein’s final diploma grades were “poor” – in none of the four subject topics examined in 1900 did he obtain less than a 5. (This was not the case with any of the other four candidates in their group; Einstein’s grade average was pulled down to 4.91 by his relatively low grade of 4.5 for his dissertation.) In any case, it seems unlikely that most prospective employers would enquire into the precise grades rather than taking note that he had been awarded the diploma. The physics professor Heinrich Weber, with whom the strong-willed Einstein was on bad terms, had failed to offer him an assistantship, and he strongly suspected that Weber was unwilling to provide potential employers with a favourable reference.

Narrator: [Late 1901] Albert continued to write asking about the health of the unborn baby and making reference to the theories that he and Marić were developing. [Quoting from an Einstein letter]: “I will be so happy when we are together again and can bring our work on relative motion to a successful conclusion.”

There is no evidence that Marić played any role in the ideas being developed by Einstein which he was reporting to her at that time. Indeed, Marić had been studying for her second attempt at the diploma in the first half of the year, and working on her dissertation that she hoped to develop into a Ph.D. thesis through to October/November 1901, when she decided to give it up. After her second exam failure in July 1901, now some three months pregnant she had immediately gone to stay with her parents in Serbia, where she remained most of the following year having given birth to a baby daughter in January 1902. In this whole period, from March 1901 through most of 1902, the couple scarcely saw each other, and the idea that they were working together on the theoretical notions Einstein was reporting in his letters doesn’t bear serious consideration.

The reading of the quotation above from a letter Einstein wrote to Marić (27 March 1901) exemplifies the failure by proponents of the contention that Marić contributed substantively to Einstein’s work on advanced physics to present all the relevant evidence. First, there is the failure to consider the context of the quoted sentence (of which more below). More important, whereas this one unspecific allusion to “our” work in relation to the electrodynamics of moving bodies is frequently cited, almost invariably there is no mention of the half-dozen other letters in the period from August 1899 through December 1901 in which Einstein writes of his ideas on the subject, providing specific details of what he is working on. As Stachel writes:

In summary, the letters to Marić show Einstein referring to his studies, his ideas, his work on the electrodynamics of moving bodies over a dozen times (and we may add a couple more if we include his letter to Grossmann), as compared to one reference to our work on the problem of relative motion. In the one case where we have a letter of Marić in direct response to one of Einstein’s, where it would have been most natural for her to respond to his ideas on the electrodynamics of moving bodies, we find the same response to ideas in physics that we find in all her letters: silence. (Stachel 2002, p. 36)

In regard to the context of the above frequently quoted sentence, the background is one in which the couple were now separated with little prospect of their being together in the immediate future. Roger Highfield and Paul Carter quote the whole paragraph, in which Einstein is seeking to reassure Marić of his continuing love, observing: “By italicizing the key sentence, one shows how it sat marooned, not in one of Einstein’s many passages of close scientific argument, but amid an outpouring of reassurance that his love for Mileva remained absolute despite their separation” (1993, p. 72). I would add that the unspecific sentence should also be seen the light of Einstein’s frequent attempts to interest Marić in his extra-curricular work, his long-term hope being that they would have a joint future devoted to science.

For Stachel’s discussion of this whole issue see the Bibliography (below), under Stachel (2005).

Narrator: Believing an illegitimate daughter would affect his position at the Patent Office, Einstein convinced Mileva to return to Novi Sad in November 1903 and relinquish their 17 month old daughter to adoption.

This is nothing but surmise. It may be the case, but in fact no one knows the circumstances in which Mileva gave up her infant daughter, or even that she was adopted. It is quite possible that she died. (In September 1903 Einstein wrote to Marić, who was with their daughter at her parents’ place: “I’m very sorry about what has befallen Lieserl. It is so easy to suffer lasting effects from scarlet fever. If only this will pass.”)

Narrator: While Einstein was at his desk at the patent office, Mileva submerged herself in reading scientific journals and conducting research. When Albert returned home they worked together until well after midnight. Shortly after the birth of Hans Albert in 1904 the couple completed three papers on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity. […] In Vojvodina they finished the fourth paper, the one containing the famous equation E = mc^2.

There is no serious evidence for any part of this. For an examination and rebuttals of such claims, see Esterson 2006(a).

Insofar as these claims are not simply articles of faith for people who are determinedly convinced that Marić was a close collaborator on Einstein’s work regardless of refutations of specific erroneous or unsubstantiated claims (e.g., see Joffe story immediately below), they are highly imaginative extrapolations of third or fourth hand vague general statements obtained from proudly Serbian friends and acquaintances of the Marić family obtained more than fifty years after events they purport to reveal, with all the well-documented unreliability of such supposed evidence, made even more dubious by the fact that they come from interested parties. (See Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988; Krstić 2004; Highfield and Carter’s assessment of such statements is that they amount to no more than “home-town folklore” [1993, p. 110].) What is never explained is why Marić (as alleged) would have been freely talking of her working with Einstein to some relatives and their friends on visits to her parents’ place in Novi Sad, Serbia, yet never so much as hinted to her closest friend Helene Kaufler Savić that she was assisting Einstein, though letters she wrote to Savić in the relevant period profusely describe her current activities. (Popović, M. 2003, pp. 56-89.) In some fifteen letters Marić wrote to Savić during the years leading up to the publishing of Einstein’s celebrated 1905 papers, not one of them mentions, or remotely hints at, her being involved with Einstein’s researches. Nor do her words about Einstein’s work on physics sound like those of someone who was collaborating with him:

December 1900: “Albert wrote a paper in physics that will probably soon be published in the Annalen der Physik. You can imagine how proud I am of my darling.”

December 1901: “Albert has written a magnificent study, which he has submitted as his [doctoral] dissertation… I have read this work with great joy and real admiration for my little darling, who has such a clever head.”

December 1906: “My husband often spend his leisure time at home playing with the little boy, but to give him his due, I must note that it is not his only occupation aside from his official activities; the papers he has written are already mounting quite high.”

As John Stachel writes on this issue:

In [Marić’s] case, we have no published papers; no letters with a serious scientific content, either to Einstein nor to anyone else; nor any other objective evidence of her supposed creative talents. We do not even have hearsay accounts of conversations she had with anyone else that have a specific, scientific content, let alone a content claiming to report her ideas. (Stachel 2002, p. 36.)

Narrator: All four papers were published in 1905. One of the assistant editors at Annalen der Physik recalls seeing Mileva’s name as author on the original documents. Why she was not co-author upon publication is not explained.

This paragraph is only too characteristic of the poor level of historical scholarship of the film. It even adds one more error to an already erroneous story. This, as told by Trbuhović-Gjurić, is that the Soviet scientist Abraham Joffe stated in his “In Remembrance of Albert Einstein” that Einstein’s three epoch-making 1905 articles in Annalen der Physik were originally signed “Einstein-Marić”. She goes on to say that at that time Joffe was an assistant to Wilhelm Röntgen, who as a member of the board of the journal that was responsible for examining submitted articles, had asked his assistant to participate in the work, and Joffe had thus seen the manuscripts. Unfortunately Trbuhović-Gjurić does not cite Joffe’s actual words, nor distinguish her own contentions from those supposedly made by Joffe. (Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, p. 97.)

In fact an examination of the passage in question, from an obituary of Einstein, shows that Joffe did not state that he had seen the original manuscripts, nor that it was signed “Einstein-Maric”. (Stachel 2005, pp. liv-lxiii.) Nor is there any evidence that Röntgen (an experimental physicist) was asked to review the original papers, or that Joffe (who in the paragraph in question explicitly attributed the authorship of the articles to Einstein, describing him as a clerk at the Patent Office in Bern) had ever seen them. In Joffe’s book “Meetings with Scientists” there is chapter on Röntgen in which he alludes to the time when he was a graduate student of Röntgen’s and was advised to study what we would now call the prehistory of relativity theory. Had Joffe had the opportunity to see Einstein’s original 1905 manuscripts it is inconceivable that he would not have mentioned the fact in this context. (Joffe 1967, pp. 23-24.)

For a full refutation of the story about Joffe, see the Bibliography under Stachel (2002); see also Alberto Martinez (2005).

Incidentally, this erroneous story of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s is just one of the several unreliable or unsubstantiated contentions in her book.

Narrator: [In 1911] Albert entertained a proposal from the German University in Prague. Mileva adamantly opposed the move… Albert would not receive a raise and the physics department was not exceptional, yet over Mileva’s objections Albert accepted the job.

The statement that Einstein would not receive an increased salary is erroneous. The offer from Prague was twice his current salary, and some 60 per cent higher than the enhanced salary proposed by the University of Zurich to try to retain his services. The narration also fails to report that at Zurich he was only an assistant professor, whereas in Prague, at what Einstein described as “a magnificent Institute”, he was given a full professorship. (Fölsing 1997, pp. 273, 278; Neffe 2007, p. 160)

Narrator: In Prague… the apartment was dirty and insect-infested.

This statement, evidently based on Michelmore’s unreliable popular biography of Einstein (see below), exaggerates even his account (Michelmore 1963, p. 49). In a rather sensationalised passage about conditions in Prague, Michelmore writes of a single incident when a fire broke out in the maid’s room one night, and after Einstein had emerged from the room after dousing the fire with water he was supposedly “crawling with fleas”. All this shows is that the maid’s room had fleas (probably originating in her second-hand mattress [Highfield and Carter 1993, p. 135]), not that the whole apartment was either “insect-infested” or dirty.

Major biographies, while noting that hygienic conditions in Prague were well below the standards of Zurich, provide a somewhat different picture of their household situation. On arriving in Prague the Einsteins moved into a spacious modern apartment with electricity in place of the kerosene and gaslights of Zurich. In addition, the substantially increased salary enabled them to employ a live-in housemaid for the first time. (Fölsing 1997, p. 278; Neffe 2007, p. 160)

Narrator: [In Zurich in 1912] Now Einstein turned to Marcel Grossman for help on the mathematics for the General Theory of Relativity. Mileva was jealous and angry. As an Einstein biographer wrote, “Mileva was as good at math as Grossman.”

First, there is not the least evidence that Marić was jealous and angry that Einstein requested Grossman to help him with the specialist mathematics he needed to develop General Relativity. The implication in this passage is that previously he had turned to his wife for assistance with mathematics, but there is again no serious evidence that this was the case.[1] As we have seen, Marić’s grades in mathematics throughout her time at Zurich Polytechnic left something to be desired, and her weakness at the subject resulted in her failing to obtain a diploma. She received lower grades than Grossman in every single mathematics topic that they both took for their intermediate and final diploma examinations (Collected Papers, vol. 1, docs. 42, 67; Trbuhović-Gjurić 1988, p. 63); the notion that she was as good at mathematics as Grossman, who became a full professor of pure mathematics at the Polytechnic at the age of 29, does not bear serious examination. The assertion is made (p. 31) in a short popular biography by the non-specialist writer Peter Michelmore that contains several factual errors, and includes imaginative scenarios with invented dialogue, which immediately places it outside the bounds of serious biography. It is simply not good enough to recycle an assertion merely on the basis that it is stated in a book regardless of reliably documented evidence to the contrary, and the nature and trustworthiness of the book itself.

Narrator: Desperately unhappy [in 1914 in Berlin where Einstein had been appointed professor at the University of Berlin and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics], Mileva returned to Zurich with her two children… World War 1 became an excuse for Albert not to visit or send money.

This is completely untrue. First, Einstein sent quite generous sums of money per annum to Marić on a quarterly basis, as the letters between Einstein and Marić in the relevant period demonstrate (Collected Papers, vol. 8, docs. 33, 40, 58, 200). Again, while, given their strained relationship, Einstein had no wish to see Marić, more than a score of letters up to the end of 1916 alone testify to his desire to keep contact with his boys and to his interest in their activities. As Highfield and Carter observe, “It remains remarkable how diligently Einstein strove to keep contact with his sons during 1915, for this was the year in which his scientific labours [on General Relativity] reached their fiercest intensity” (1993, p. 173). In fact he did manage to arrange visits to Zurich on some three occasions, one of which involved a hiking trip with Hans Albert in 1915.

As they negotiated a divorce they agreed that, should he receive the Nobel Prize, the money would go to Mileva.

In fact the terms of the divorce agreement stipulated that the anticipated Nobel Prize money would be deposited in a Swiss bank trust fund in Marić’s name, with the proviso that she had no authority over the capital without Einstein’s consent, but that she had free access to the interest. In the event of her death or remarriage the trust fund monies would go to their two boys. (Collected Papers, vol. 8, doc. 562)

Narrator: “[Marić] never clamoured for the fame that was bestowed on her ex-husband. Given Mileva’s natural shyness and her need to hide her first pregnancy, it is understandable that she never asserted her co-authorship with her husband.”

What the relevance of Marić’s need to hide her first pregnancy is to this issue is obscure. In any case, there is a much more straightforward reason than stated here why Marić never asserted her co-authorship of Einstein’s papers: she did not co-author any of them. As historian Robert Schulmann and historian of physics Gerald Holton have stated: “All serious Einstein scholarship has shown that the scientific collaboration between the couple was slight and one-sided.”

Footnote

1. Proponents of the co-authorship thesis frequently assert that Marić assisted Einstein with the mathematics for the 1905 special relativity paper (e.g., Troemel-Ploetz 1990). Leaving aside that the mathematics in that paper is not beyond the capability of any competent university physics student, Einstein’s abilities in conventional mathematics can be judged from the Zurich University 1905 “Expert Opinion” on his Ph.D. dissertation. Professor of physics Alfred Kleiner noted: “The arguments and calculations to be carried out [in the dissertation] are among the most difficult ones in hydrodynamics, and only a person possessing perspicacity and training in the handling of mathematical and physical problems could dare tackle them.” As “the main achievement of Einstein’s thesis consists of the handling of differential equations, and hence is mathematical in character and belongs to the domain of analytical mechanics” Kleiner sought the opinion of the mathematics professor Heinrich Burkhardt. Burkhardt reported that what he checked he “found to be correct without exception, and the manner of treatment demonstrates a thorough command of the mathematical methods involved” [Burkhardt’s emphasis]. (Collected Papers, Vol. 5, doc. 31)

Bibliography

Einstein, A.
(1987). The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Vol. 1. Princeton
University Press. (Vol. 5, 1995; Vol. 8, 1998)

Fölsing. A.
(1997). Albert Einstein. New York: Viking Penguin.

Highfield, R. and Carter, P.
(1993). The Private Lives of Albert Einstein. London: Faber &
Faber.

Joffe, A. (1967). Begegnungen Mit
Physikern. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.

Krstić, D. (2004). Mileva & Albert Einstein: Their
Love and Scientific Collaboration. Radovljica: Didakta.

Michelmore, P.
(1963). Einstein: Profile of the
Man.
London: Frederick Muller.

Neffe, J. (2007). Einstein: A
Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Popović, M. (2003). In Albert’s Shadow: The Life and Letters of Mileva
Marić, Einstein’s First Wife. Johns Hopkins University
Press.

Renn, J. and Schulmann,
R. (eds.)
(1992). Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić:
The Love Letters. Trans. by S. Smith. Princeton University
Press.

Stachel, J. (2002). Einstein from
‘B’ to ‘Z’. Boston/Basel/ Berlin:
Birkhäuser. Response to Senta
Troemel-Ploetz and Evan Harris Walker: pp. 31-38.

Stachel, J. (ed.) (2005). Einstein’s
Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics. Princeton
University Press. Stachel’s
Refutation of the Joffe story: pp. liv-lxxii.

Trbuhović-Gjurić, D.
(1988). Im Schatten Albert Einsteins: Das tragische Leben der Mileva
Einstein-Marić. Bern: Paul Haupt.

Troemel-Ploetz, D.
(1990). “Mileva Marić-Einstein:
The Woman Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics.” Women’s Studies International
Forum, Vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 415-432.

Articles

Esterson, A.
(2006a). Mileva Marić: Einstein’s Wife

Esterson, A.
(2006b). Who
Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz

Martínez, A. A.
(2005). Handling
Evidence in History: The Case of Einstein’s Wife, School Science Review, March 2005,
86 (316), pp. 49-56.

Allen Esterson

January 2012

A video clip of Bishop Oyedepo where this charlatan slapped a young lady during a deliverance session was being circulated on the internet but has now been taken down.

The first time I saw the link, I thought it was a joke; I thought it was something made up by someone who wanted to blackmail Oyedepo, who is the general Overseer of the Living Faith Church (aka Winners Chapel).

But after watching it I had no doubt that it was real. This is not only because of what transpired as recorded in this video clip but also what I know goes on in pentecostal churches and prayers houses across the country – impunity, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment by pastors.

I have been wondering what really caused this so called man of God to loose his temper and get so ego-bashed during the sham deliverance session to the extent of slapping an innocent young woman in public. I guess the lady did not understand the trick and so could not play along so she got punished.

The lady in question, who appears to be in her 20s, apparently came out seeking deliverance or ministration as they call it from Oyedepo. But unfortunately she got more than she bargained for – a dirty slap from the eye-bulging man of God instead.

According to the video clip, Oyedepo shouted ‘ Broken in the name of Jesus!’ in an attempt to psych the members and get them into the docile mood for the spiritual abracadabra. And the church members replied: Amen. He moved towards the lady who was among those kneeling down and asked “You have been there for how long?” And the lady replied “I am not a witch. I am a witch for Jesus.”

And Oyedepo retorted “You are what?” The lady said ” My own witch is for Jesus.”

And Oyedepo , after staring at her for a while said “You are a foul devil. Do you know who you are talking to? Foul Devil…” And he slapped her.

