In Liberia, a senate committee is currently debating a proposal to tighten laws banning same-sex relationships.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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The majority has spoken
A historian named Timothy Messer-Kruse has been doing research on the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886 for the past ten years. He was prompted by a student question about the orthodox version of the trial, which was that the prosecution did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing.
One of my students raised her hand: “If the trial went on for six weeks and no evidence was presented, what did they talk about all those days?” I’ve been working to answer her question ever since.
I have not resolved all the mysteries that surround the bombing, but I have dug deeply enough to be sure that the claim that the trial was bereft of evidence is flatly wrong. One hundred and eighteen witnesses were called to testify, many of them unindicted co-conspirators who detailed secret meetings where plans to attack police stations were mapped out, coded messages were placed in radical newspapers, and bombs were assembled in one of the defendants’ rooms.
So “no evidence” turns out to mean the testimony of 118 witnesses. I’m reminded of theists like Nick Peters who claim that Dawkins simply makes assertions about theism, without defending them, when in fact there’s a whole thick book that defends them.
One day Messer-Kruse read the Wikipedia entry on Haymarket and found it repeating the orthodox version, so he made a correction.
I removed the line about there being “no evidence” and provided a full explanation in Wikipedia’s behind-the-scenes editing log. Within minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: “You must provide reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines to the article.”
That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site’s “undue weight” policy, which states that “articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views.” He then scolded me. “You should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to replace it with a minority view.”
There is something fascinating about that. I do get the reason – there are always going to be more cranks and monomaniacs wanting to publish their “original research” than there are genuine historians and people who know how to do original research, so Wikipedia errs on the side of caution – but it does mean that mistaken conventional wisdom trumps accurate new research.
The “undue weight” policy posed a problem. Scholars have been publishing the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries.
“Explain to me, then, how a ‘minority’ source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong ‘majority’ one?” I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, “You’re more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that’s what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia’s civility policy.”
I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my citations to the primary documents were insufficient, as Wikipedia requires its contributors to rely on secondary sources, or, as my critic informed me, “published books.” Another editor cheerfully tutored me in what this means: “Wikipedia is not ‘truth,’ Wikipedia is ‘verifiability’ of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that.”
Again, you can understand the reasoning – not everyone knows how to use primary sources, and academic secondary sources have been peer-reviewed. The result however is that what you get at Wikipedia is the existing conventional wisdom, and not the new research that corrects or expands it. We knew that, but the example is interesting.
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Andrew Copson on humanist education
Humanists in education have prioritised the development of critical thinking and a rational spirit for its social consequences in the formation of democratic citizens.
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Wikipedia and “the majority of sources”
The conventional wisdom, however wrong, always trumps a correction, however well documented.
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The Taliban is determined to stop Fawzia Koofi
She intends to stand in the presidential election. The Taliban would rather she didn’t. And so they shoot at her and her family.
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Oh they’re all like that
Mark Jones has an excellent post on Julian’s tone piece.
A snippet:
As often when it comes to this sort of accusation, no evidence is linked to support Baggini’s position. To be clear, I don’t doubt that the occasional atheist might make a tone-deaf pronouncement. I object that atheists are characterised as a group with this clumsy stereotype, and I object that the four horsemen, and gnus, are too.)
Yep. Atheists are this, the new atheists are that, the online atheists are the other. And as for the new online atheist bloggers – ! No stereotype can be too stale or too general or too wild for them. They must be destroyed.
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Will he never arrive?
Via Eric – more of Julian’s interminable Heathen’s Progress. This one is about tone: not just the tone that “new atheists” use but the allegation that they (we) are tone deaf to religion. Religion is comparable to poetry and pop music. Some people don’t “get” poetry, or pop music, or both. They can’t say anything interesting about either one, because they don’t get them. They’re tone deaf to them. It’s the same with religion.
Right, except that it isn’t. Poetry doesn’t tell everyone what to do. Poetry doesn’t have a billion or more “members” or “believers” or other kinds of belongers. Poetry doesn’t have dogma. Poetry doesn’t have a single “sacred” book that many believers take as god-inspired or god-made, and authoritative, and not-to-be-disobeyed. Poetry doesn’t treat rules invented by a few pastoral men 3 thousand years ago as binding on all of humanity still and forever.
