Communities secretary says he is effectively reversing the High Court’s “illiberal ruling” that a Devon council’s prayers were unlawful. Mandatory theism is so liberal.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Santorum says Dems will introduce the guillotine
War on faith: French Revolution: guillotine.
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Nick Cohen on the attack of the militant secularists
An established church that uses the force of law to insist on a privileged position seems slightly more authoritarian than those of us who want a level playing field.
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Last night in Cranston
My brother was at the Cranston school board meeting last night. He told me he thought the day was really won by a great Irish guy named Dan McCarthy
who got up early in the comment session and said “I went to Catholic schools, where I said the rosary every day. I also said it at home, with my father. In fact, I said it today with a dying friend. So I’m a practicing Catholic.
“On the other hand, my great grandfather came here because he was not allowed to own the land he farmed, in Ireland. Because he was a Catholic. In a prod country.
“Don’t appeal.”
He sat down, and the atmosphere in the room changed. The appeal nuts were no longer whooping and hollering and, when they did resume, a lot of the spirit had gone out of them.
He had also contacted the Rhode Island chapter of Progessive Democrats of America in support of their statement (I suspect my brother wrote it, though I haven’t confirmed that):
Rhode IslanChapter of
Progressive Democrats oAmericaThe Rhode Island Chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America passed a resolution at its regularly scheduled meeting at the Rochambeau Library on 6 February 2012 against the display of a prayer on the wall of the auditorium of Cranston West High School.
RIPDA took this action in defense of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads in its entirety: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It is worth noting that Congress chose in 1791 to open the enumeration of fundamental rights to be enjoyed by all [free] citizens of the new nation with the right to be free of any state-sponsored religion. Most of them were pious church-goers; their brief was in no sense against the exercise of religion. They prohibited rather any intervention whatsoever, for or against, by their new state in the religious realm. They could not have made their prohibition more absolute; RIPDA is arguing for respecting their manifest intent.
These men had just come through the violence of their own war for independence, but they knew the power of religious conviction to spawn conflicts of an intensity we have yet to outgrow. Europe had been convulsed by religious conflict for centuries: the intensity of the conflict can be gauged by their renewal in Sarajevo and Bosnia twenty years ago, but the new Americans remembered equally bloody wars within their parents’ lifetimes. They were determined not to allow them to begin again. So are we.
My brother is a Montaigne scholar. Montaigne knew a very great deal about Europe’s convulsions under religious conflict.
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NPR throws mud at Dawkins
Oh noes, says Barbara J King at NPR, that mean Dawkins guy is the keynote speaker at the Reason Rally. That will wreck the whole thing, right?
No, but Barbara J King does her best to make it so by predicting it, as pseudo-concerned atheist-bashers so often do.
In a 2006 interview with Steve Paulson at Salon (during his tenure as professor of public understanding of science), Dawkins suggested that greater intelligence is correlated with atheism. He also said that when it encourages belief in the absence of evidence, “there’s something very evil about faith.”
Yes; and?
Here is what he said in the full version – note first of all that it’s the interviewer who introduces the word “evil”:
My sense is that you don’t just think religion is dishonest. There’s something evil about it as well.
Well, yes. I think there’s something very evil about faith, where faith means believing in something in the absence of evidence, and actually taking pride in believing in something in the absence of evidence. And the reason that’s dangerous is that it justifies essentially anything. If you’re taught in your holy book or by your priest that blasphemers should die or apostates should die — anybody who once believed in the religion and no longer does needs to be killed — that clearly is evil. And people don’t have to justify it because it’s their faith. They don’t have to say, “Well, here’s a very good reason for this.” All they need to say is, “That’s what my faith says.” And we’re all expected to back off and respect that. Whether or not we’re actually faithful ourselves, we’ve been brought up to respect faith and to regard it as something that should not be challenged. And that can have extremely evil consequences.
And? Is that such an obviously wrong, or evil, thing to think? We see examples of the consequences here every day.
But King thinks it is obviously wrong.
Slam. That noise you hear is the sound of thousands of minds closing down and turning away from anything that Dawkins might go on to say about science.
By choosing words hurtful and harsh, Dawkins closes off a potential channel of communication about science with people who hold faith dear in their lives.
Maybe, some, but maybe some others – assuming they read the interview itself and not just King’s six word gotcha – will see his point. King, however, does her best to prevent that.