“Where are you from?” he asked. And the young woman, who was already traumatized, replied that she hailed from Imo state. “Where did you get the witch from?” Oyedepo queried. And she repeated what she said earlier, that she was a witch for Jesus.

Oyedepo rebuked her saying, “Jesus has no witches. You are a devil. You are not set for deliverance. You are free to go to Hell.”

This less-than-2-minutes video clip is a clear evidence of what goes on in these so called churches during deliverance or exorcism, particularly how the so-called men and women of God abuse the rights of members with impunity. Many pastors subject their members and those who come to them for prayers to torture, inhuman, abusive and degrading treatment in the course of deliverance or in the name of casting away the devil or demons.

And unfortunately such cases of abuse are not reported to the police, and the erring pastors are not prosecuted or punished. The Nigerian faithful must wake up and help end all forms of degrading treatment in God’s name. Nigerians should not allow pastors like Oyedepo to get away with such an abusive treatment.

This video clip is an incontrovertible evidence of an abuse of this church member by Bishop Oyedepo. He should be made to answer for his crimes.

I am writing to condemn in no uncertain terms the recent passage by the Senate of the the anti gay marriage bill. The passage of this bill once again demonstrates how disconnected Nigerian politicians and lawmakers are from the realities of the 21st century. It has confirmed that our lawmakers indeed prefer to fiddle while our social, political and economic house, called Nigeria, burns. Otherwise how does one explain the relevance of this bill at a time when Nigeria has become almost a failed state due to terrorist attacks, sectarian violence, corruption, poverty, diseases, abuse of office, tribalism and nepotism, misguided politics and mistaken sense of statecraft?

The passage of this bill has shown clearly how misplaced our priorities are, or better, how misplaced the priorities of those who claim to lead this country are. Our Senators should answer this question clearly: How does an anti gay marriage bill contribute to the greatest good of the greatest number of Nigerians?

Does this bill put food on their table or money in their pocket? The answer is: No. Does it provide them jobs? No. Does it enhance their much needed security and peaceful coexistence? No. Does it improve the standard of education in the country? No. Does it make Nigerian parents more responsible in terms of child support, upbringing and other family responsiblities? No. Does it improve the love and harmony in homes and communities across the country? No. Will this bill improve trust in marriages and relationaships in Nigeria? No. Will it in any way strengthen the much talked-about marriage institution or family values? No. Can the Senators tell me the practical, political, moral relevance of this bill, except to legislate and institutionalize hatred and persecution of minorities, gay cleansing, moral hypocrisy and inquisition?

The true test of a democracy is not how it panders to the so called will (real or imagined) of the majority but how it treats and respects its minority. The test of a society’s humanity is how it protects and defends vulnerable members of the population.

And with this bill, has the Nigerian democracy and society failed this test? The answer is an unequivocal ‘Yes’.

This anti gay marriage bill is a clear indictment of our sense of common humanity and our commmitment to human rights principles as a people and as a nation. The state cannot legislate when it comes to sexual relationships among consenting adults. The politicians and lawmakers cannot dictate for adults whom to relate with. Lawmakers have no business in the bedroom of adults.

For me this anti gay marriage bill is another pointer to where we have chosen to go as a nation – backward. Today the global trend is to unban, not to ban gay marriage.

Yes, the Senate vote to ban gay marriage is another indication of how our politicians have refused to confront our real challenges and to tackle and address our real, urgent and pressing problems as a nation and as a people. Instead our lawmakers prefer to pursue shadows and to engage in wasteful debates and counter-productive legislation. Yes, I want to reiterate that the whole idea of debating and passing a bill against gay marriage which has been going on since 2006 is a waste of our limited legislative resources, a huge distraction from more pressing issues, and a mark of our warped sense of politics and lawmaking. In fact it is an abuse of Nigeria’s legislative space. The obsession with homophobia among our lawmakers is unwarranted and uncalled for. It is rather an indication of political futility and emptiness, lack of vision, and failure to focus politically expedient programs for nation building and good governance.

I still want to know from our Senators and all those clamouring for an anti gay marriage legislation the rationale behind such a bill in a country where homsexuality is a crime. Can any gay marriage act or pact legally stand in a situation where homosexuality is illegal? The answer is NO. So why do our Senators think we need an anti gay marriage legislation at this time?. Today as we all know most countries are striving to make their laws compatible, not in conflict, with human rights. They are either reviewing, amending or repealing laws like those against homosexuality and blasphemy and for the death penalty, which are not in line with human rights, or introducing new laws that are in accordance with human rights.

And instead of moving forward with these countries and working towards repealing obnoxious laws, our politicians and lawmakers prefer to move backward by tightening the laws against homosexuality on the basis of religious and fanatical sentiments, and an ill-defined sense of African culture and tradition. Culture is not static. Culture is diverse and dynamic. There were acts, norms and habits deemed culturally unacceptable centuries ago but which are commonplace cultural practices today. Those who are saying that respecting people with homosexual orientation is unAfrican are really misrepresenting the African culture. If there is anything history tells us it is that Africans have been traditionally tolerant of people with same-sexual orientation prior to the introduction of criminal provisions based on the alien religions of Christianity and Islam. African politicians and lawmakers should make African traditions compatible with human rights. Unfortunately, the anti gay marriage bill entrenches and legalizes homophobia not human rights.

Meanwhile, there has been some vague reference to the recent threat by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron who, at the recent meeting of the Commonwealth, moved to cut add cut to countries that do not reform legislations banning homosexuality. Some have interpreted the statement as an attempt by the UK to impose its values on the rest of the world. I don’t think this is the case. Britain is a democratic country where the people’s voices and opinions matter.

I believe that the so-called threat was a reflection of the voices and wishes of the British people. Britian has decriminalized homosexuality and made significant progress in the protection of the rights of gay people. The British government is simply saying that they cannot be protecting the rights of homosexual persons and also be providing aid or financial assistance to countries where the same people, who are protected under British law, are persecuted or treated as criminals. No country, even Nigeria, would agree to provide aid or assistance to countries where black people are treated as criminals or thrown into jail because of the colour of their skin. How do we then expect Britain to extend aid to countries that persecute and legislate against individuals based on their sexual orientation? But this is a simple logic which the homophobia of many African politicians and lawmakers cannot allow them to understand or appreciate.

Keith Ward wrote a short piece for Comment is Free, a couple of weeks ago, saying something about religion and science and claims and facts. (I put it loosely that way because Ward oscillates between terms a lot, so it’s not easy to specify exactly what he’s claiming. The title of the piece is “Religion answers the factual questions science neglects,” which is an ok summary, but it’s not necessarily written by Ward.) Ward’s piece was in response to Julian Baggini’s piece on whether science and religion are compatible.

Jerry Coyne wrote a piece responding to Ward’s. Jim Houston wrote a piece at Talking Philosophy responding to Coyne’s, with a response directly from Ward.

All straight? Shoes buckled? Knives put away in the basket? Off we go.

Ward said:

We need to ask if particular religious and scientific claims conflict, or whether they are mutually supportive or not. Some are and some are not, and it would be silly to say that all religious claims conflict with all scientific claims, or that they do not.

Many religious statements are naturally construed as statements of fact – Jesus healed the sick, and rose from death, and these are factual claims.

…

A huge number of factual claims are not scientifically testable. Many historical and autobiographical claims, for instance, are not repeatable, not publicly observable now or in future, and are not subsumable under any general law. We know that rational answers to many historical questions depend on general philosophical views, moral views, personal experience and judgment. There are no history laboratories. Much history, like much religion, is evidence-based, but the evidence is not scientifically tractable.

Wait. Wait wait wait. I spy a bit of smuggling.  “Much history, like much religion, is evidence-based.”

Objection, your honor. Bullshit (in the technical sense). Equivocation. Smuggling. Playing silly buggers with ambiguity. That claim is true only if you mean something quite eccentric by “much religion”; if you mean what is generally meant and understoody by religion, it’s not true at all. Religion in general, religion as such, is not evidence-based in the sense that history is.

Claims that the cosmos is created do not “trespass onto” scientific territory. They are factual claims in which scientific investigators are not, as such, interested. Scientific facts are, of course, relevant to many religious claims. But not all facts are scientific facts – the claim that I was in Oxford last night, unseen by anyone, will occur in no scientific paper, but it is a hard fact. So it is with the miracles of Jesus, with the creation of the cosmos and with its end.

So it is? So it is? No it isn’t. The claim that Keith Ward was in Oxford on a particular night is not inherently implausible; it goes against no known public facts about nature or the social world or geography. The same cannot be said of “the miracles of Jesus.” The mere fact (if it is a fact) that both Ward’s presence in Oxford on October 30 2011 and the miracles of Jesus are unverifiable does not demonstrate that both are hard facts.

Now, it is true that there is a fact of the matter about both. It could be a fact that Ward was in Oxford that night, or it could be a fact that he wasn’t. It could be a fact that Jesus did miracles, or it could be a fact that he didn’t. But that isn’t what Ward said: he said “it is a hard fact” that he was in Oxford that night. Well maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but the rest of the world – on his own account – doesn’t know that. I think he wanted readers to take his “it is a hard fact” as meaning an established, public, accepted fact (despite having just said that it isn’t) and then be rushed into accepting the same of Jesus and his miracles. Tricky.

 The interesting question is not whether religion is compatible with science, but whether there are important factual questions – and some important non-factual questions, too, such as moral ones – with which the physical sciences do not usually deal. The answer seems pretty obvious, without trying to manufacture sharp and artificial distinctions between “hows” and “whys”.

That’s Ward. Coyne disagreed, and ended with a challenge:

I challenge Ward to give me just one reasonably well established fact about the world that comes from “general philosophical views, moral views, personal experience and judgment” without any verifiable empirical input.

Jim Houston asked Ward to respond to the challenge, and Ward obliged.

I have been told that Jerry Coyne has challenged me to cite a “reasonably well established fact about the world” that has no “verifiable empirical input”. That is not a claim I have ever made, or ever would make.

What I do claim is not so controversial, namely, that many factual claims about the world are reasonably believed or even known to be true, even when there is no way in which any established science (a discipline a Fellow of the Royal Society would recognise as a natural science) could establish that they are true or false.

Here is an example: my father worked as a double-agent for MI6 and the KGB during the  “Cold War”. He told me this on his death-bed, in view of the fact that I had once seen him kill a man. The Section of which he was a member was disbanded and all record of it expunged, and all those who knew that he was a member of it had long since died. This is certainly a factual claim. If true, he certainly knew that it was true. I reasonably believe that it is true. But there is absolutely no way of empirically verifying or falsifying it. QED.

That seems to me to be an absolutely hopeless “example” of what he is claiming. He is claiming, in a somewhat evasive way, that it is reasonable to believe that claim. I say “evasive” because he (carefully?) put the claim in the passive voice, which enabled him to omit any believing agent or agents. Who is supposed to be doing this believing? Ward himself? Or everyone? It makes a difference, you know.

Here’s the thing. It may be reasonable for Ward to believe that story (if in fact – in fact – it really was told to him), depending on a lot of things – what he knows about his father, and the like – but it’s not the least bit reasonable for anyone else to believe it. It’s minus reasonable, because in fact it has a whiff of tall tale, or more than a whiff. Once saw him kill a man did he? My, that’s casual. And then Ward is using it to make a point. And double-agents aren’t all that abundant, and they are figures in novels and movies.

I think Ward is equivocating again: I think he’s expecting us to take the polite or social sense of “believe” which could better be called “taking his word for it,” and treat it as genuine, reasonable belief. I don’t mind taking Ward’s word for it, if there’s nothing at stake, but as for genuinely believing it…I beg to be excused.

The news has just come in that at least 150 people have been killed in a coordinated attack by the radical Islamic sect in Nigeria known as Boko Haram. Many government buildings have been reportedly destroyed. The group’s leader has threatened to carry out more attacks. And that means more innocent lives will be lost in the coming days, weeks or months.

My question is this: should the world keep quiet, stand by and watch this bloodthirsty group continue its killing spree? How long will the international community continue to pretend not to know that Boko Haram is a deadly terrorist group that is capable of destroying and destabilizing the country and the region? I mean how many deaths will it take till the world knows that too many people have died and many more are to die? How many people will be killed before the UN decides to intervene?

It is obvious that Nigeria is battling its own version of al-Qaeda. There is ample evidence that Boko Haram has allies in North Africa and the Middle East who are supplying it with arms, training and intelligence. Boko Haram has openly used and advocated violence. It has not hidden its extremist agenda.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for so many attacks and killings including the attacks carried out at the Police Headquarters and the UN House in Abuja. This group has literally declared a war against the government of Nigeria and against any individual or groups locally or internationally which it suspects to be opposed to its Islamist cause. No one knows who will be the next target or the names of the individuals, agencies or embassies on their hit list.

How many more people will Boko Haram kill before the world comes to the aid of Nigeria? It is obvious that the Federal Government of Nigeria is too weak and has proved incapable of defeating these Islamic jihadists. This is particularly the case in a region where militant Islam has local and political sympathy and support.

Nigeria lacks the intelligence and expertise to battle this local al Qaeda group. Boko Haram is a transnational Islamist terrorist group. There is need for a transnational operation to battle and defeat it.

Before it is too late.

When we organize atheism to benefit atheists only, when we promote atheism among atheists and for the good of atheists, when atheist groups defend only the interests of atheists, we make the world poorer and rob humanity of an inestimable good. This is often the way I feel when I try to reflect on how atheism is being organised today. I come from a part of the world where atheism is not something many people will openly identify with. I come from a part of the world where many people are suffering and dying due to theism’s stranglehold on their lives. I come from a part of the world where there is so much need for atheism. I think it is the rest of the world, not only atheists, that needs atheism most. So atheists have the moral obligation to put this liberating and enlightening outlook at the world’s disposal, at humanity’s disposal. Atheists should strive to ensure that other humans enjoy the atheistic good, because there are many out there yearning for it. Many people are longing to experience the atheistic good or live in an atheistic space in their life time, particularly those languishing and suffocating due to religious exploitation and theistic tyranny.

They are so many of them out there. Women, children, people with disabilities, the elderly, minority groups, victims of religious persecution and inquisition, you name them, who are longing to experience and enjoy the atheist land of promise even without being atheists themselves.

No question, over the years, decades and centuries, atheists have been demonized and denounced. Atheists have been persecuted, executed and discriminated against. In fact atheists have been equated to fools. One of the authors of the bible says it is only the fool that says in his heart that there is no God. This verse is often quoted by christians to discredit atheism, and to make the atheistic outlook seem so terrible, so unfitting for human beings. But in spite of that, atheism has been growing from strength to strength. Atheistic groups and activists are emerging in different parts of the world including Africa.

The enduring value and vitality of atheism has been vindicated, thereby making a fool of the biblical author.

In many parts of the world atheists have managed to organised themselves. Organized atheism is waxing strong. Atheism is gradually being mainstreamed. Many christian believers are beginning to think that the author of the biblical psalm might have fooled them. Some believers in other sacred writers are beginning to question the so called revealed wisdom. In many societies, people are beginning to wake up from their theistic slumber. Many are rethinking their faith and voicing their doubts. Many people are beginning to realize the necessity of atheism. Many people are beginning to experience and embrace the liberating and enlightening promises of the atheistic outlook.

Still there is a lot of work to be done. Many parts of the world are still in the dark, under religious darkness. Many parts of the world are still in the woods – the theistic woods. Humanity still has a long way to go before it can be said to be truly free from religious, superstitious and theistic bondage. So many parts of the world are still yearning for the freedom, hope, light and happiness that come with atheism, with an atheistic awakening. So the world and the rest of humanity are looking up to atheists to deliver this important good. Yes, many human beings around the world are looking up to atheists for support, salvation and solidarity, because they think it is only atheists who have the cognitive and moral courage to challenge and unmask the theistic tyrants, exploiters, enslavers and oppressors.

They believe that it is only atheists that can deliver this secular good unadulterated. That is why I am appealing to our atheist friends to realize this fundamental need and take steps to fufill it. The time has come for us to change the way we do and organize atheism so that we can address this need, and render this service to humanity. Atheism is a global good and requires a global approach.

Atheism should not just be organized for atheists alone. Atheism should be organized for the world. Atheists should look less inward and more outward so that we can extend atheistic moral excellence to others. We should devote more time and energy to reaching out and getting more people out there to experience and have a taste of atheistic solidarity.

We, atheists, do not need atheism, do we? No, we don’t. We are already atheists. We embody the values, principles and sentiments of atheism.

Atheists do not need atheism. The world needs it. Humanity needs it to grow develop and flourish. Humanity needs atheism for emancipation and enlightenment. So let’s strive to organize atheism and put the atheistic goods at the world’s disposal, at humanity’s disposal.

When I was 16, I was confirmed Lutheran. By the time I got to college, I’d been won over to atheism. Seemed like a no brainer at the time. Sometime after that, though, I lost my way and gained some insight.

(This, I assure you, is not a story about being dipped in water or writhing on the floor.)

I’ve since noticed a certain post-Kantian convergence emerge in our fragile secular age. As Kant showed in the First Critique, all rational proofs for God’s existence, the immortality of the soul, and the ex nihilo creation of the universe have failed, and yet from these results we have no grounds for concluding that a God can’t exist, that the self can’t perdure in some form or another, or that the universe can’t have a beginning “from without.” As a result, religious and metaphysical questions have persisted well into our time and have been raised with no less force or weight today because they can’t so easily be put to rest.