I could go on. I could go on, but you get the idea. It’s all very well, all this “yes but you’re missing the music” line of chat, but religion makes claims on us, huge claims, and that makes mollifying talk about its music 1) beside the point and 2) a dangerous side-track.
But anyway it’s bullshit. It’s like saying that religion is like everything good that humans do – art and sport and wonder and imagination – and that therefore atheists should just stop being atheist in public or else art and sport and wonder and imagination will disappear!!1!
…to say that an abrasive tone is not constructive is to say more than something about a person’s manner of speech. It’s not constructive because it is rooted in a one-dimensional understanding of the phenomenon under discussion. Atheistic tone-deafness misses many of the things I’ve talked about in this series, such as placing mystery at the heart of life, and living with the aid of beneficial rituals and practices. The abrasiveness is not some kind of independent, wilful rudeness that could be smoothed over while keeping the message intact. We talk about people who are rude as being ignorant and more often than not, when someone comes over as too hostile to religion, ignorance is at the root of it, not simply an absence of good manners.
What’s at the root of it when someone comes across as too friendly to religion? What’s at the root of Julian’s tortured back-and-forth yes-but friendliness to religion? I don’t know; I leave it to your artful speculation.
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What price the golden rule eh?
Another truculent Christian who plans to go to the Reason Rally in order to interfere with other people’s event.
Richard Dawkins will be one of the main speakers, which tells us about all we need to know. Richard Dawkins of course is the leading horseman of the new atheism with his book “The God Delusion.” This book has practically become a Bible for most online atheists today with a new fundamentalism that says “Richard says it! I believe it! That settles it!” Dawkins has spoken. The case is closed.
Never mind that Dawkins has ran with his tail between his legs from William Lane Craig and most recently has done so from a clergyman who interviewed him. In reality, most of us who are in the field of Christian apologetics would love a chance to debate the horseman.
Yes of course they would! It would be great for them. For Dawkins, not so much; he’s a busy fella with a lot to do, so he chooses how he spends his time. For him it makes a good deal more sense to debate the archbishop of Canterbury than it does to debate Craig. That’s not “running” (much less with tail between legs), it’s allocating time wisely.
Dawkins proclaims himself as a champion of science and reason, as if not believing in God automatically means you are a person of reason. Obviously anyone who is a Christian or a believer in any sort of deity has sold themselves out to delusion and abandoned reason. This assertion is not defended. It is just asserted.
That’s just a falsehood. Of course the assertion is defended; it’s defended in a book and many articles, talks, debates, and the like. Nick Peters could say it’s not well defended, if he chose, but it’s just mendacious to say it’s not defended period.
Let us keep in mind the saying of Chesterton. “There are two kinds of people in the world, the conscious dogmatists and the unconscious dogmatists. I have always found myself that the unconscious dogmatists were by far the most dogmatic.” Chesterton would see the Reason Rally as an example. While the new atheist crowd wishes to speak against dogma, they simply take one dogma and replace it with another.
Dogma is one of those terms not really understood. In reality, we all have some dogmas. We all hold some beliefs in high honor that we wish others to hold. The difference between myself and the new atheists is that I know I am dogmatic. The new atheists do not know it and in turn end up pushing their dogma the most.
Ah no, that’s not right at all. Dogma is not a belief we hold in high honor and want others to hold. No no no. It’s a truth claim from authority that must not be questioned. Makes a difference, doesn’t it.
Why not try to make a presence at Reason Rally, as I hope to do…I will be doing what I can to be there and I’d love to see you there. Let’s be there to argue not against reasoning, which we should all love, but to argue against bad reasoning. Let us replace the reason of Dawkins with what Ratio Christi is named for, the Reason of Christ.
It’s just as he admitted (apparently without realizing he’d admitted anything) – “most of us who are in the field of Christian apologetics would love a chance to debate the horseman.” They’re all excited about the treat, and not the least bit concerned about intruding on people who don’t want to be intruded on. Do unto others chiz chiz.
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Defending lying is a lot harder than defending freedom
Freedom of speech means the freedom to misuse speech – unless that speech falls under one of a number of narrow “historical exceptions” laid out by the Supreme Court over the years.