In a conversation I had with a journalist recently, we discussed what he deemed the two temptations of our post-print era. One is getting mixed up in what he called the“information jungle.” The other is sitting complacently in a “filter bubble.” He suggested that the task of good journalism in the coming years will be to serve as a curator for the public, exposing citizens to, without overfeeding them on, information and ideas that challenge or deepen their firmly held beliefs. All right, but what shall we call it? How about “out-of-the-jungle, beyond-the-bubble Black Swan journalism?”

It seems to me that, whatever it’s called, this style of curating is vital to public education but also insufficient. It’s vital because it complexifies our understanding and compels us to re-examine our tendency to circle the wagons, engage in groupthink, and confirm our biases. But it’s insufficient inasmuch as it doesn’t seek to move us, in some stepping stone way, from lower to higher, from worse answers to better ones, from a fragmented picture of things to a more synoptic view of the whole.

This is one place where public philosophy as a form of public education can and should stake its claim. The Latin word educare retains the agrarian sense of “rearing,” “bringing up,” and “leading forth.” One task of public philosophy, I submit, could be to lead us in a certain direction without pandering, bullying, or nannying. “Leading forth” is neither hand-holding nor forcing your hand. It’s not florid rhetoric or hard-nosed criticism, both of which are concerned with getting us to admit the flaws in our arguments, to make up our minds regarding our deepest commitments, or to change our positions about public affairs. Instead, public philosophy as educare urges us to follow a certain line of thought, to strike out on a path and see where it takes us. From there and throughout, we would ask, “Does this bring us greater clarity about ourselves and our world?”

Assuming that this is a worthwhile endeavor (and I think it is), I’m not entirely sure how to go about it. One essay in educare could be to reinvigorate the commonplace book tradition—to reintroduce it with a twist. Commonplace books, popular from the Renaissance up through the seventeenth century, were scrapbooks of maxims, drawings, lists, inspirational quotations, and marginal notes. By design, they were meant to be hodgepodge: a recipe here, a line from Horace there. In this serendipity there was exquisite beauty. However, insofar as they were unsorted collections of curiosities and wonderments, they didn’t seek to develop the collector’s mind in any one direction. And, my God, how many collages, mélanges, bric-a-bracs, shards, and fragments are lying about us today?

I wonder whether we could retain something of the magic and surprise of the commonplace book but also order the bits and pieces so that they appear as if they were making an argument, giving us a better, more holistic way of seeing things, or leading us down a path toward higher understanding? I wonder whether the parts can be gathered together into a synthetic whole.

I’d like to see. In what follows, I’ve arranged a handful quotes in such a way as to imply some subtle working out, some groping toward a more synoptic vision of our spiritual predicament. As you read, will you feel, with Brian Magee, the “mystery of things”? Will you sit in the morning alongside Richard Holloway and also remark on this wistful mood of “committed unknowing?” Will you too recall coming upon a holy site where your hands, like Geoff Dyer’s, also seemed tied? I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out.

I

Religion will not go away simply because people are told—very firmly—that Proper Adults should have no truck with supernaturalist myths. Darwinian atheism accepts, and reinforces, a common assumption about religion, to wit, that being a religious person or living a religious life is primarily a matter of believing particular doctrines. Sophisticated thinkers about religion have, for a very long time now, taken a rather different view. Central to the religions of the world are many other tings: complexes of psychological attitudes (aspirations, intentions, and emotions) among their adherents, forms of social organization, rituals, and forms of joint behavior. Within contemporary religions (and, for citizens of the affluent nations, most prominent in Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity) there are movements that emancipate themselves from doctrine entirely: these forms of religion are simply not in the (literal) belief business. In their recitals of ancient texts, they recognize valuable stories, not to be understood as literally true but important because of their orientation of the psychological life, the pointing of desire I the right directions, the raising of some emotions and the calming of others. One might even conjecture that the social and affective aspects of religion were, somewhere in prehistory, the ur-phenomena of religion, that religious life begins with particular emotions (awe, joyful acceptance) and with shared forms of ritualized behavior, and that the stories Darwinian atheists wish to debunk are later supplements, devised to bind the earlier practices together.

—Philip Kitcher, “Challenges for Secularism,” Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now, ed. George Levine.

II

Each of these motives for irreligion – problems of scale [humans are minute and insignificant in comparison with the sheer breadth of the universe], of the afterlife, and of morality – makes the idea of God less comforting than it would otherwise be; but none of them constitutes an argument for atheism. Believers of a post-superstitious persuasion – followers of Kierkegaard for example – might indeed see them as hymns to divine glory: paeans to god not as a miraculous personal trainer or jealous cosmic controller, but as what you might call a memento absurdi, a guardian of fragility, contingency, mystery and incommensurability, and a reminder that however clever you may be, there will always be an awful lot of things you do not understand.

Opponents of religion – anti-clericals, humanists, rationalists or whatever we want to call ourselves – ought to recognise that religion is a complicated box of tricks, containing much wisdom as well as folly, along with diversity, dynamism and disagreement. And we need to realise that many modern believers have moved a long way from the positions of their predecessors: as Mill once said, they may believe they are loyal to an old-time religion when in reality they have subjected it to “modifications amounting to an essential change of its character.” In particular, they may not accept the idea of God as an actually existing entity, so arguments for atheism will not disturb them; and they will be aware that there has always been more to religion than belief in God. The dividing lines between religiosity and secularism, or between belief and disenchantment, are not getting any clearer as time goes by, and if there has been a lot of traffic travelling from the camp of religion to the camp of disbelief in the past couple of centuries, it has followed many different paths, and is bound for many different destinations.

—Jonathan Rée, “Varieties of Irreligious Experience,” New Humanist(Sept/Oct 2011)

III

Not being religious myself, yet believing that most of reality is likely to be permanently unknowable to human beings, I see a compelling need for the demystification of the unknowable. It seems to me that most people tend either to believe that all reality is in principle knowable or to believe that there is a religious dimension to things. A third alternative—that we can know very little but have equally little ground for religious belief—receives scant consideration, and yet seems to me to be where the truth lies. Simple though it is, people have difficulty getting their minds round it. In practice I find that rationalistic humanists often think of me as someone with soft-centered crypto-religious longings while religious people tend to see me as making token acknowledgement of the transcendental while being actually still far too rationalistic. What that means is that each sees me as a fellow-traveller of the other—when in fact I occupy a third position which neither of them seems to see the possibility of, and which repudiates both. What I want very much to see are two mass migrations, one out of the shallows of rationalistic humanism to an appreciation of the mystery of things, the other out of religious faith to a true appreciation of our ignorance.

—Brian Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper

IV

Who is there to praise for the gift of life? It is now six o’clock in the morning and the city is beginning to wake up. I brew more coffee and get back into the chair. The mood has changed. Celan has softened Larkin’s bleak nihilism and restored a sense of latency to the scene, a sense of something undisclosed, something absent that might once have been present. Wistfulness rather than despair is the mood now. I call this six-o-clock-in-the-morning mood ‘sensing an absence’. And it is God who is absent. The sense of the absence of God is strong in Europe at the moment. I am not talking on behalf of confident secularists for whom God has never been present. For them the universe has been thoroughly disenchanted, even disinfected, purged of any residue of that disturbing presence. And I am obviously not talking about confident believers for whom God is still on tap. No, I am talking about those who find themselves living in the No Man’s Land between the opposing forces of confident unbelief and confident belief. Those of us who are living Out There in the place where God is absent are deafened by the clash of claim and counter claim, as the rival explanations fired over our heads. It is important to say Out There is not a place of neutral agnosticism. It is a place of committed unknowing.

—Richard Holloway, Looking in the Distance: The Human Search for Meaning

V

In Si Satchanalai that morning I’d made my way round to the front of the Buddha at Wat Khao Phanom Phloeng. The sun was still burning red through the trees. The air was full of the sound of birds. The Buddha exuded such serenity that I had an impulse to fall to my knees. I resisted it, but what can you do when you are profoundly moved? There is only a limited repertoire of gestures available to us in moments like these. What might take their place? Are there new gestures, new ways of articulating our need for grace and beauty?

—Geoff Dyer, Yoga for People who Can’t be Bothered to do it

A conference introductory speech delivered by Leo Igwe at the National Humanist Convention at Vines Hotel Durumi, September 23 2011.

Fellow humanists, and dear friends of humanists,

I want to join the Chairman in welcoming you all to this historic meeting. For a long time we at the Nigerian Humanist Movement have longed to bring our convention to Abuja. We have desired before now to get our politicians to understand that there are Nigerians who are openly, proudly and publicly non-religious and non-theistic. We have longed to register our presence here at the Federal capital territory and to get the politicians and people of this country to understand that Nigeria is not just a country of Christians, Muslims and traditional religionists alone; that in this vast and diverse nation, there are citizens who are non-believers and who call themselves by different names – atheists, agnostics, rationalists, freethinkers, skeptics, brights, naturalists etc; that there are Nigerians with unconventional, unorthodox and non conformist views about religion; and that these Nigerians exist and should be treated with dignity and respect.

But, friends, lack of funds and limited local active contacts here in Abuja have hampered our efforts to realize this dream. But this year, we decided to take the bull by the horns and make the dream of bringing humanism to Abuja a reality. Thanks to the support of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the Gay Humanist Charity, the Pink Triangle and some of you humanists here present, others around the world who couldn’t make it to this event, the bull has not flung us away. We have kept this date with history. I can proudly say that as from today, humanism has come to stay in Abuja, never to depart.

Distinguished colleagues, this convention is being held in a year that marks the 15th anniversary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement. When I started NHM in 1996, most people including my family members thought I would not succeed. They thought I would get burnt out after a while, and NHM would pack up. Most thought it was a waste of time and energy, that I was just hitting my head against a wall, that NHM would not survive.Their thought was that a movement that promotes reason, freethought and critical thinking had no future in this country; that it would not and could not thrive.

But Friends, today I can say that we have proved them wrong. We have survived amidst so many odds. NHM is 15 years old and still counting. And I want to thank all of you who have, over the years, worked, sacrificed, volunteered and contributed your time, energy and money to ensure the growth and survival of our Movement. I hope we will continue to work together to get NHM going and growing for the next 15 years and beyond.

Dear Friends, as you know we are meeting at a time of so much fear, uncertainty and apprehension. We are gathering here at a period when most Nigerians fear for their lives, for their security and for their future. When I arrived Abuja a few days ago I sent a message to inform friends that I had arrived, and one of us living here replied saying ‘Welcome to the city of fear’. Yes, fellow humanists, Abuja has become a city of fear. Nigeria has become a nation of fear, and Nigerians a people crippled by fears. I guess most Nigerians have been living in fear before now – at least the fear of the unknown, the unseen and of the incomprehensible, or the fear of God which a misguided scriptural writer identified with the beginning of wisdom. The fear of terrorists or of terrorist attacks is just a new addition to the stockpile of fears killing and crippling our nation and its people. What a shame!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are meeting here at a time of mourning and tears, at a time many families are weeping and grieving the loss of their loved ones across the country beyond. As you know, in August, a bomb blast at the UN building left at least 21 people dead and many more injured. The mindless shooting of innocent citizens continues in Bornu state. There is still no end in sight to the bloodletting in Jos. In the past 6 months, over 200 people have been slaughtered, including family members murdered while sleeping at night.

Friends, may we rise for a minute in honour of those who lost their lives to these mindless killings and attacks. The names and ideologies of those who perpetrated or masterminded these vicious and atrocious acts will live in infamy.

The general belief in our society is that the dead are resting in peace. Ladies and gentlemen, in this country both the living and the dead will not know any peace until this killing spree stops and those who planned, carried out or masterminded such killings and attacks, including their sponsors and financiers, are exposed and brought to justice. There will be no peace till local authorities stop this blame game and rise up to their duties of protecting Nigerians and Nigeria.

We shall not know peace until the root causes of religious fundamentalism and terrorism are identified and addressed. We shall know no peace until the armed gangs give up their weapons and destructive ideologies including the superstitious belief in an afterlife with virgins in the elusive and illusive paradise, and adopt a civil, rational and non-violent way of making their agitations and registering their demands.

Friends, how can we know peace in this country when the hands of Anwalu Abubaka and Lawalli Musa could be amputated on October 8 in Zamfara state for stealing a bull – in a state where corrupt officials who abuse their office and abuse children are moving about freely. How can we live in peace when in Bauchi state, Adama Mamuda and Ibrahim Shehu Ganye are languishing in jail because a local witchcraft-believing magistrate misapplied and misinterpreted the law and convicted them for ‘practicing’ witchcraft. We cannot know true peace when most people in our society still believe strongly that their problems, poverty and misfortune are caused by witchcraft and black magic. I mean how can we live in peace when our children, women and elderly persons are still branded witches and wizards, tortured, incacerated or killed as Europeans did centuries ago. We shall not have peace when witch hunting is condoned, not condemned, in our courts, mosques, churches, homes, streets and communities, and witch hunters like Helen Ukpabio have not been brought to justice.

We shall know no peace till these fake priests, pastors, prophets, witch doctors, sheikhs, imams, alfas, marabus who kill, torture, maim, oppress, decieve, exploit, extort money and abuse poor, ignorant, guilible folks in the name of religion are brought to book. We can only know peace when we begin to teach our children to know that religion is not by force, that religion is by choice; that they are free to profess any religion or belief; free to change their religion, free to criticize religious dogmas or to renounce their religion. We shall know some peace in this country only when we begin to realize that religious teachings are human teachings.They are not eternal truths which we cannot question.

The holy books are products of certain times and circumstances – ancient, fearful and ignorant times and circumstances. Religious doctrines are subject to revision in the light of reason, science, common sense and human rights. We shall not know peace till we abandon superstition and embrace science, till we begin to question dogmas and encourage critical thinking in all areas of human endeavor; till we stop ritual killing and human sacrifice and discard this irrational belief that money can be made and one’s fortune can be enhanced through ritual sacrifice, and the use of juju and charms. We shall not have peace till our government begins to uphold the equal rights of all persons regardless of religious belief or unbelief, sex or sexual orientation, social origin and birth status. Our government should strive to abolish the death penalty and stop supporting homophobic legislation and resolutions locally and internationally

We shall not know peace until we commence the projecting of realizing a New Age of Reason and Enlightenment in this country, and in this continent.

Fellow humanists, many people across this country and across the world are looking up to us and to meetings like this to spread the message of reason and free inquiry and usher in an era of postive and progressive change, hope and light. That is why we have invited distinguished scholars and activists to lead the debate and help us generate ideas. We have invited an eminent scholar and philosopher to make a keynote presentation and set the tone for this conference. One thing about our keynote speaker which I find interesting is that he argued for secular and critical thinking-oriented education decades ago when there were few Nigerians who could do so, and some of what he thought many years ago is still applicable, useful and relevant to us today. So friends join me in welcoming Prof T Uzodinma Nwala to this event. There is another scholar and scientist who is here to stimulate us. Part of the tragedy in our country is that we have and produce scientists who are not scientific and who do not encourage scientific thinking. We have intellectuals but lack an intellectual culture. Our philosophers are theosophers.

Part of the reason for our national underdevelopment is that our country is filled with superstitious scientists. But we have here today a professor and scientist with a passion for scientific rationality. He is not like them. I got to know him through one of his writings on science in Africa. He is not just a scientist but also a popularizer of science and a promoter of scientific thinking. He has spoken at our past conferences in Ikenne and Benin. Please join me to welcome Professor Steve Okecha to this event. Also to lead the discussion is Dr Jide Akeredolu who was our world humanist day lecturer in 2008. His briliant and well argued article on Why I am a Rationalist, published in the Guardian in 2009, remains one of the best articles I have read in the local dailies.

We have another guest here today. He is a British citizen living in Ghana, and visiting Nigeria for the first time. Tomorrow he will make history. He will become the first non-Nigerian to deliver NHM’s world humanist day lecture. Please join me in welcoming Mr Graham William Edward Knight to this event and to our country Nigeria(a nation of fear!) Permit me to recognize other guest speakers……………..

As you can see in the program we have speakers from different organisations and institutions who will handle other topics. I must underscore the fact that we did not invite our speakers because they are humanists or because they subscribe and agree totally with the humanist outlook. No, not at all. At the humanist movement we often say that we are like minds we do not share similar views. We humanists cherish free and independent thought.

So we invited our speakers based on the fact that they espouse thoughts and ideas, or work on issues which are of interest to us at the Nigerian Humanist Movement.

And these are the thoughts, ideas and issues we need to discuss, debate and deliberate upon in the next two days as we explore the theme, Humanism as the next step. Once again welcome to this humanist feast of ideas.

I wish you all very fruitful and stimulating deliberations.

I am writing to urge the governor of Zamfara state, Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari, not to authorize the amputation of Auwalu Abubaka, 23, and Lawalli Musa, 22. Recently, a sharia court in the state convicted the two for stealing a bull and ordered that their hands be amputated at the wrist in public(1). The amputation is scheduled to take place on October 8. Meanwhile the judge stated that Abubaka and Musa could appeal against the sentence. However, right now there are not indications that they have appealed or can afford to appeal, so the fate of Abubaka and Musa is in the hands of Governor Yari.

In 1999, Zamfara state was the first to introduce sharia law. And in 2000, Zamfara’s first amputation of Buba Jangede attracted widespread international condemnation(2). Amputation is an inhuman and degrading form of punishment. Like the penalty of stoning ‘criminals’ to death, amputation is a form of punishment that was introduced at a time there were no jails to keep and rehabilitate convicted criminals. Simply put, amputation is a primitive and barbaric form of penalty and lacks any justification in the name of culture, religion or tradition in this 21st century. Like the death penalty, amputation is an irremediable form of punishment. Because the wrists of criminals, once they are chopped off, cannot be replaced if at any point it is realized that there were errors in the prosecution, conviction or judgement. Like in this case, often those who are targeted, tried and sentenced to amputation by sharia courts are mainly the poor, underprivilleged and uneducated folks who cannot afford proper legal representation during their trials. Zamfara state will once again outrage the world if it goes ahead to amputate Abubaka and Musa. The government will portray itself as one that lacks compassion and is insensitive to human rights. Chopping off the wrists of Abubaka and Musa will not give Zamfara and the religion of Islam a much-needed positive image. So I am appealing to Governor Yari not to approve the amputation of Abubaka and Musa. Instead, Governor Yari should take measures to stop all amputations in the state by converting such sentences to jails terms.

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14858441

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2587039.stm

Perhaps you’re familiar with Jeff Sparrow’s article published by New Matilda in June of this year, ‘Where Have All The Progressive Atheists Gone?’1, wherein with a new Global Atheist Convention announced for Melbourne in 2012, the supposed, inherent, right-wingedness of the ‘new atheists’ is lamented. If you haven’t, my apologies in advance to non-Australian readers.

‘The so-called New Atheist movement, in which Hitchens is a key figure, is not progressive in the slightest. On the contrary, it represents a right-wing appropriation of a once-radical tradition – and it’s well past time that so-called left-wingers, both in Australia and elsewhere, stepped up and said so.’2

Never mind the insinuation that progressives not on-board with Sparrow’s particular brand of radicalism can be reasonably dismissed as merely ‘so-called’ left-wing – that’s par for the course. More to the point I’m making, it’s telling when a critic uses the term ‘new atheist’ in all seriousness, and more-so when the novelty is ‘so-called’, disputing something nobody claimed. It almost always warns of an insufficient curiosity toward the subject being discussed, coupled with sloth and overconfidence.

Like a hundred and one scare-mongers before him, the likes of Sparrow already know what the ‘new atheists’ are up to – they don’t need to investigate!

In as far as Sparrow’s targets are smeared as ultra-right proto-fascists in the original article3, and a subsequent rejoinder4, PZ Myers has the issue pretty well sewn-up56. And if Sparrow were just some random author in the alternative media, and if this instance was all there was, I’d be walking away with a laugh like many others witnessing the exchange.

Jeff Sparrow, one of the ‘Austudy Five’ of Australian political lore, a man with a radical political history marked with enough of the narcissism of small differences to make even the splitters of Monty Python’s Life of Brian blush, is the current editor of the long-running, radical-left Australian literary magazine, Overland. If you were left wondering where all of this was coming from, or what it’s all about, Overland is a good place to start searching.

I’ll home in on two particular points of Sparrow’s that I think presage some of what’s going wrong, before moving on to details from a more problematic episode.

‘What’s for progressives to celebrate in huge audiences listening to such a repellent figure [Hitchens]?’7

And…

‘No-one’s going to burn you alive if you don’t believe in the Trinity; you are not going to lose your job if, like millions of other ordinary Australians, you’re unconvinced by Genesis.’8

Not that I’m by any means restricted to one author to deal with the first point – the standard rebuttal hardly being original – I’ll cite Hitchens, who in invoking Karl Popper in Letters to a Young Contrarian, wrote…

‘It is very seldom, as he [Popper] noticed, that in debate any one of two evenly matched antagonists will succeed in actually convincing or “converting” the other. But it is equally seldom that in a properly conducted argument either antagonist will end up holding exactly the same position as that with which he began. Concessions, refinements and adjustments will occur, and each initial position will have undergone modification even if it remains ostensibly the “same.”’9

On the topic of contention central to Hitchens being labeled ‘repellant’, my own ‘initial position’ is much the same as that of PZ Myers in that I’ve never supported the Iraq war (although I don’t go as far as asserting that Hitchens has ever advocated genocide1011). However, like many others, I won’t suggest people be so bloody-minded they can’t see the wisdom of engaging with a ‘repellent figure’, should such a potential interlocutor promise to be educative.

I suspect many people could learn more from ten minutes of heated argument with Hitchens on one of his average days, than from ten years worth of tepid agreement with Michael Moore at his best.

As for this claim that Australians aren’t figuratively being burned alive, I’m almost surprised that Sparrow indulges in such nationalism. Call me Orientalist, but I see no good reason for the Australian progressive-left to restrict its concerns to Australian atheists, nor do I see convention attendee’s concerns as likely being restricted to Australia’s borders.

(I’ll take this opportunity to urge the organisers of the 2012 Global Atheist Convention to consider attempting to secure Leo Igwe as a speaker – his concerns about the state of affairs for secularism in Nigeria are worthy of a large audience in their own right, and provide a source of education for those in developed nations needing a bit of perspective).

As for Australians not losing jobs on account of being atheists… During just a brief period at South Australia’s own little (and now retired) Trades Hall, and more generally amongst unionist circles, I’ve seen ample evidence of people losing their jobs (or having their jobs threatened) on account of their godlessness. To what extent this happens in the greater population, I don’t know, but I do know that it does happen (and I’ve been led to suspect it’s more concentrated in non-governmental, social-service workplaces that elsewhere).

Sparrow’s experience at Victorian Trades Hall is of considerably greater depth and duration, which raises in my mind the matter of how – if he’s so interested in the matter as to be moralising – he hasn’t noticed something going on. With various religious institutions currently lobbying Australian governments for exemptions from discrimination legislation, and with the continued use of government funds in discriminatory employment practices already established (such as in the current School Chaplaincy Program), Sparrow’s naivety looks manufactured.

But Sparrow’s recent outburst of niche-fashionable, sexed-up righteousness, contrary to what you may suspect, isn’t nearly as bad as it gets from the Overland stable. Not even by half.

***

While I’m not entirely happy with the way the concept of Orientalism has in part been mutated into a convenient shut-up for lazy poseurs as if ipso facto, lit-crit were also ethics, I don’t by any means write Said off either. In particular one of my favourite quotes is from Orientalism. Summoning Flaubert, Said argued…

‘Knowledge no longer requires application to reality; knowledge is what gets passed on silently, without comment, from one text to another. Ideas are propagated and disseminated anonymously, they are repeated without attribution; they have literally become idées reçues: what matters is that they are there, to be repeated, echoed, and re-echoed uncritically.‘ – Emphasis added. 12

Enter Dr. Ned Curthoys of Australian National University, literary theorist and scholar of amongst others, the works of Edward Said. In 2008, Curthoys wrote a feature diatribe for Overland titled ‘Against The New Atheism’, in which it was hysterically fabulated that in fact, the ‘New Atheism’ was really something approaching a new anti-Semitism.

‘Sadly, the combative atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens, and the virulent Islamophobia of attention-seeking atheists such as Michael Onfray, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, repudiates the progressive and cosmopolitan spirit of much Enlightenment thought. Instead, the new atheism presents a crude, often hate-filled confection of caricature and prescription, contemptuous of any belief, practice or desire not conforming to Western scientific rationalism.’13

I’ll avoid the long-winded details of the ‘combative atheism’ of Dawkins and Hitchens (a notion itself endlessly ‘echoed, and re-echoed uncritically’), and focus on Daniel Dennett. Even if you view the term ‘Islamophobia’ as unproblematic (I don’t), in what sense does this describe Dennett? And in what sense is Dennett an ‘attention seeker’?

Curthoys doesn’t give the reader a single example of anything Dennett has ever argued, ‘Islamophobic’, ‘attention-seeking’ or otherwise. This has the immediate effect of making Curthoys’ depiction look an awful lot like a ‘crude’, ‘hate-filled’ caricature. Like the po-faced use of the term ‘new atheist’, critiques of Dennett bereft of citation also make reliable litmus tests for insufficient curiosity.

Even so, even if you are familiar with these particular tropes, unless you’re particularly jaded you’ll still have reason to find what follows in Curthoys’ article rather surprising. (At this point, jaded readers will already have their Sokal-like-reflexes set to fire off from a hair-trigger).

‘Dawkins is a fanatical Darwinian geneticist, a monomaniacal materialist neither brooking alternatives to Darwin’s hypotheses nor willing to problematise the racist, colonialist legacy of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. When it comes to the problem of religion’s survival, Dawkins is, in fact, a naive social Darwinist, agog that religion, ‘so wasteful, so extravagant’, has survived Darwinian selection which ‘habitually targets and eliminates waste’.’ 14

Wrong. The waste and extravagance pertains to the question of religion’s survival, or more specifically to the survival of any inherited tendency towards it. This notion of an evolutionary problem – a political problem as distinct from a puzzle – is just Curthoys putting words in Dawkins’ mouth.

The question of extravagance and waste is one of finding a plausible Darwinian explanation (and not just some just-so story either). Before finding and checking such explanations against evidence, evolutionary biologists tend to accept that there is most probably some reason why expensive traits are there, even if they don’t know what those reason are. Dawkins argues as much in the relevant chapter15, not that you can tell from Curthoys’ uncited and indiscriminate salad-tossing of Dawkins’ words.

Curthoys’ use of the term ‘agog’ in this case, is reminiscent of many a bad b-grade movie with The Mad Scientist caricatured as scheming, aloof and unsympathetic in the throws of obsessive curiosity and manipulation. Those wanting something more authentic could look to understand the context behind a frequently misconstrued quote from Darwin’s correspondence of 1860 with American botanist Asa Gray.

‘The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!’16

Darwin wasn’t literally sickened, or driven to fear that he was proven wrong as many a creationist would have you believe, but people would also be deeply mistaken to view puzzles such as the peacock’s tail as rendering evolutionary biologists ‘agog’. The range of dispositions available to scientists in such situations is far less black and white than that.

In the section of The God Delusion Curthoys lifts words from, taking care to note ‘somewhat extreme and exaggerated terms’, Dawkins addresses the issue of the evolution of resource-expensive traits by quoting Lewontin for a one sentence explanation of an ‘adaptationist’ principle17. But you can read Darwin himself from The Origin of Species, to get a feel for just how uncontroversial this kind of thinking is, scientifically speaking.

‘Organs now of trifling importance have probably in some cases been of high importance to an early progenitor, and, after having been slowly perfected at a former period, have been transmitted in nearly the same state, although now become of very slight use…’ 18

In terms of Darwinian evolution, what is true of ‘organs of little apparent importance’ holds true for inherited instincts as well, any possibly inherited instinct for religion not withstanding. The point is not that it’s wasteful and extravagant and therefore it should have been eliminated. The point is that something expensive has persisted, even flourished over generations, that this is unlikely to have happened by pure chance, and that yet it appears to be without apparent reason. This suggests there is most probably a hidden Darwinian explanation waiting to be realised.

While I may be accused of not stepping outside of the paradigm of ‘Western scientific rationalism’ to refute Curthoys, neither the above, nor Dawkins’ particular argument carry the genocidal overtones inferred by Curthoys’ incredibly selective quoting. There’s no meaningful moral sense in which any of this could be called socially Darwinist – there’s nothing Spencerian or dog-eat-dog about it. This conflation of Dawkins’ evolutionary descriptions with social prescription is a common mistake that’s entirely avoidable if you’ve read and understood anything that Dawkins has had to write on the cruel side of nature. You could also disabuse yourself of this kind of misunderstanding by watching part two of Dawkins’ documentary The Genius of Charles Darwin, in which not for the first time (and contrary to Curthoys’ allegation) Dawkins discusses the misappropriation of Darwin’s ideas for ‘racist, colonialist’ and other nefarious ideological purposes19. (Indeed, Dawkins comes out swinging on the side of the welfare state).

Curthoys may or may not be forgiven his apparent technical ignorance (I’ll leave that to the reader and the literary theorists), and he may be forgiven for overlooking the mentioned documentary (being aired in the UK only shortly before the issue of Overland in question was published). But this lack of investigation into the very issue which Curthoys chooses to raise (Dawkins’ supposed social Darwinism/moral egoism), an issue with an established history in public debate going as far back as the faux-controversy generated by Mary Midgley’s ‘Gene-Juggling’ in 197920, is just incredibly lazy.

What’s more, Curthoys is making essentially the same mistakes as Midgley in his fumbling with evolutionary language. Backpedaling somewhat, but still equivocating in the process, Midgley, some years after the original stoush (but well before Curthoys was anywhere on the scene) revised her original concerns.

‘Foremost among the snags of this sociobiological language is the equivocal use of words like ‘selfish’, ‘altruistic’, ‘spite’ and ‘manipulate’, a use which not only suggests psychological egoism to the surrounding peasants, but clearly at times misleads the writers themselves. It is because the word ‘selfish’, with this sense, is the key term of The Selfish Gene, and receives a poetic celebration there unparalleled in other sociobiological writings, that the book struck me as exceptionally likely to block the acceptance of Darwinism… Dr Dawkins tells us that he is obviously not using the word selfish in any sense which could excuse this interpretation. It is, he says, a harmless, well-known technical term, referring only to behaviour, viz, to that which in fact increases an entity’s own chance of survival. Selfish, then, means here something like ‘actually self-preserving in the long run’. He correctly points out that biologists writing on evolution do now use the term in what he calls this ‘special, restricted sense’. Accordingly, ‘a philosopher who wishes to understand biologists must therefore learn this basic feature of biological language’’ 21

Never mind that Dawkins wasn’t adopting the position of someone addressing the ‘surrounding peasants’ – anyone actually familiar with this ‘sociobiological language’ would know that its use by biologists isn’t at all equivocal, a number of these definitions for example, being tightly defined by W.D. Hamilton in his seminal ‘The genetical evolution of social behaviour’ I & II of 1964 22. This being from where the concepts of Hamiltonian ‘altruism’ and ‘spite’ were ultimately derived, going on to become established in the technical language well before Midgley vented her outrage.

Midgley was being disingenuous when she ceded that ‘biologists writing on evolution do now use the term‘ (emphasis added), because in addition to Hamilton having set the standard for much of this kind of language much earlier, his seminal work was cited in The Selfish Gene – the very text Midgley was critiquing. I guess simple things like bibliographies aren’t edgy enough for some academics.

Curthoys makes much the same mistake, substituting meanings in his treatment of phrases like ‘…targets and eliminates waste’, insinuating something sinister when nothing of the sort exists, and when the kind of language being used isn’t particularly novel. That he has the well documented errors of Midgley (and others) to learn from makes this all the more damnable. Dawkins was right; philosophers (and literary critics) who wish (or need) to understand biologists must learn the basic features of biological language – if not also nurture a knack for understanding the prose of the more popular iterations.

***

Not before going on to uncritically cite Chris Hedges’ hysterical I Don’t Believe in Atheists (2008) to lambast supposed ‘new atheist’ aggression, Curthoys goes on to demonstrate yet further misunderstanding of his intended targets.

‘The brutal, genocidal imaginary of the new atheism (the tawdry Sam Harris, for example, openly contemplates a nuclear first strike on the Arab world and praises the use of torture against terrorists), its thin bourgeois elitism, hypocritical denunciation of religious certainty and the puerility of its politics, is a consequence of a shallow rationalist optimism, a theory of human progress that ignores or evades the contribution of modern ideological utopianism, stimulated by the possibilities of technological domination and the rationally organised elimination of ‘waste’ elements, to the horrors of the twentieth century.‘ – Emphasis added. 23

Aside from the Gish-gallop of accusations, most unaccompanied by attempts at substantiation, the main problem for Curthoys in the first part of this smear is that Sam Harris only contemplates a nuclear first strike on Muslim nations in as far as the scenario may be a possible future result of a failure of geopolitics – that if humanity continually gets it wrong, the insanity of a first strike may eventually be the least insane option24. Harris doesn’t advocate that this actually happen, he advocates that people wake up before it does.

Furthermore, Harris doesn’t ‘praise’ the use of torture. Indeed, throughout the relevant section of The End of Faith, Harris repeatedly expresses disquiet at the idea of its use25.

What Harris does do in The End of Faith, as many moral philosophers have similarly ventured to do before him (seemingly often with far less controversy), was to propose a problem. Specifically that if one accepts carpet bombing as being in any context justifiable (where clearly many innocent people will die), then it’s inconsistent to also argue categorically against torture (where possibly only one individual may suffer in order to prevent some catastrophe).

Whether or not you find Harris convincing on the matter, the reality of what he ventures is hardly similar to the caricature of lurid salivation Curthoys scrawls out.

In the duration between the publication of The End of Faith and Curthoys’ article, in addition to the mentioned work of Chris Hedges26, many have assumed this sanctimonious, fact-challenged posture towards Harris (such as John Gorenfeld27), specifically on these kinds of issues. And in these years the misrepresentations have been roundly discredited ad nauseum.

Similar to Mary Midgley’s original attack on Dawkins, it was all old news before Curthoys came anywhere near it (albeit not quite as old). His errors are all the more tiresome for it.

The treatment of the matter of utopianism isn’t much better.

If Curthoys had better familiarised himself with the relevant work, he’d have known far from being ignored or evaded, it’s a common talking point for Daniel Dennett at least, that previous attempts at secular utopianism have failed horrifically28. This is in part why Dennett advocates a patient, non-coercive approach, making one central policy prescription in his ‘new atheist’ text; the compulsory study of world religion in schools2930.