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Is a lie free speech or a crime?
The Supreme Court asked questions about when Congress can make it a crime to tell a lie that does not defraud or defame.
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Chicago cardinal in a snit at Irish PM Enda Kenny
Kenny rebuked the Vatican last year over their refusal to cooperate in the inquiry into child sexual abuse in the diocese of Cloyne in Cork.
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More “confronting with love”
From “the Thinking Christian” (they do love to pretend it’s all perfectly reasonable, don’t they).
In the meantime I’ve joined up with a handful of Christian thinkers and leaders planning to bring Christians to the Reason Rally for the purpose of sharing quiet conversations with Reason Rally attendees, offering bottles of water to the thirsty, and letting them know of a new book that will take an extended look at atheism, Christianity, and reason.
I’ve joined up with some Christians for the purpose of harassing Reason Rally attendees because we think that what we think gets to trump what they think.
It’s fascinating to me how the New Atheists have chosen reason as their main brand image. It’s clear that they have…
Over the next several weeks we’ll have opportunity to look at how well that fits the New Atheist reality, and whether they have chosen wisely in taking that name up as their brand. I have my doubts about it.
Uh huh. Tell them that at the rally. Tell them what Jesus thinks about it.
Please notice that we are not planning this as a counter-demonstration, but rather as a quiet presence. We don’t think there will be any need to raise our voices, and we have no desire to disrupt their program or proceedings. We want to share a few things with those who want to talk, and we won’t press ourselves upon anyone else.
Have it both ways why don’t you. Eat your cake and have it why don’t you. You’re going there to set people straight, but you plan to be a “quiet presence.” Quiet? Talking in a lowered voice is being a quiet presence? Bullshit. You’re going there to intrude and impose, so don’t pretend you’re not.
I just learned that some of my brothers and sisters from around the world—people who believe that Christianity is a reasonable worldview—also plan to gather in D.C. on March 24 to “demonstrate a humble, loving and thoughtful response to the Reason Rally.” They’re mobilizing people via a Web site called TrueReason.org.
It’s so odd that they just can’t see it – that it can’t be considered humble and loving to intrude on someone else’s rally that way…
Well no come to think of it it’s not odd. That’s the wrong word. What it is is deceitful – of themselves most of all, probably. It’s a sop to cognitive dissonance. They probably half-realize that it’s an aggressive intrusive thing to do – so they squelch that realization by summoning all the adjectives they can think of that re-describe it as the opposite of aggressive and intrusive.
More later.
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Prepared to confront them
It’s getting meta. (It always does, doesn’t it. Internet–>everyone can answer–>everyone does–>everything always goes meta.) Fans of Christians who crash non-theist events are indignant that atheists think Christians who crash events are obnoxious belligerent intrusive shits. Like this guy at the Blaze; he reports the plans of the “True Reason” people then adds:
The Christians behind the effort want atheists to know that they’re reasonable individuals who are prepared to confront them with love.
Typical, innit – first, the stupid assumption that atheists are unaware that Christians see themselves that way, and second, the blithe assumption that “confronting” people with a religious ideology they are known to reject is a benevolent thing to do. The atheists at the Reason Rally aren’t going there to be “confronted” by Christians, any more than Christians go to church to be confronted by atheists. (No, I’m not saying the rally is atheist church. None of that now.)
At particular issue, the site proclaims, is the idea that atheists are using their “Reason Rally” “to trumpet the message that reasonable people reject belief in God.” Christians, of course, disagree with this notion. To ensure they interact with and combat the overwhelming aura of non-belief, “True Reason” participants will give out free bottled water, a printed mini-book called “Reason Really” and copies of a book about Christianity and atheism during the “Reason Rally.”
Notice again the entitled privileged obtuse assumptions – that it’s a bad thing that there should be an “overwhelming aura of non-belief” at a rally for reason, and that TR participants have every right (moral, social, etc) to interact with and combat that aura – that they get to intrude on an occasion that they disagree with in order to interact with and combat it.
Theocrats in action.
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Killing for a Book
Afghanistan is a complicated place.
It’s full of fierce, brave people challenging entrenched traditions and trying to forge a new kind of society in the wake of the Taliban years. Its government is endemically corrupt and somewhat too keen to flirt with misogynists, but it’s blissfully moderate compared to the theocracy to its west, and the frightening common xenophobic opinions of the population to its east.
But some Afghans – or Afghan men I should say – are easily fooled into embarrassing themselves.
To date, nine people have been killed in violent demonstrations across Afghanistan in reaction to the discovery by some Afghan labourers that two Americans were incinerating bags of books that included copies of the Quran. The two were reportedly unaware that they were burning the Quran.
A simple accident. And the absolutely last thing that NATO or US forces would ever intentionally do in the current context, when the reactions are sadly predictable, putting their soldiers—and indeed all foreigners working in the country, not to mention Afghan civilians—at heightened risk. Last spring, 12 UN workers were slaughtered by an angry mob who attacked the UN compound in Mazar-i-sharif, incited by a Florida pastor’s threat to burn a Quran. In May 2005, 17 people were killed in Afghanistan after a Newsweek article reported that US soldiers had flushed a Quran down a toilet at Guantanamo detention facilities.
In each case, these tragic outcomes were followed by a chorus of smug commentaries in western media: those Americans should have known better. This time was no exception: both implicit and explicit statements of disapproval in news articles from the usual apologist suspects on up to the mainstream reporting. Angry comments were posted in response, suggesting the US must have done it deliberately (regardless of the fact that from a tactical military perspective, this makes no sense whatsoever).
Appalled reactions all round. But not towards the ludicrous violence with which offended protesters react to these incidents, but at the inconceivability that US forces in Afghanistan haven’t yet learned their lesson.
But the absurdity here is that there are sufficient numbers of Afghan men who allow themselves to get so wound-up over an accidental desecration of a symbol of their religion, that they feel compelled to take to the streets, armed with stones and/or other weapons, with the intent to maim and to murder. That is what’s appalling. That is what’s absurd.
The media, and much of the public in the west, is getting the story tragically wrong. We are so consumed in our cultural relativism that we take all religious practices as weighted equally: as worthy of serious respect and polite tolerance. We discard our criticism in favour of not stepping on toes (or setting off triggers). We get mixed up about who is actually instigating the violence: not US soldiers who did or did not damage a Quran nor even a batty pastor who most definitely did threaten to burn one. We stop seeing the obvious: that it’s the direct perpetrators of the violence who are responsible. They are the adults who make choices about how to respond to being upset. As with temperamental children, we no longer hold them to the same expectations that we would our own fellow citizens, to respond lawfully, and control their anger to the extent that they don’t need to kill others for the rage to subside. And we ultimately fail to see the utter senselessness of taking human life on account of harm to a book. That’s the story. It’s that senseless, violent reaction that should shock you, not that there is anyone left in the world with the gall to do it.
But the Quran is not just some book, someone will no doubt wish to remind me. It’s the very foundation of the Islamic faith. It represents Islam itself for believers. It’s holy for god sake!
Certainly some of my insensitivity comes from the fact that I’m not a believer – in any faith. But if I were, I would hope that the way my religion was manifested in my actions might be more critical than reverence for physical objects symbolic of my faith. I’d like to think that how I lived my religious values would carry more weight than how they were represented. (But I suppose once one starts to feel that way, there is little role left for religion anyway).
It seems to me that the continued obsession over physical objects—whether with reverence or disdain—has a whiff of the mass hysteria of 17th century Salem to it- paranoia about black cats, belief in magic ointments, evil plants, and protective amulets. Objects and symbols come to embody religious significance, rather than religious practice. Don’t the ardently faithful generally insist that their faith is about larger-than-life spiritual questions, its purpose lofty and its meaning well above the grasp of the physical world? Yet for the Afghan Muslim men who gathered in the streets these past few days, the transgression most worthy of the grimmest response is the desecration of a physical object. That seems, well, pretty shallow. Are other Muslims not embarrassed by the protesters’ rather narrow view of their own religion?
In any case, for a faithless person like me, it’s just a book. But for a Muslim, can it not be a valuable, important, symbolic—even magical—book, without also being a book that ever justifies bloodshed? In the vitriolic reactions that swept Afghanistan in 2005, in 2011 and in 2012, it was not only foreigners, but Afghan Muslims too, who were killed. Is the Muslim book more precious than Muslim lives?