The intent of this policy, and through the eventual development of other means, is to peaceably reach either an increase in atheism, or liberal theism, or a combination of both. Considering Dewey’s view on extracting the good from religion, without the bad, Dennett comments in discussion with Robert Thurman…

‘No. In fact, I don’t know whether some version of that would be a good idea or not. I don’t think that Dewey had studied religion enough to know, and I haven’t studied it enough to know. What I do think is important that we do right now, is educate each other a lot more. ‘31

And…

‘I do think we need to study religion carefully. I don’t think I have the answers. I think I have the questions… I do believe that those people, who are deeply religious, and who are deeply moral, will want to join in this effort. I welcome them, and if they find that my book is outrageous or offensive to them, I submit that it is not deliberately offensive, it is an attempt to level the playing field.’ 32

Really, this is the stuff of ‘brutal’ or ‘genocidal’ utopian thinking? I’m detecting a hypocritical denunciation of certainty, but Dennett isn’t the source.

Again, Curthoys doesn’t give the slightest hint of having ever read a single word uttered or authored by Dennett, which if actually the case, would go a long way in explaining the bizarre misapprehensions.

‘…Repeated without attribution… …repeated, echoed and re-echoed uncritically.’

A certain amount of glossing over the details (usually technical) helps if your project is getting from the likes of Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins (or anyone else for that matter), to a largely predetermined, but particularly ill-fitting caricature. In the case of Curthoys’ screed, that caricature being…

‘…the violent animus of the new atheists towards religion – and their reliance on a developmental narrative of human history proceeding from the mythic to the rational – is a barely camouflaged resumption of Euro-Christian hostility towards the annoying persistence of a Semite who should have disappeared long ago, making way for a modern dispensation and a newly elect people at the vanguard of history.’33

Violent animus! Developmental narrative! Sinister pseudo-technical terms to ape anodyne actually-technical terms! Conclusions enabled without application to reality! FROTH!

The resumption of ‘Euro-Christian hostility towards the annoying persistence of a Semite’ is ‘barely camouflaged’ in the ‘new atheist’ rhetoric, in the same way Jesus is sometimes ‘barely camouflaged’ in grilled cheese. What we have here is ultra-piety-induced literary pareidolia.

***

I’ve mentioned Harris’ challenge involving the differences between torture and carpet bombing for a particular purpose other than direct, factual refutation. I’ve mentioned Dawkins’ The Genius of Charles Darwin, in particular having the un-cut interviews in mind, for much the same reason. Not because these form part of some kind of central dogma for the ‘new atheism’, but because of significant differences of opinion between prominent ‘new atheists’, and a potential for eliciting aporia, sources like these represent.

Hitchens for example, has been a fierce opponent of domestic wire-tapping and torture, yet has variously endorsed the use of cluster bombs. Not that I find Harris’ proposed dilemma completely engrossing, it could at least prove more informative to ask Hitchens what he thinks of this problem, than to ask for recitals of Monty Python (thank you Tony Jones3435).

If there’s such a thing as a ‘new atheist’, then Peter Singer has to be one – he spoke at the last Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, he wrote the source of a much repeated, positive blurb for The End of Faith, and he doesn’t think much of religious morality. In Dawkins’ uncut interview with Peter Singer from The Genius of Charles Darwin, Dawkins cedes somewhat that eating meat (in particular the consequences of its processing) is by his own reasoning, unethical, all while admitting he still eats it36. Surely pressing Dawkins on the matter, even if potentially awkward, would be more educational than asking him how he defines the word ‘success’ (I’m looking at you Andrew Denton37).

Singer and Dennett realise the nature of the is-ought problem in the conventional manner, contra Harris’ The Moral Landscape, where it is argued that a practical way around the problem exists38. Surely the consequences for moral policy making would be better served by investigating these contradictions, than regurgitating bits and pieces of Chris Hedges’ various paranoid fantasies.

What about Dennett versus Kitcher on replacing the opiate of the masses, or Sikivu Hutchinson on social justice and organised atheism in light of atheism’s libertarian population?

(I’ll take this opportunity to urge the organisers of the 2012 Global Atheist Convention to consider attempting to secure Sikivu Hutchinson as a speaker.)

Why isn’t Leslie Cannold a utilitarian? What does she object to in Singer’s meta-ethics? How does she think this pans out for secularism?

Often we see critics in privileged positions – those with the opportunity to facilitate public debate – avoiding questioning Dawkins or Hitchens on their specific differences on the matter of the Iraq War, even when the topic is at hand. Why?

If the ‘new atheism’ is sufficient to warrant attention, and if the professed moral concerns of the critics are genuine, then surely what the ‘new atheists’ actually think, and where they are in substantial difference, is of critical interest. People should be able to look to Australian public intellectuals and the Australian media to see genuinely incisive questions asked whenever the ‘new atheists’ visit down-under.

Instead we see an Australian literary magazine being used for the kind of cheap and easy insinuations and misattributions any fool could dredge up from Answers in Genesis. All while the more conventional media continue to ask a little too frequently, and with a little too much force, the kind of cute questions you’d expect from an insecure culture needing affirmation from abroad. While being careful not to be too Byronic about things, it has to be said that this is a little depressing.

***

In a book review from 2009 that’s almost worth a critique of its own, Jeff Sparrow wrote for Overland of The End of Faith…

‘The difference between The God Delusion and the (sic) End of Faith [is] like thatbetween (sic) listening to an erudite but slightly eccentric prof, and being cornered in the kitchen by an opinionated bore during a party.’39

These things being subjective, it’s possibly a fair cop.

It’d also be fair to say that reading Curthoys and Sparrow critiquing the ‘new atheism’ is a bit like watching undergrads make great displays of conviction to niche-fashionable piety, under the mistaken assumption this hides that they’ve neglected to do the weekly readings. At any rate, this is possibly what a good part of the Australian media and intelligentsia has in store for those attending the 2012 Global Atheist Convention; noise, posturing, accusation and not nearly enough investigation.

It’ll be interesting to see which sources stand out above the din as particularly informative. I have doubts that Overland will be one of them.

1. Jeff Sparrow (2011) ‘Where have all the progressive atheists gone?‘, New Matilda [↩]
2. Jeff Sparrow (2011) ‘Where have all the progressive atheists gone?‘, New Matilda [↩]
3. Jeff Sparrow (2011) ‘Where have all the progressive atheists gone?‘, New Matilda [↩]
4. Jeff Sparrow (2011) ‘The Left, the Right and The New Atheism: a response to PZ Myers‘, Overland. [↩]
5. PZ Myers (2011) ‘Atheism ≠ fascism‘, Pharyngula. [↩]
6. PZ Myers (2011) ‘I’m back, and I’m still not a fascist‘, Pharyngula. [↩]
7. Jeff Sparrow (2011) ‘Where have all the progressive atheists gone?‘, New Matilda [↩]
8. Jeff Sparrow (2011) ‘Where have all the progressive atheists gone?‘, New Matilda [↩]
9. Christopher Hitchens (2001) Letters to a Young Contrarian, Basic Books. [↩]
10. PZ Myers (2007) ‘FFRF Recap: heroes of the revolution, Hitchens screws the pooch, and the unbearable stodginess of atheists‘, Pharyngula. [↩]
11. I was once convinced of this based on reading PZ Myers’ eye-witness account, but after seeing the video footage this is no longer the case. I recant my former position on this specific point. [↩]
12. Edward Said (1978) ‘Redrawn Frontiers, Redefined Issues, Secularized Religion’, Orientalism, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. [↩]
13. Ned Curthoys (2008) ‘Against The New Atheism‘, Overland, No. 192. [↩]
14. Ned Curthoys (2008) ‘Against The New Atheism‘, Overland, No. 192. [↩]
15. Richard Dawkins (2006) ‘The Roots of Religion’, The God Delusion, Bantam Press. [↩]
16. Charles Darwin (2011) ‘Darwin, C.R. to Gray, Asa, 3 Apr [1860]‘, Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge. [↩]
17. Richard Dawkins (2006) ‘The Roots of Religion’, The God Delusion, Bantam Press. [↩]
18. Charles Darwin (1859) ‘Difficulties on theory’, The Origin of Species, John Murray. [↩]
19. Richard Dawkins (2008) The Genius of Charles Darwin, IWC Media. [↩]
20. Mary Midgley (1979) ‘Gene Juggling’, Philosophy, 54, No. 210. [↩]
21. Mary Midgley (1983) ‘Selfish Genes and Social Darwinism’, Philosophy, 58, No. 225. [↩]
22. W.D. Hamilton (1964) ‘The genetical evolution of social behaviour’ I & II, Journal of theoretical biology, 7. [↩]
23. Ned Curthoys (2008) ‘Against The New Atheism‘, Overland, No. 192. [↩]
24. Sam Harris (2006) ‘The problem with Islam’, The End of Faith, Simon & Schuster Australia. [↩]
25. Sam Harris (2006) ‘A science of good and evil’, The End of Faith, Simon & Schuster Australia. [↩]
26. Chris Hedges (2008) I don’t believe in atheists, Free Press. [↩]
27. John Gorenfeld (2007) ‘Sam Harris’s Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture‘, AlterNet. [↩]
28. Rob Hogendoorn (2006) ‘Transcript of Daniel C. Dennett in conversation with Robert Thurman‘, Mind and Reality Symposium, Columbia University. [↩]
29. Rob Hogendoorn (2006) ‘Transcript of Daniel C. Dennett in conversation with Robert Thurman‘, Mind and Reality Symposium, Columbia University. [↩]
30. Daniel Dennett (2006) ‘Now What Do We Do?’, Breaking the Spell, Viking. [↩]
31. Rob Hogendoorn (2006) ‘Transcript of Daniel C. Dennett in conversation with Robert Thurman‘, Mind and Reality Symposium, Columbia University. [↩]
32. Rob Hogendoorn (2006) ‘Transcript of Daniel C. Dennett in conversation with Robert Thurman‘, Mind and Reality Symposium, Columbia University. [↩]
33. Ned Curthoys (2008) ‘Against The New Atheism‘, Overland, No. 192. [↩]
34. Christopher Hitchens & Tony Jones (2009) ‘Christopher Hitchens and Tony Jones: Does Religion Poison Everything?‘, Festival of Dangerous Ideas, ABC Big Ideas. [↩]
35. I’m biased, for obvious reasons. [↩]
36. Richard Dawkins (2008) The Genius of Charles Darwin, IWC Media. [↩]
37. Richard Dawkins & Andrew Denton (2009) ‘Episode 6: Richard Dawkins‘, Elders with Andrew Denton, ABC. [↩]
38. Sam Harris (2010) The Moral Landscape, Bantam Press. [↩]
39. Jeff Sparrow (2009) ‘the end of faith, the beginning of bigotry‘, Overland. [↩]

I was not born a skeptic. I grew up to find out that I am one. What makes it most interesting is that I was born in a country and continent where most people are not inclined to skepticism, where doubting, questioning and challenging recieved wisdom is frowned on by most people. Mine is a society where most people are inclined to blind belief, to uncritical acceptance of doctrines and dogmas.

I was born 41 years ago in a remote village, Mbaise, in South Eastern Nigeria. I was born into a religious home and to parents who were born animists but were pressured to embrace Christianity. My father told me that he embraced Christianity in order to get formal education. Formal education was in the hands of Christian missionaries who used it to convert the local population. That was how my father became a Christian. That was how most people in Nigeria became Christians. My community is deeply religious, very superstitious and dogmatic. There is too much emphasis on the spiritual, the supernatural and the occult. The invisible and the incomprehensible haunt the lives of the people. At the same time there is so much ignorance, poverty and misery. Generally, life was nasty, brutish and short. Most people live in fear, particularly the fear of the unknown. Most people live on the edge of development.

I grew up in an environment where going to school was a privilege not a right. I grew up in a society where, for most parents, sending children to school was not a duty but a favour which they fulfilled grudgingly. I was sent to school anyway. And I was ‘privileged’ to be sent to a mission school. I say ‘privileged’ becaused mission schools, particularly the seminaries, were among the best schools in my community at that time. So many parents looked forward to sending their children to mission schools whether they truly believed in the mission of these schools or not. Still, many families could not afford to educate their children in mission schools. They had to send their wards to public schools where children received little or no education.

Many of my colleagues dropped out of school, sometimes as a result of pressure from their parents who wanted them to get married – particularly the girls – or go into petty trading to start generating income. Many of them took up trading or technical work without any formal training while others left for the neighbouring countries with the hope of making a better living. Usually they travelled in overcrowded boats, and on some occasions their boats capsized and their journey ended on the high sea.

I spent 12 years in seminaries both as a student and as a teacher. My mother was instrumental to my going to the seminary. She told me that her aim was not to get me to be a priest but to provide me an opportunity to have a sound education. While in the seminary, I noticed the shortcomings in faith-based education. I observed the missing links in the mission school system. It opened my eyes to how clerics play god and use this vague concept to deceive and tyrannize over the lives of guillible and weak-minded individuals. I realized the promises in liberal and critical thinking-oriented education.

I found out that faith-based education was actually religious indoctrination in disguise. Schools were tools for conversion and evangelisation. The school was an extension of the church.The educational system had no room for doubt, for reasoning and critical and independent thought. It was while I was in the seminary that I began to question the traditional and Christian beliefs. But I kept those doubts to myself. I could not ‘doubt out’. I could not doubt aloud.

As a student, one of the things that agitated my mind was the prevalence of superstition and superstition-related abuses and atrocities, particularly the belief in witchcraft, the practice of ritual killing and the use of juju and charms in my society. These traditional beliefs and practices did not make my society grow, develop or prosper. Instead they caused stagnation and underdevelopment. I couldn’t find any evidence for so many irrational claims including the nonsensical doctrines introduced by Christian missionaries and Arab jihadists that darkened, corrupted and destroyed the lives of my people. Yes I began to question them and of course they started crumbling like a pack of cards. Like a piece of wax on a hot iron, these superstitious beliefs which have held my people hostage started melting away on the furnace of critical examination and rational inquiry. I started seeing some light. And as Goethe said, I yearned for more light and more light.

In 1994 I left the seminary, and later founded humanist and skeptical groups, because I strongly felt that my people needed an alternative to dogmatic religions and superstitious beliefs. I thought that was a veritable way to remain sane and to help sanitize the society. I felt that was a meaningful way to contribute to the enlightenment and awakening of my people from their dogmatic slumber. I knew it was not going to be an easy task. I knew I could fail or be frustrated or even get killed but I thought starting a critical thinking-oriented group in spite of all the risks was better than doing nothing. I am one of those who believe that people who peddle dogmatic and superstitious beliefs can only triumph when questioning and critical minds do nothing or say nothing.

For people of my age in my country, in fact for people of all ages in my nation; for people of my generation, of my race, of my colour, in my continent, a skeptic is still not a normal thing to be. The skeptical viewpoint is not something most people, like those of us present in this hall, are proud to identify with. The general feeling is that skeptics should not be seen – they should not be reckoned with. The skeptic voice –the irritating and blasphemous voice of skepticism – should not be heard. The skeptic movement should not be patronized. To most Africans, the skeptic tradition is a western ideology, not a human heritage, with corrupting influence on the society. Most people think skepticism belongs to the white culture, when in fact this is not the case.

The general belief is  that skeptical rationality goes against the norm of the society: the norm as to the way to be, the way to live, the way to ‘think’, the way to know, the way to act and react, and the way to behave. Even among the ‘educated’ or the so called elite in Africa, the skeptical outlook is a scarce commodity. Common sense is not common. There is a disdain for critical thinking. There is an art in blind faith and dogma. Most people see more sense in nonsense than in common sense or any skill in critical thinking. In fact today skepticism has limited space in Africa’s cultural and intellectual tradition.

Leo Igwe sent this piece from Australia

Deep within America, beyond your typical evangelicals and run of the mill fundamentalists, nurtured within the homeschool movement and growing by the day, are the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. This is where I grew up.

I learned that women are to be homemakers while men are to be protectors and providers. I was taught that a woman should not have a career, but should rather keep the home and raise the children and submit to her husband, who was her god-given head and authority. I learned that homeschooling is the only godly way to raise children, because to send them to public school is to turn a child over to the government and the secular humanists. I was taught that children must be trained up in the way they should go every minute of every day. I learned that a woman is always under male authority, first her father, then her husband, and perhaps, someday, her son. I was told that children are always a blessing, and that it was imperative to raise up quivers full of warriors for Christ, equipped to take back the culture and restore it to its Christian foundations.

Christian Patriarchy involves the patriarchal gender roles and heirarchical family structure, while Quiverfull refers to the belief that children are always a blessing and that big families are mandatory for those following God’s will (some eschew birth control altogether). While these two belief sets are generally held in common, they can technically exist separately. Now of course, not everyone who holds these beliefs actually claims the term “Christian Patriarchy” or “Quiverfull.” My parents certainly didn’t. In fact, I never heard those terms growing up. What matters is not the name that is claimed, but the beliefs – the beliefs outlined above.

My parents were originally fairly ordinary evangelicals. Like so many others (it’s a very common story), it was homeschooling that brought them to Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull. They began homeschooling for secular reasons, and then, through homeschool friends, homeschool conferences, and homeschool publications, they were drawn into the world of Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull. It starts slowly, one belief here, a book there. For those who are already fundamentalists or evangelicals, like my parents, the transition is smooth and almost natural. Suddenly, almost without realizing it, they are birthing their eight or ninth child and pushing their daughters toward homemaking and away from any thought of a career.

Why are these movements so enticing to evangelical and fundamentalist homeschoolers? Simple. Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull offer the enticing image of the perfect family and the promise that you can make a difference and change the world, raising up an army for Christ, without ever leaving your home. Organizations like Vision Forum and No Greater Joy promise parents perfect families in very explicit terms. If you follow the formula, you, too, can be like that pretty picture or happy face in the catalogue. They are the huckster traveling salesmen of the homeschool world, but this time they sell dreams.