Further violence in the foreseeable future may be prevented by exceptional care by US and other foreign forces in Afghanistan in their handling of Qurans. But this isn’t a real solution, leading to real peaceful co-existence. A real solution is one where the pious learn to live with sometimes having their sensitivities offended, rather than erupting into rabid tantrums so severe they resort to carnage and inhumanity; and where outside observers are brave enough to put a plug on their cultural sensitivity when things go too far.
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Which priest is more culpable?
Lynn drew up a list of abusive priests, Bevilacqua and Molloy ordered the list destroyed, Bevilacqua secretly kept the list in his safe.
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Equalities minister says the church does not own marriage
“It is the government’s fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better.”
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Amitava Kumar on reading Rushdie (aloud) in Jaipur
I had felt a great sense of freedom—a liberation from fear—as I read Rushdie’s words out loud in public for what I believed was the first time in the country of his birth.
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Christians got no manners
More from ill-mannered intrusive uninvited missionary Christians planning to crash the Reason Rally, this time from a site called Ratio Christi: Student Apologetics Alliance. They call their rude intrusive uninvited plan Reason Rally Reachout 2012. “Reachout” is it – crashing other people’s event in order to harass them with dogmatic nonsense that you know they dislike and don’t want – that’s “reachout.” Nice name for it. Yo student apologists: if we all turned up for one of your Apologetics meetings would you consider it Reachout?
Ratio Christi, along with some other groups and campus ministries, are planning on attending the rally to interact one-on-one with skeptics and atheists in attendance, conduct surveys, engage in dialogue, and present the Christian view in a well-reasoned and respectful manner. This trip does not involve street preaching, tract distribution, or blind faith.
That’s just fucking rude. It’s aggressive and obnoxious and rude. They don’t want to interact with you, do they – they’re there to interact, for once in their lives, with thousands of people who are not theists, all in one place. They’re not there to get the Christian view, are they – they’re there to escape from it, and enjoy their freedom from it. Do you creeps think they’ve never had the Christian view presented to them before? Do you really think they need to get it from you, on that one day at that particular time and place?
Of course you don’t. You just want to mess it up. You just want to be theist pains in the ass. You just want to patronize and be passive-aggressive pseudo-nice and do your best to muck up everyone’s fun.
There will be two mandatory training sessions for all UNCG participants. The dates and times will be decided soon (they will be in late February and early-mid March). Failure to attend the training may result in an inability to attend this trip as this is a mission trip into the “lion’s den” so to speak.
Ah so you admit it. How obliging. Fuck you and fuck off.
Really; what is the matter with you? Why can’t you leave them alone? They don’t intrude on you, why are you insisting on intruding on them?
Also, as with anything like this, please pray. While we are promoting a reasonable faith and offering well-reasoned responses to questions, we also believe that the Holy Spirit works through our reason to draw people to Himself. Please bath this event in prayer and ask others to do the same.
Or bathe, whichever works worst.
But seriously. I find this “offensive” the way some people profess to find Motoons “offensive.” I consider it deliberately hostile and aggressive – a flat refusal to let people do a perfectly reasonable (yes reasonable) thing unmolested. A flat refusal to just mind their own god damn business. It’s like Joe Lieberman and others announcing that freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion. Yes it does!! That’s exactly what it means, and it would be nice if the Christians would allow it.
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Baby steps
Well that’s one good thing.
The Vatican, which previously enjoyed an exemption, must now pay taxes on its commercial properties, the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, has announced.
Like anyone else. Why did it enjoy an exemption before?
The state has been exempt from paying property taxes since 2005, one of several fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration.
Ah! Of course. One autocrat doing a favor for another. Naturally.
The Vatican owns 110,000 properties, including shopping centres and residences, which are collectively worth about $12 billion, the Business Insider said.
As Italy tightened its belt to deal with the financial crisis, more than 130,000 people signed an online petition calling for the Church’s tax-exempt status to be revoked, it said.
”This is a victory for public pressure,” Mario Staderini, the leader of the Italian Radicals party, told The Independent.
”We’ve managed to break down – a little bit – the wall protecting the Church.”
Rome wasn’t built in a day.