The actual experience for children growing up in the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements varies dramatically because every set of parents is different. I happened to have a mother with never-ending energy and a father who was naturally fairly laid back. That meant that my home life was pleasant and my childhood happy. Others, though, have mothers who are debilitated by pregnancy after pregnancy and fathers who quickly become tyrannical and overbearing. These children may not have a very happy upbringing at all.

While my upbringing was fairly happy, it was anything but normal. For one thing, I was homeschooled. For another thing, I grew up with a dozen younger siblings. Other families commonly have seven, eight, or nine children. A few have as many as eighteen or nineteen. While there are some very fun things about growing up with so many siblings, the sheer size of the family means that daughters of Christian Patriarchy have little privacy and many chores. And since they don’t go to school, their time with friends is limited and their time working by their mothers’ sides is maximized. By the time I was twelve, I could fix meals for the entire family, keep the laundry going, and essentially run the house single handedly. When I was fifteen my parents went out of town for a week, leaving me in charge of the younger siblings. Later when I was in high school, my mother had a hard pregnancy and was completely incapacitated for a month. I ran the house and homeschooled the younger children without a problem. I practically raised some of my younger siblings. And yet, this endless list of chores and expectations and responsibilities is seen as the natural order of things, rather than as a problem.

Daughters of Christian Patriarchy are essentially servants in their own homes, but this does not mean they are necessarily miserable and unhappy. While some daughters of Christian Patriarchy rebel and inwardly resent how they are being raised, most don’t. Most accept what their parents teach them as true, and look forward to their wedding day as the beginning of their lives. This was me. I was perfectly happy to help with my younger siblings and cook for a dozen and do load after load of laundry. At age ten, twelve, or fourteen, I was being trained to be a “helpmeet” to my future husband, preparing for my life’s role by working alongside my mother and serving as junior “helpmeet” to my father. I dreamed of my wedding constantly, and thought of what a wonderful wife, mother, and homemaker I would be. A wife and mother was all I wanted to be, because any dream of anything else was nipped in the bud before it ever took root. I truly believed that this was what God wanted of me, and that serving my family and raising my siblings was serving God. And I gloried in it.

Families in Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull place extreme importance on maintaining their daughters’ sexual and emotional purity. Sex before marriage is held to be sin, and sex before marriage also damages a daughter’s marriage prospects. Girls are told that the best gift they can give their future husbands is their virginity. And we’re not just talking sex here: Most couples in Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull circles don’t kiss before marriage, and some don’t even hold hands or embrace. Furthermore, this virginity is more than just physical; it is emotional as well. Girls are urged not to “give away pieces of their hearts” by becoming emotionally entangled with boys their age. Every teenage crush becomes suspect and dangerous. Dating is out of the question, as it is considered to be “practice for divorce.” Instead, daughters of Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull find husbands through parent-guided courtships, trusting their father’s guidance and obeying his leadership. Marriage is seen as a transfer of authority from the daughter’s father to her husband.

Growing numbers of parents in the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements are keeping their daughters home from college. They argue that college is wasted on daughters who are never supposed to hold jobs or have careers anyway, and that it distracts them from serving others and learning homemaking skills. Furthermore, they contend, college corrupts daughters and fills their heads with ungodly thoughts of equality and careers. This phenomenon is called the Stay At Home Daughter movement.

I, however, was sent to college. Yet it should be remembered that this did not initially mean that I dreamed of anything outside of the role I was taught God had laid out for me. Rather, I felt that college would prepare me to be a better wife and mother, and especially, a better homeschool parent. For this reason, in those families in the Christian Patriarchy movement who do send their daughters to college, nursing and teaching, which are seen as naturally feminine and excellent skills for future mothers and homeschool parents, are favored courses of study. And of course, it is understood that even daughters who attend college remain under the authority of their fathers and must obey them, even after they turn 18. After all, their fathers are their godly authority. God speaks to daughters through their fathers and daughters are bound by God to obey their fathers.

You have to understand just how deeply these beliefs are implanted. Even though I began questioning my parents’ beliefs halfway through college, I was so inculcated into their mindset that I did not even think of having a career or being other than a stay at home homeschool mom until four years later. Even though I have been out for years and am now in my mid twenties, I still feel like I am a failure because I only have one child. I feel that if I don’t have five or six kids, I am somehow a flop and a dud. In my brain, my worth as a woman is still tied to the number of children I have. I know these brain patterns are bullshit and I’m working on eradicating them, but they are still there. And in my conversations with other daughters who have left, I have found that I am not alone in this.

By now, you may be wondering, how is this possible? How can parents indoctrinate their children in this way? The answer, I would argue, is simple: homeschooling. By homeschooling, these parents can control every interaction their children have and every piece of information their children come upon. My parents called it “sheltering.” The result was that I knew nothing of popular culture or the lives of normal teens, besides that they were “worldly” and miserable while I was godly and content. I had no idea that normal teens would see the amount of chores I did as unfair and oppressive, and even when I did realize this, I took pride in it, for the amount of chores I did and my cheerfulness in doing them showed my godliness.

Furthermore, by homeschooling us my parents could completely control what we learned. I studied from creationist textbooks and learned history from a curriculum that taught “His Story,”beginning with creation, Noah and the flood, and Abraham and his covenant with god, showing the hand of God moving through the six thousand years of the earth’s history. I never had anyone tell me to dream big, or to think outside the home, or that with my talent and intellect I could have a brilliant career. Everyone around me believed the way my parents did, including all of my friends, who, after all, were without exception children of my parents’ friends. They encouraged me in my steadfastness of belief and held me up as a paragon of virtue. Why would I desire anything else?

It didn’t help that I was taught that those outside of our beliefs, including humanists, environmentalists, socialists, and feminists, were evil selfish people who were destroying our society, and that Christians who did not share our beliefs were “wishy-washy” and “worldy.” There is a very “us versus them” mentality at work in Christian Patriarchy. They were the enemy, the agents of Satan out to destroy belief in God and pervert the world. They cared only for themselves and their own desires and were not to be trusted. I was taught further that the world outside was a scary and dangerous place. If I stayed under my father’s authority, I would be protected and safe.

You also have to remember the sense of purpose that accompanies the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movement. We were raised to fight the enemy, be that Satan or the environmentalist, socialists, and feminists, to come against them in spiritual warfare and at the polls. This is why Michael Farris, a proponent of Christian Patriarchy and the leader of the Home School Legal Defence Association, founded Patrick Henry College in 2000 to train homeschooled youth in the law and government. There were more interns from Patrick Henry College in the Bush White House than from any other college. Put simply, their goal is to take over the country, instituting godly laws ruling according to Christ’s dictates.

While the goal is to take back the world for Christ through the polls, force is never completely ruled out. I was taught that someday the government might take away our rights entirely, become a dictatorship, and crack down on everything we believed in. My father used to point out the armory to us and tell us that that is where we would mount the resistance when this happened. Force, though, was to be a last resort. In the meantime, my family campaigned tirelessly for conservative political candidates and attended marriage rallies, pro-life marches, and second amendment rights meetings. I dreamed of someday being a politician’s wife, supporting him in his bids for office and attempts to restore the country to its godly foundation. The world was framed in terms of good versus evil, and I had a role and a purpose.

Taken together, these beliefs comprise a comprehensive worldview that gives those within it a sense of purpose and provides simple answers to complex problems. It can be very attractive. While the world is a complicated place, Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull explain exactly what your role is and what you must do to please God and carry out his will. It provides you with a formula for raising perfect children and upholds order and hierarchy. You know what your role is, what you are to do, and where you are going.

One last point to make is that evangelicals believe essentially the same things as the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, they just don’t take it to the same extreme. Evangelicals believe that husbands are to to be their wives’ spiritual heads, but in practice their marriages are generally fairly egalitarian. Evangelicals believe that children are a blessing, but in moderation. Evangelicals believe that children should receive a godly education, but most of them send their children to public schools. Evangelicals believe that adult unmarried daughters should honor their parents and listen to their advice, but they don’t expect them to always obey it. Evangelicals believe that men and women are different, and that children need their mothers at home, but most evangelical women work outside the home. Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull simply take these beliefs to their natural – and radical – conclusion.

Perhaps now you have a better understanding of the world of Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull and the minds of those within it. While some leave, like me, many stay. I watch my younger sisters echo my parents’ beliefs, speaking of the importance and protection of fatherly authority and planning to eschew birth control entirely, and my heart breaks. In my next installment, I will explain why I left and what you can do to help others in situations like mine.

As Africa’s foremost scholar once noted, “From time to time, there are witch hunting rituals and cleansing to ensure that witches do not terrorize people and that their powers are kept under control.”

Witches and sorcerers are the most hated people in their community. Even to this day there are places and occasions when they are beaten to death by the rest of the people.

So the witch hunt is not a recent development in Africa. Belief in witchcraft constitutes part of the traditional religion and the witch hunt is a form of traditional religious expression. Witch hunting is as old as the belief in witchcraft in Africa. The persecution of alleged witches has been going on in Africa from before its contact with the ‘outside world’ – the West, the East, the advent of colonialism, modern education, Christianity or Islam. Early Christian missionaries regarded witchcraft accusations as a form of African ‘pagan fetish practice’ that would eventually be replaced by the ‘civilizing mission of christianity’. The colonial authorities also tried to eradicate witch hunts. They criminalized witchcraft accusation. They made it a crime for anybody to brand someone a witch or identify himself as a witch or a wizard. This legislation popularly known as the Witchcraft Act was adopted by many African countries after independence.

But the efforts by colonialists and western missionaries to tackle the problem only drove the practice of witchcraft accusation and witch hunting underground, because these measures did not really address the fears and misconceptions that informed the belief in the existence of witches, and the practice of witch hunting.

So, the end of colonialism and the realization of self-rule by African countries opened the political and religious space for people to express themselves. Hence the African region has witnessed an eruption of witchcraft accusation and witch hunting by state and non-state agents including churches. In fact the wave of witch hunting sweeping across many parts of Africa is driven by Christianity.

Witch hunting is a clear indication of political and judicial failure.

In Ivory Coast and Central African Republic, witchcraft was criminalized, and to this day accused persons are sent to jail by judges. In Nigeria, Congo DRC and Central Africa, many children accused of witchcraft are beaten, killed, abandoned or exiled from their homes. They are subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment by pastors, churches and spiritual homes in the name of exorcism. In Malawi, women accused of witchcraft are tortured and maltreated. Some of them are prosecuted, convicted based on hearsay and anecdotal evidence. They are sent to jail for committing ‘imaginary crimes’. At least 50 women are languishing in prisons across Malawi for witchcraft-related offences.

In some parts of Africa, women alleged to be witches who survive attacks by the mob take refuge in camps. Some witch camps currently exist in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso. In Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, women accused of witchcraft are attacked and lynched. In Gambia, at least one thousand alleged witches were arrested and tortured by state security agents following the death of a relation of President Yahya Jammeh who was allegedly killed through witchcraft. In Tanzania, Burundi and Nigeria albinos have been targeted and killed by those who believe their skin can be used to prepare potent magical concoctions. In Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique, those alleged to be witches are persecuted and murdered.

Witch hunting continues to ravage Africa due to lack of political and judicial will to address the problem. Many African governments are perpetrating, aiding or abetting the persecution and cleansing of alleged witches. Many states in Africa continue to turn a blind eye as such atrocities are being perpetrated by non-state agents like churches, witch doctors, mobs, thugs and religious fanatics and the like. Many states are denying that such horrific abuses take place. Actually the authorities do not see anything criminal in witchcraft related abuses because they believe that witchcraft is a potent way of harming somebody and do not want to engage in any form of ‘spiritual warfare’.

Until recently the government in my country has been in denial of the problem. Thanks to the efforts of Stepping Stones Nigeria and its local and international partners, the government of Akwa Ibom outlawed child witch stigmatization. Apart from this recent legislation, in Nigeria, witchcraft accusation is a crime punishable under the law. Still witchcraft accusations abound. Witchcraft accusers and witch hunters like Helen Ukpabio and other evangelical throwbacks get away with their crimes. Despite so many cases of child and adult victims of witch hunts, nobody has been convicted of this offence to date. But it is not all gloom and doom. Efforts are being made by skeptic activists, groups and their partners to address the problem. And those efforts are yielding results. In fact efforts are underway in countries like Nigeria, Benin, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana etc to tackle the cultural scourge.

We are using a three prong strategy to address the problem. First we pressure the governments to stop persecuting alleged witches and wizards (in Gambia), enforce the witchcraft act (in Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi), decriminalize witchcraft (in Central African Republic and Ivory Coast). We also campaign against moves to criminalize witchcraft(Malawi) and lobby the government to protect the rights of victims (Nigeria, Ghana, Congo DRC, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic,Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania etc)

We liaise with local governmental and non-governmental agencies to provide safe spaces for victims. And this includes securing the release of those imprisoned and appealing the court ruling and getting the judgement quashed (Malawi). We also get child victims into shelters where they can receive proper care and support (Nigeria).

We are also embarking on public education programs to get people to realize that witchcraft is a myth or superstition, and that witchcraft lacks any basis in reason, science and common sense. We organise seminars in schools, colleges and universities and distribute awareness materials to people in the markets, parks, and public squares. We try to let people know the role of fiction, fantasy and imagination in human perception, explanation and interpretation of phenomena.

A very vital aspect of our enlightenment campaign is the skeptical challenge. Renowned skeptics like James Randi have used this facility to clip the wings of purveyors of paranormal and superstitious nonsense. We challenge believers or practitioners of witchcraft to provide evidence, proof or demonstration of the alleged powers and claims associated with witchcraft. In Malawi the skeptic activist Geogr Thindwa has challenged all the witch doctors in the country to bewitch him and collect some huge sum of money but nobody has come forward. To those who claim that people can be initiated into the witchcraft coven or guild, we challenge them to initiate us. To those who claim that people can contract witchcraft  through eating biscuits or peanuts, we buy biscuits and openly challenge them to infect us with witchcraft. To those who claim people do turn or can turn to animals and insects we challenge them to prove their magic. In Malawi we challenge those who believe witches fly magic planes at night to show and demonstrate that this so called magic plane can fly one meter above the ground. Unlike the recently invented flying cars which you can actually picture flying, Malawi’s magic planes are always on the ground. We encourage people to question received knowledge and tradition and test claims. We strive to get people to understand the importance of seeking evidence and basing our knowledge, accusations and positions on evidence, demonstrable evidence.

Leo Igwe sent this piece from Canberra in Australia.

Yesterday, Islamic terrorists struck again. They reportedly exploded a bomb at the UN House in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. The blast which shattered some parts of the building killed at least 18 people and injured many others. A local Islamist group, Boko Haram, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Boko Haram is said to have links with al Qaeda and Al Shabab in Somalia. It reportedly recruits militants from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other African countries.

Boko Haram is waging a violent campaign for the strict implementation of sharia. Sharia is already in force in 12 states in Northern Nigeria. In 2000, politicians in Muslim-majority states foisted the Islamic law on citizens in these states in violation of the Nigerian constitution. Many people sentenced under sharia law to death by stoning, including those for amputation or flogging, are languishing in prisons across the region. The initial attempts by Islamic theocrats to enforce this law by amputating the hands of ‘thieves’ and stoning women like Amina Lawal ‘convicted’ of adultery attracted international outrage.

But this militant group (whose name in the local Hausa language means ‘western education is a sin’) claims that the current implementation of the Islamic law is not strict enough. Boko Haram has carried out attacks in many states across Northern Nigeria. In June, Boko Haram used a suicide bombing to kill several people at the Nigerian police headquarters in Abuja. So many Nigerians have lost their lives to gun and bomb attacks by this jihadist group. Most of the gun attacks are carried out in Bornu state in Northern Nigeria. They have been targeting police stations, or any people or institutions critical of their violent campaign. Militants from Boko Haram often use moto bikes to carry out their ‘executions’. With the bikes they track and shoot their targets at a close range and then flee. Often they shoot people on the head and on the chest. There has not been any case of someone whom they shot or attacked who survived. The attacks were so rampant that the government of Bornu state had to ban the use of moto bikes in the state capital, Maiduguri.

The world must come to the aid of Nigeria and help it root out these criminals before it is too late. We need to strive to nip this monster in the bud. The world should not wait and allow Nigeria to go the way of Afghanistan or Pakistan or Algeria before it can intervene. Nigerian authorities lack the political and judicial will to combat Islamic fanaticism in Northern Nigeria. The security agencies lack the intelligence to address the problem.

The violent campaign being waged by Boko Haram has grave implications for peace, stability and development in Nigeria, in West Africa and in Africa as whole. The government and people of Australia and other peace-loving nations should explore ways of helping Nigeria checkmate these merchants of blood, death and destruction.

From the nature of their operations, Boko Haram receives some support, training, intelligence and weapons from abroad. Their operations are international and therefore require an international response now.

Leo Igwe, Melbourne Australia

Suppose you have heard of my book The Closing of the Western Mind, a study of what happened to Greek philosophy at the end of the Roman empire. (Some of it was absorbed into Christianity, some was not). You want to hear more about it. Perhaps you start with Amazon and when you access the US and UK sites you are pleased to find that there are 86 reviews to read. This will surely give you some idea of how the book has been received. Fifty of these 86 are five star and another 22 four star to make 72 four and five star. In contrast there are only six one or two star reviews. Not everyone agrees with the book but, inevitably with a title the way it is, it has caused a great deal of debate. I have been invigorated by the many discussions on the book with all sorts I have had in the nine years since it came out. The North American sales to March 2011 were just under 69, 000 and I would like to write a second edition one day to strengthen my arguments with the fruits of recent research.

Now try Googling ‘Freeman Closing of the Western Mind’ and the first to come up will be a review by one James Hannam, a UK ‘historian of science’. Hannam makes no secret of the fact that he is Christian apologist. (Google ‘James Hannam Why the Catholic Church Must Fight Back’). He wrote a book on the Middle Ages which came out in the UK as God’s Philosophers. Many were taken in by it and it was even shortlisted by the Royal Society for its Book of the Year Award. ( Amazed at this, I wrote a critique on the New Humanist blog.) In the United States God’s Philosophers has found its true niche under the title The Genesis of Science, How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. It is published by the conservative publisher Regnery and listed on Amazon alongside ‘also buys’ such as Rodney Stark’s The Case for the Crusades and a work arguing that Adam and Eve actually did exist. No one would now take it, or Hannam, seriously as an objective history/historian of science.

James Hannam has no background in the ancient world, his PhD is on sixteenth century Oxford and Cambridge (although, in the discussion we had on my New Humanist critique he admitted that had renounced his thesis – sixteenth century humanism was no longer a positive force, as argued in his PHD, but a reactionary one) and his review of Closing is highly misleading. Yet it has remained the top listing for some years. I am a bit of an innocent on these things but when I asked around I was told that one can actually manipulate rankings in one’s favour. But surely one person can not manipulate so blatantly in his own cause? Apparently they can. I was alerted to none other than one James Hannam on the subject. If you go to his blog under the present name Quodlibeta (quick before he gets there before you), find the archive on the right hand side, access a posting for October 3rd, 2006, ‘How to Get Published’, click on the link ‘here’ after ‘book proposal’ you find the book proposal he made to his publisher for Genesis of Science, the title of his book as it has actually appeared in the US. At the end of the proposal one finds:

‘I intend to use my website as a promotional tool for the book. Its penetration into Christian cyberspace is considerable and will do much to sell the book to that market. The website has many American readers who are very positive about the concept of the book. They should help promote it and will write reviews for Amazon.com and their websites. However, I will also construct another website that addresses a mainstream audience specifically to promote The Genesis of Science. As well as the usual links to reviews and endorsements, it will contain several of my articles on history of science, details of my academic achievements and a more detailed bibliography than provided in the book. I will use my contacts on the web to ensure a high Google rating for the new website (this is determined by how many other sites link to a page and so having plenty of friends with websites is invaluable).’

Hannam is clearly an expert at these things and this explains the high rating of his review of Closing. Now he is at it again. If you Google my new book Holy Bones, Holy Dust, How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe, the second entry is from his blog Quodlibeta. If you open it you find that it is no more than a discussion about my book by Hannam and his supporters even though none of them have read it. This does not stop them, of course, being disparaging about it. I was hoping that the Quodlibeta discussion would make the top spot to make my case here even more compelling but, in this case, Google appear to have been more successful. Although I have done nothing to arrange this, my own article on my own book from the New Humanist takes the top spot. The Quodlibeta entry seems forever doomed to be at number two. Hannam is clearly losing his touch! Still with every review of Holy Bones that I get from professional historians, the more ridiculous the Quodlibeta discussion becomes. I hope it stays at or near the top to show how distorted the Google system can become as a means of finding helpful and objective knowledge.

Who knows what other distortions go on?

According to Prof Bolaji Idowu, “In Africa, it is idle to begin with the question whether witches exist or not…To Africans of every category, witchcraft is an urgent reality.” Unfortunately, I don’t know how Idowu came about this idea that it is pointless inquiring into the existence and non existence of witches and wizards. For me, it is not idle to begin with trying to establish the existence of witches or to subject the claims of witchcraft to critical evaluation. It is pertinent to do so in order to understand, tackle and eradicate the problems associated with this irrational belief. It is rather cowardly to avoid the question whether witches exist or not when dealing with issues related to witchcraft. To Africans of my own category, witchcraft is an urgent superstition.

Unfortunately, most texts, studies and reports on witchcraft in Africa avoid evaluating or ascertaining the veracity of witchcraft claims. Last year, UNICEF published a report, Children Accused of Witchcraft: An Anthropological Study of Contemporary Practices in Africa. The objective of the study was to ‘reveal and analyze the diversity and complexity of these phenomena – often falsely associated with ‘African tradition’- related to beliefs in witchcraft and the “mystical” world.’ The document carefully avoided doing a critical evaluation of claims or accusations associated with witchcraft. The study did not come out with a position statement as to whether witches exist or not or whether claims associated with witchcraft are true or false. This report did not do justice to the topic and phenomenon of witchcraft accusation because it did not provide answers to questions that have been boggling the minds of Africans for ages, such as: Is witchcraft science or superstition? Is witchcraft myth or reality? Do witches actually exist or are they imaginary entities? The report could not let us know if indeed human beings can bewitch one another as most Africans believe.

So the belief in witchcraft is strong and widespread in Africa. The witchcraft mentality is dominant and informs popular thought, understanding and interpretation of phenomena. Traditionally, African people attribute anything they do not understand (or do not want to understand), any incident or occurrence they cannot explain, to witchcraft. Also people attribute to witchcraft issues or ‘forces’ for which they are not contented with their rational or commonsensical explanations.

But the belief in witchcraft is not peculiar to Africans. Many people in Africa often make this mistake of thinking that witchcraft is ‘original’ to them. From the Skeptic (Australia), I understand that 22% of Australians still believe in witches. I don’t know if they believe in witches the same way Africans do. But whatever the case, the belief in witchcraft is found in other cultures of the world. Witch hunts ended in Europe and America a few centuries ago. Witchcraft is not African science as many pseudo-intellectuals in Africa tend to think and propagate.

Human beings in their primitive quest to explain and understand nature – to explain and understand their experiences – came up with the idea of magic, magical thinking, mystical forces and magical causes and explanation of phenomena to fill in the void created by fear and ignorance. They invented witches, wizards, spirits, gods, angels, demons and other ‘mystical’ entities which they imagined were responsible for their problems and predicaments, for the evils and misfortune they encountered in life.

In the case of witchcraft, this is how Bolaji Idowu explains the connection between the ‘imagined’ witches and wizards and real human beings, the belief is that “the spirits of living human beings can be sent out of the body on errands of doing havoc to other persons in body, mind or estate; that witches have guilds or operate singly, and that the spirits sent out of the human body in this way can act either invisibly or through lower creature-animal or a bird”. In Africa, there is a strong belief that human beings can turn to animals or insects mostly at night to perpetrate evil.

In Nigeria, most people believe witches can turn into any nocturnal animals or insects particularly cats, ants, rats, bats or butterflies. In Gambia the belief is that witches can take the form of an owl at night. So when people see such animals or insects particularly at night or in strange dark corners they tend to think they are witches on a mission – a mission to kill, destroy or harm. And people kill such animals or insects instantly. Killing is believed to be a way to destroy and disable a witch. So in Africa witch hunters do not target only human beings, they also target our wild life – animals, insects, forests and trees.

In Senegal, they believe witches live inside the pawpaw fruit. The belief is that witches use it as their operational base at night. In Malawi, the belief is that witches travel at night in ‘magic planes’ which could crash if it develops some magical fault. The belief is that witches use these planes to convey children to distant places where they are initiated or taught the art of witchery. In Burkina Faso, people believe that witches travel to eat the flesh and ‘souls’ of people or drink their blood. Hence they call witches ‘soul eaters’- mangeuses d’âmes.

Also human beings have in their quest for meaning and to control nature invested with metaphysical significance certain practices like ritual sacrifice. Ritual sacrifice involves killing of animals and sometimes human beings and using their body parts to prepare some concoctions or perform some ceremony to placate or sway the so called supernatural forces. Humans have invested certain objects, processes and artifacts with magical potency which they believe can alter people’s fortune in ways that cannot be confirmed or explained using reason, science or common sense.

In some cases Africans associate certain traits or behavior like stubbornness, talking in one’s dreams, sleep walking, aging, albinism, soliloquy, hallucination and uttering meaningless syllables even when it is as a result of some psychiatric problem or self deceit, with magical powers. The general belief is that the veracity or validity of witchcraft claims is beyond the scope of ‘western’ science but within the ambit of ‘African science’. This misconception is common among the so called African elite and is at the root of the problems associated with belief in witchcraft in the region.

The civilized world has largely abandoned the witchcraft mentality and witchcraft model of explanation of phenomena. Science has provided us cures to diseases, explanations and sometimes solutions to problems which Africans hitherto attributed to mystical and magical forces of witchcraft. Technology has enabled humans to invent and innovate devices and crafts that surpass the ‘witch crafts’.

But most Africans still hold tenaciously to this irrational belief and harmful practices. Millions of people continue to suffer and die as a result of witchcraft accusation and related injustices.

Witchcraft accusations occur in the course of identifying those persons suspected to be possessing magical powers and wreaking havoc with them or those who leave their bodies to go on errands, cause havoc, travel by magic planes or go out to eat the ‘souls’ and drink the blood of others. People can suspect anyone of engaging in witchcraft, it is mostly vulnerable members of the population who are openly accused, confronted and persecuted. In Malawi women with grey hairs and red eyes are branded witches. Old women, particularly those who are childless, are often accused of witchcraft in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Tanzania. In Congo DRC, Nigeria, Angola, Central Africa Republic, children are branded witches and wizards. Witchcraft accusation is a social poison. Witchcraft accusation is a silent killer in Africa. Witchcraft accusation is the beginning of a process that leads to torture, persecution, maltreatment and, sometimes, death of the accused.

Leo Igwe sent this piece from Australia

Here is the promised dialogue. The subject is sexist epithets: how bad are they, are some worse than others, if they are bad then in what way are they bad, does it really matter, is it reasonable to think they are a bad thing, if so why?

James Sweet

I have accepted Ophelia’s challenge. Am I qualified? I am a male, and this is my real name. I do fancy myself a liberal, and would like to think of myself as a feminist, to the extent that men can be. So: how do I feel about sexist epithets?

Well, they’re bad. Usually. But like so many words, the degree to which that applies varies depending on context and intent. I don’t like the idea of any word being completely taboo. And while I think avoiding sexist epithets in most contexts is simply “the right thing to do” most of the time, I am skeptical of the social constructivist notion that it has a significant effect on reinforcing the undeniably huge institutional biases that persist against women.

I’m not fond of ERV’s infamous “Twatson” slur. Elevatorgate is a tricky issue for feminism in our community already, and to insert an inflammatory sexual insult into the discussion seems to me to be counter-productive at best. Then again, the ERV blog has a humorous, irreverent, youthful tone to it. ERV’s shtick is to blend serious topics like politics and gene research with the unfiltered language of youth culture. And I hate to break it to you, but the kids are still saying pretty much whatever they want whenever they feel like it.

Humor is how we explore the ugliest and nastiest parts of the human experience without completely losing our will to live in the process. We laugh so we don’t constantly cry. The slur against Watson wasn’t all that funny, in my opinion, and probably hurt the quality of the debate. But it’s not going to stop me from reading her blog, nor do I think it disqualifies her from being a feminist. I say, let her know some of us feel that sort of language is damaging, and move on. Hey, maybe someday she’ll even change her mind!

Ophelia Benson

It’s true that ERV specializes in a rowdy, funny, raunchy, say-it-all style, which is one that I like a lot when it’s well done (and Abbie Smith does it well). But that doesn’t commit me to liking everything of that kind, much less to thinking everything of that kind is good. (Good in what sense? For the purposes of this discussion: not harmful, not worrying, not inimical to certain liberal values, not politically dubious.)

I never, for instance, liked “Mooneytits and Cockenbaum” as nicknames for Mooney and Kirshenbaum, and I never used it. I thought it was gratuitously sexist. A commenter at ERV coined it but ERV adopted it and then adapted it to “Tittycocks” – which, again, is just gratuitously sexist all around. Why tits? Why cock? No reason, except mockery. I like quality mockery, but not mere abuse. A humorous, irreverent, youthful tone can turn into a nasty bullying one all too easily.

The oddity that this kind of mockery reveals is that some kinds of epithets and nicknames are acceptable while others – even to raunchy say-it-all types – are not. “Bitch” and “cunt” are considered edgy and funny while “nigger” and “kike” are not. People who would never use racial epithets are happy to talk about bitches. Why is that? What is the difference? Racism is taken seriously while sexism is not; why is that?

James Sweet

Jane, you ignorant slut.

Though Jane Curtin’s character gets laughs with “pompous ass” every time, that one famous line from the classic recurring SNL skit is what everybody remembers. Curtin’s character’s behavior is unexpected and defies the audience’s expectations, thereby tickling their funny bone; but it’s not until Akroyd’s character lets loose with what Ophelia has been calling an “identity epithet” that social convention is shattered and the audience becomes truly affected. The bit also works because it’s pulled off with excellent comedic timing, and even tries to actually say something of value — in this case about the escalating incivility in television debate shows (if Curtin’s opening remarks seem tame, remember they didn’t have Fox News in the late ’70s). But still, the SNL bit simply could not have worked if it weren’t so deliciously offensive.

Unfortunately for purposes of debate, I have to agree with you that “Twatson” and “Tittycocks” are just not all that funny. But I guess for me the fact that erv was at least nominally trying to be funny makes me less inclined to get bent out of shape about it. I felt similarly when some commenters at Ed Brayton’s Dispatches blog started using a pun on Orly Taitz’s name which seemed to me to be not very funny and that held misogynist overtones: I avoided using the epithet myself, but I pretty much ignored it when others did because I know there was no misogynist intention, and as stated earlier I am skeptical about the magnitude of the sociological impact.

I would very much like to explore the parallel with racial epithets, continuing this idea of funny vs. trying-and-failing-to-be-funny, but alas I am rapidly closing in on my allotted word count already. That potential powderkeg will have to wait until the next round.

Ophelia Benson

But was ERV trying to be funny, even nominally? That is, was she (even nominally) trying to be funny and nothing else? Were the commenters at ERV trying to be funny and nothing else? If I had thought that, I don’t think I would have gotten bent out of shape about it either. I wouldn’t have admired it, but I could have ignored it.

The reason epithets are fraught is that they express hostility, not to say rage and hatred. Of course there’s a jokey element to the torrent of insults at ERV, but it’s only an element. It’s combined with truly virulent anger and loathing – and not all of it has even an element of joking.

I wonder how and if the ERV discussion (to give it that honorific) would have been different if Rebecca Watson were black as well as female. I wonder if that would have inhibited some of the sexist epithets, and I wonder if there would have been an equivalent barrage of racist epithets. We can’t know, but my guess is that there wouldn’t.

Let’s treat the guess as right for purposes of argument. Why would that be? Why are racist epithets more taboo than sexist epithets? Why is racism taken with the utmost seriousness while sexism is often treated as a joke?

I don’t know the answer, but I suspect and fear that it boils down to Phil Molé’s point in “The Invisibility of Misogyny”:

It’s not just the fact that misogyny is invisible that we need to face – it’s also the fact that this invisibility is a large part of what makes it the enormous problem it is. We cannot begin to properly address misogyny and the harm it causes unless we start being able to see it.

James Sweet

I might flippantly reply that, no, of course if Watson were African-American there would be no racial epithets punned into her name, because there are no racial slurs (that I am aware of, at least) which rhyme with Watson. But I suppose that’s a cop-out.

There’s a short sketch in the cult classic Kentucky Fried Movie where the punchline is a white guy screaming “nigger” at a half-dozen black men. I thought it was edgy and funny and not at all racist. Michael Richards’ notorious rant was not so funny, but I also don’t think it was particularly racist, or at least not intended to be so. Richards practices a caustic brand of hate-the-audience comedy, and I’m sure in his mind he was merely extending that paradigm. I daresay it almost worked on that level, if it hadn’t left such an awful taste.

But these are both a far cry from the pun on Watson’s name. Using an epithet to target a specific individual raises the bar of acceptability even higher; I get that. Even still, I might point to this example of racial stereotypes being used to attack a specific individual — I suspect most readers of B&W would find that both acceptable and hilarious. I don’t mean this to be a direct parallel, but rather to show that, at least in principle, language that would be blatantly racist in one context can, in the context of humorous criticism, become indispensable.

Though it will once again disappoint those hoping for a genuine opponent, I must concede that overt sexism is still tolerated far more than racism, both in comedy and in serious discourse.  As to how best to change that, I’d rather focus on gradual consciousness-raising, rather than making a scandal out of one instance.

I prefer this not only for tactical reasons, but also because it’s ultimately a judgment call.  We both agree “Twatson” crossed the line, but we might find other examples where we disagree.  Perhaps some would say the Michael Steele bit crossed the line.  I just can’t bring myself to do more than issue a simple, “I think that’s in bad taste,” and then move on.

Ophelia Benson

Gradual consciousness-raising and making a scandal out of – or, to put it another way, taking a close look at – one instance are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact they’re more synergistic than exclusive. Taking a close look at particular instances is one way of raising consciousness.

Arguably that’s part of what we’ve been doing throughout this broader discussion (meaning the one at B&W and elsewhere, not just this exchange). I think some people have said they’ve modified their thinking as a result of the discussion; that would be another word for consciousness-raising. (No doubt some have modified their thinking in what I would consider the wrong direction; is that consciousness-lowering? Well, if it’s convinced them that they should do more and nastier epithet-mongering, I would say yes. If it’s a matter of heightened attention, whatever the outcome, I might say no.)

Taking a close look at habits and customs and ways of talking is what consciousness-raising was always about. That’s not really the same thing as making a scandal of something. It can lapse into that, no doubt; it can become just some kind of Higher Gossip; but anything can become anything. Part of the point of setting up a Nuanced Discussion was to try to get away from the scandal/gossip aspect.

At any rate, a disadvantage of gradual consciousness-raising is that it doesn’t always happen, that is, movement is not always inexorably upward or forward. In some ways feminism has lost ground recently, or rather, feminism has always been losing ground in some places while it gains some in others. It’s never been and isn’t now on some unstoppable glide path to perfection. We (those of us who think it’s a good thing) have to keep nudging it along, in a variety of ways.

Corwin Sullivan

Thanks for inviting me to step in at this point. My perspective on “sexist epithets” (a term I don’t especially like, but will stick with for now) is that they’re loaded with much less inherent sexism than you and many others have been arguing. They can certainly be easily used to express misogynistic opinions, but then so can “woman” when said with the right scornful emphasis. Tone and context are everything.

Taking up arms against words like “bitch” and “cunt” is in my opinion a simplistic, knee-jerk way to combat sexist attitudes. Even if you win that battle, you may be left with a bunch of embittered sexists who have changed their vocabulary but not their thinking. There’s also collateral damage, because many of those same epithets are punchy, expressive words that come in handy sometimes and can be used in basically non-sexist ways. The English language could get along without them, but they add spice and colour.

Finally, and to address something that came up earlier, I actually do think there are good reasons why sexist epithets tend to be perceived as less serious than racial ones. The main one is the point that Ken Pidcock made in comment #34: racial epithets are more likely to be perceived as attacking the whole group, rather than one individual. Call a man a “nigger”, and you’re saying that you despise him just for belonging to a group you hold in contempt. Call a woman a “cunt”, and you’re saying that you despise her specifically. Some of the vitriol directed at her may splash over and end up spattering womankind in general, but in my view this effect is both secondary and very context-dependent. Would you agree?

P.S. Apparently my spell-checker doesn’t even recognise “cunt” as a word. It’s a feminist conspiracy!

Ophelia Benson

I don’t think I’ve been arguing that sexist epithets are loaded with inherent sexism. If I have I take it back. I’ve meant to be arguing that they’re loaded with contingent sexism (and that they’re just loaded – but still contingently). I don’t think there’s anything magic about the arrangement of the letters n, u, t, c in a particular order that causes them to radiate sexism; I just think that in this world at this time the word is sexist (with possible exceptions for regional variation), just as in this world at this time some words are racist, when used as epithets. I agree (of course) that tone and context are highly relevant – lovers can use the words very differently; so can friends. (On the other hand if they use them around other people, things become less simple – but tone and context matter there, too.)

I think the embittered sexists who have changed their vocabulary but not their thinking are an unlikely scenario, because in fact they won’t change their vocabulary unless they change their thinking. They won’t change their vocabulary unless they become persuaded that, at least, the antagonism isn’t worth it. That’s a start.

Many of the epithets add spice to the language – but I’m not talking about dozens of words here! I’m talking about three or four, really – cunt, bitch, twat, and maybe pussy. Do we feel as if the language is bland and spiceless in the absence of “nigger”? I doubt it. Mind you, “bitch” does have a lot of uses…but I’m hitting the word limit.

I don’t agree with your last claim, and even if you are right about it, that just re-states the same question over again – why does “nigger” name a group while “cunt” names a particular individual? I don’t think that’s the case, and if it is, why is it?

James Sweet

I agree with Corwin that at least some uses of what we have been calling “sexist epithets” are not inherently sexist, nor do they even carry the “contingent sexism” that Ophelia refers to. The classic example for me is the use of the verb “to bitch” as in “to complain excessively”. While the colloquialism clearly has misogynist origins, the modern perception of it is so divorced from its etymology that I see no problem with it. I’ve made a personal decision to avoid it, but I have absolutely zero problem with somebody using that particular “sexist epithet” in that manner.

“Bitch” as a noun for a mean or vindictive female is more problematic, as is using “pussy” to indicate weakness. “Bitch” is disproportionately applied to women, and “pussy” to men, which indicates that our contemporary sensibilities about the words’ meanings are still deeply intertwined with their gender-relevant origins.

The words “twat” and “cunt” present a conundrum. If one were willing to completely ignore cultural context, one might convincingly argue that it was no different than calling someone a “dick”. However, my feeling is that within a cultural context where female sexuality is too often seen as something nasty and sinful, in dire need of being repressed (compare the respective connotations of the words “slut” and “stud”), using a word for the female genitalia as an insult is treading into dangerous territory.

On the flip side, I wonder at times if by avoiding these words we are inadvertently reinforcing that same negative image of female sexuality. “Oh, you can’t call somebody a ‘cunt’, that’s dirty.” I suppose this is why I have adopted such an ambivalent stance: Each individual use of “cunt” as an insult probably contributes to negative attitudes, yet paradoxically, strictly avoiding these words altogether may be even worse.

Corwin Sullivan

To some extent, embittered, vocabulary-conscious forms of misogyny are already with us. Just take a look at Angry Harry, a website that avoids those dreaded epithets but features articles with titles like “Feminism causes traffic congestion” (he’s not kidding, either). Equally, do you really think that Abbie Smith is misogynistic? One can’t tell misogynists from non-misogynists simply by keeping track of who likes to toss around words like “cunt” and “bitch”. Policing language in that superficial sense is no substitute for taking the time to understand what people are actually saying.

Returning to the distinction between “nigger” and “cunt”, I think they simply evolved differently and have non-analogous meanings. “Nigger” just means “black person”, with a strong connotation of hostility and contempt. The difference between “black person” and “nigger” is not unlike the difference between “sex worker” and “whore” – the alternative terms refer to exactly the same set of people, but one is a neutral descriptor whereas the other conveys loathing for everyone falling in that set. “Cunt”, as an insult, doesn’t just mean “woman” – it means a particularly bad woman, a woman whose behaviour or persona is somehow deeply objectionable. Or actually, it means a bad person, considering that “cunt” is quite often directed at men. It fits women better, and seems more forceful when directed at a woman, but is that really enough to make it a sexist word?

James:

The comparison between “cunt” and “dick” is interesting. In my experience, “cunt” is normally seen as a more serious insult, and I think this has to do with negative perceptions of female sexuality (and, conversely, a traditional sense that referring to the naughty bits of women somehow violates their purity). I agree that scrupulous avoidance of “cunt” might have the effect of reinforcing those perceptions.

Ophelia Benson

Again, “tossing around” words like “cunt” and “bitch” is one thing, because as you said, context matters. But as I said, epithets of that kind used in anger are a pretty good index of misogyny. Of course policing epithets is no substitute for understanding what people are saying, but that’s a false dichotomy; one can do both, and if people are using epithets, one may well have to.

Nigger hasn’t always had a strong connotation of hostility and contempt, actually. It used to be just the word for black person. Of course, it was the word for black person in a world where hostility and contempt for black people were simply normal. That’s why the connotation of hostility and contempt became more obvious as that world shrank and went on the defensive. It was no longer just normal to use a dismissive slang word for black people. To the angriest misogynists, all women are bitches or cunts, and that’s why the words have the aura of hatred that they do.

I think James is probably right about total avoidance. Corwin told me of an amusing use of “cunt” by a woman he knows (I hope he doesn’t mind if I steal it): she called the uncomfortable seat of her bike a cunt-buster. If women can reclaim the word that way, that’s good. No one uses “female genitalia” as an epithet, and various slang words have been adapted and adopted over time; maybe current epithets will be future nicknames. Fine. It’s just that we’re not there yet.

Corwin Sullivan

I think it’s time for a couple of partial concessions. First, I accept that there probably are some men out there who think of all women as bitches and cunts, and that when used in this sense the words function a lot like “nigger”. However, I’ve never heard anyone talk like this, and I suspect it’s an extremely rare mindset – limited, as you say, to the angriest misogynists. I’d rather not let the snarlings of such people influence how the rest of us express ourselves.

My second partial concession is that I agree that frequent use of “bitch” and “cunt” in anger should be a bit of a red flag. The hypothesis that someone who did this was a misogynist would deserve careful consideration. But before declaring the hypothesis proven (or adequately tested and not rejected, for any Popperians out there), I would want to look at the specifics of how the person was using those words, and at other aspects of his behaviour towards women. More to the point, I wouldn’t consider occasional use of those words to describe women who really were being horrible to be an indicator of misogyny at all.

The upshot is that I don’t think it serves any sensible purpose to toss the words we’re talking about in a box labelled “sexist epithets – never use as insults”. Maybe a box labelled “gendered epithets – use with some care” would be reasonable. “Bitch” and “cunt” are gendered in the sense that they refer literally to a female animal and a female body part, and function differently depending on whether they’re directed at a woman or a man. But no matter how hard I try to see actual sexism in calling, say, Lady MacBeth a cunt, I just can’t come up with anything convincing. Can you?

Ophelia Benson

I don’t think it’s possible to prove that any particular person is a misogynist, or that that’s what’s required to make a convincing case for the badness of using sexist epithets. It’s also not really the point; the point is more that the use of the worst sexist epithets scatters misogyny around, the way a wet dog scatters drops around when it shakes itself. That’s the work that epithets do – they spread hatred or contempt or both from person to person or to group.

I can’t prove this either, but it seems to me to be something that belongs on the shelf labeled “common knowledge.” Of course what we think is common knowledge can often be wrong, and part of the point of this discussion is to question exactly this common knowledge – but to me it’s still a strain on credulity to think that epithets don’t work that way. Explain it to me. Explain why epithets don’t do what most people think they do.

Isn’t that why parents try to teach children not to use them? Isn’t that why adults don’t use them in various formal or professional contexts? Of course epithets can always be used ironically among friends, but when they are used “sincerely” – when they are meant, then their point is to express contempt.

I don’t know if I can come up with anything more convincing than what I’ve already said, to convince you that calling Lady Macbeth a cunt would be sexist. I think it’s just a matter of how the word is used at this particular moment in time: it’s used as a dire insult; it’s the harshest name one can call a woman; it refers to the female genitalia. I have a hard time seeing how, given all that, it could be anything but sexist.

Corwin Sullivan

You seem to be agreeing that ironic use of epithets among friends is pretty much okay. Is that really your position? One implication, I would think, is that if enough groups of friends start doing this then ironic use of epithets will become pretty much okay in society at large (in the kinds of informal settings where one might currently say “piss” or “damn”). The UK may already be there, at least with “cunt” among younger people.

That leaves us with non-ironic use of epithets as insults, which is of course the hardest case from my point of view. It’s probably worth talking at this point about what properties, specifically, would make an epithet sexist. In my opinion, a sexist epithet is one conveying the idea that one sex is somehow inferior to the other.

I may return next time to Lady Macbeth (I apologise for inserting an unwarranted capital B into her name in my last post), but for now I’d like to propose a rough two-dimensional framework for thinking about insulting words in the context of this discussion. One dimension is severity, and the other is level of sexism. “Blockhead” would score low on both, since it’s a mild insult that can’t be taken to refer to either sex. “Shithead” is at least somewhat higher on the severity axis, but still non-sexist. I would put “chicks” high on group offensiveness, since it’s a mildly disparaging synonym for women in general (or maybe young women, but not women who behave in some particular way). However, it’s low on the severity scale.

I would definitely put “cunt” way above “prick” on severity, but I would put both rather low on sexism. You’ll have to guess my reasons (and you probably can), since I’m out of words.

Ophelia Benson

Yes, that’s really my position. Yes, I think that could happen, and that would be a good thing. It could happen that “cunt” became an endearment generally, as opposed to in private, and then it would become pretty useless as an epithet, so it wouldn’t be used as one any more, and that would be a good thing. The UK isn’t there yet as far as I know, because the epithet use hasn’t been rendered feeble.

It doesn’t seem very likely that that will happen though, because people who like the epithet-use will keep it alive.

I have a different idea of what sexist means, which is that it draws on an existing and entrenched idea that one sex is indeed inferior to the other. I think your “somehow inferior to the other” is interesting, because it’s surely not a secret “how” women are seen as inferior to men, is it? Women are supposed to be stupider, weaker, more passive and manipulative, less ambitious and talented, and so on.

I think we agree on the severity dimension, so that leaves the sexism one. It’s tricky apportioning sexism because it makes a difference that only one sex is generally, historically, semi-officially considered inferior. In a sense “prick” and “putz” and the rest are sexist, but in another sense they’re really not; they’re more like epithetty (to coin an adjective). “Cunt” doesn’t work like that. In another world it could, but in this one it doesn’t. Maybe some day in the future it will, but at this time it doesn’t.

Corwin Sullivan

The comparison between “prick” and “cunt” may deserve more exploration. I’ve always thought of the two words as working in approximately the same way, though with different degrees of potency. They both literally refer to sex organs, and when used as insults they accuse a person of being unpleasant, even destructive. Hurled angrily, they work better against one gender than another, although I would argue that “prick” is the more sex-specific of the two. When did you last hear a woman called a “prick”? I wouldn’t dispute that “cunt” acquires a little extra force when used against a woman as opposed to a man, or that calling a woman a “cunt” is a much nastier insult than calling a man a “prick”.

But why exactly is “cunt” the nastier of the two words? I’m sure there’s something to your insight that “cunt” draws on an entrenched (though hopefully fading) idea that women are inferior. However, I don’t think this does more than add a small amount of sting. Surely the idea of female inferiority is fading. More to the point, I don’t think “cunt” really references weakness, stupidity, manipulativeness, or any of the other stereotypically female qualities that you mentioned. I connect it more with behaviour that is simply unpleasant and damaging. I think a bigger reason that “cunt” is nastier than “prick” is that female body parts are seen as more taboo than male ones, which in turn has more to do with female purity than female inferiority.

The reason I suggested that a sexist epithet would have to imply that one sex was “somehow inferior” is that I wouldn’t call a word genuinely sexist unless it had connotations pointing to some inferior quality. The word “chick”, as I’ve always understood it, does this job by carrying a mild implication that women are not worth taking seriously (a classic stereotype). “Cunt” just implies that someone is being a real pain in the neck, and lord knows that men and women can both do this perfectly well.

Ophelia Benson

Ah, why indeed. I wonder, actually (and some expertise would be useful here) if “putz” is closer to the nasty-value of “cunt” than “prick” is. I had always thought it was interchangeable with “schmuck,” but I read somewhere fairly recently that “putz” is considered vastly worse – which promptly made me wonder how many times I had inadvertently used a much harsher insult than I had intended to. (Probably not all that often; I don’t get out much.) Maybe English just doesn’t happen to have a putz-equivalent while Yiddish does, in which case maybe the disparity is just random and there is no “why.” That would be consoling, in a way.

I wouldn’t say that the idea of female inferiority is exactly fading though. It’s losing territory, but not fading – where it still rules, it’s virulent. It’s probably more virulent now than in the past, because feminism really pisses people off if they already hate women anyway.

You could be right about female body parts, which could have as much to do with anatomy as it does with ideas about purity – vagina dentata, fishy smells, all that. An outy is less scary than an inny.

“A real pain in the neck” isn’t right, surely. It’s much worse than that. It’s not an irritation-word, it’s a hatred-word, a rage-word. And I think it is sexist, probably because women aren’t allowed to be that kind of bad. There’s something about the combination of being physically smaller and weaker and being the-cunt-kind-of-bad that is worse – more disgusting, more engraging – than a man being that kind of bad. Women like that are figures of horror – literature is full of them: Clytemnestra, Medea, Lady Macbeth as you mentioned, the evil stepmothers of fairy tale. They’re seen as sinister in a way that men seldom are, no matter what their crimes.

Corwin Sullivan

Your point about women not being “allowed to be that kind of bad” is really interesting. A lot of people seem to experience some dissonance when thinking about a Medea or a Lady Macbeth, but does it really arise just because women tend to be physically smaller and weaker? Or does it also have something to do with a traditional view of women as weak and passive, but also virtuous? We’ve looked at the notion of “sexist epithets” from several different angles now, and I keep coming back to the idea that they interact with gender in ways that are much more complicated than tapping into some straightforward notion of female inferiority.

This complexity is a big part of my reason for not wanting to just dump those words into a “do not use” box. Taking them away from misogynists also takes them away from people who may want to deploy them in more interesting and nuanced ways, and I would consider that to be an unacceptable level of collateral damage.

More broadly, however, I would suggest that railing against the use of any supposedly offensive word entails attacking the symptom rather than the disease. Complaining about the vocabulary used to express an idea becomes a distraction from confronting the idea itself, and also leads to pointless arguments with people who simply don’t appreciate constantly being told to watch their language.

The other problem with trying to make a word taboo is that it unavoidably helps to invest that word with power. We’ve been talking about why “cunt” is perceived as being worse than “prick”, and I think we’ve come up with a couple of good reasons. But maybe “cunt” is a more potent insult partly because, well, people get more upset about it.

Let me close by saying that I’ve found this to be a fun and thought-provoking discussion. Thanks for inviting me to participate.

Ophelia Benson

No, I don’t think the dissonance arises just because women are on average smaller and weaker; I think it’s complicated, and that there are a number of reasons. Women are the mothering sex, so hardness, coldness, anger, aggression all seem more threatening in women. There’s also the familiar sexual ambivalence – women who say no are bitches, women who say yes are whores; in short, lose-lose. We both think it’s complicated.

I haven’t actually said “never say ‘cunt’ no matter what” – I’ve said “don’t use sexist epithets.” I think that leaves plenty of room to use the words in more interesting and nuanced ways.

I partly agree with you about taboo and power; I think that has happened to me to some extent just because of this discussion. On the other hand, I think that has not happened socially with “bitch” despite years of trying to “reclaim” it; it seems to be more harsh than it was, not less.

I too have found this both fun and interesting. Thank you and James very much for participating.