Will Dawkins rally The Reason Rally’s secular pilgrims with the same scorn towards the faithful that he’s shown to date? We’ll have to wait and see. If he does, he’ll drive a stake in the heart of the Rally’s stated goal. He will confirm that some of the negative stereotypes associated with the nonreligious — intolerance of the faithful, first and foremost — are at times aligned with reality.
In the meantime, the rest of us, scientists, science writers, and followers-of-science alike, can opt to rally around a different principle. Whatever our position on the continuum from deep faith to ardent atheism, we can lose the sneers. We can explain and, when necessary, defend science with rigor and passion and genuine civility.
But it wasn’t a sneer. It was a very serious point, and it’s not obviously wrong. Arguably it’s the people who insist on protecting the feelings of people who “hold faith dear in their lives” who do the most harm.
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Will Dawkins roooooin the Reason Rally?
Because he’s so mean and all? Barbara J King at NPR says he will.
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Next up for Cranston
Steve Ahlquist – Jessica’s uncle – has a plan for what to do next, to benefit Cranston public schools, which he posted at the Facebook group Support the Removal of the Cranston High School West Prayer.
Awhile back, the Cranston school committee cut funding for music at their schools, because of budgetary concerns. In response, a group of concerned parents formed a group called BASICS, which I’ll find a link to soon, with the aim of restoring the programs. Raising money for the City of Cranston or the school committee would not allow them to “learn their lesson” but funding BASICS will put money directly into cut programs. The school committee will still have to pay, but the kids could still have their programs, no thanks to the recalcitrant members of the Cranston political elite.
He mentioned that he wants to get the big atheist bloggers like Hemant, PZ, and Rebecca to support it – so I figure he wants to get average-size atheist bloggers to support it too.
Pass it on.
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Allies
Andrew Copson at the BHA on Warsi’s theocratic bullshit:
…it is surreal to hear secularism being condemned as intolerant – it is not secular schools that select pupils according to their parents’ beliefs, it is not secular agencies that reserve employment opportunities for staff according to their beliefs, and it is not secular organisations which lobby to maintain privilege and have exemption from laws – like equality laws – that should affect everyone equally.
Terry Sanderson at the NSS on the same subject:
…why is the British Government courting the Holy See in this way? Why should the last absolute theocracy in Europe be invited to participate in the affairs of the British Government?
Well, it might be argued, the Holy See participates — indeed in some cases, interferes — in every other Government’s affairs. Only last week it succeeded in forcing President Obama to compromise his health reforms and in Britain it is gearing up to give the Cameron plan for gay marriage a real kicking.
Lady Warsi talks of “militant secularism” with some distaste. But secularism’s militancy is as nothing compared with the aggressive tactics of the Catholic Church when it is not getting its way.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars on the same subject:
What world does she live in? The progress over the last couple hundred in creating more just, free and equal societies is largely the result of the diminishing of religious influence over governments. At nearly every turn and in every country, the most important advances in freedom and equality — ending slavery, giving women the right to vote, protecting the equal rights of racial, ethnic, sexual and, yes, religious minorities — have required overcoming the opposition of the dominant religious creeds and dogmas.
If only we had a secular pope who would help us fight the militant theocracy of Sayeeda Warsi.
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What could possibly go wrong?
Just the people we want informing Congress about contraception:
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NSS on Warsi’s theocratic nonsense
Why is the British Government courting the Holy See in this way? Why should the last absolute theocracy in Europe be invited to participate in the affairs of the British Government?
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BHA responds to Warsi’s attack on secularism
“It is not secular organisations which lobby to maintain privilege and have exemption from laws – like equality laws – that should affect everyone equally.”
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Can one adviser explain women to David Cameron?
No, says a Guardian panel. What infuriates Pragna Patel is that the issue of gender equality should already be at the heart of policymaking in government.
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Archbish Dolan threatens secularism
Timothy Dolan told a meeting of the pope and his fellow cardinals that they must spread the
faith with joy, love — and blood if necessary. -
Cranston school committee votes not to appeal
The atmosphere in the auditorium was raucous at times. People pressing for the legal fight to continue wore signs around their necks that said “Appeal.”
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What does contraception have to do with women?!
In the US Congress today a hearing on birth control and religion, chaired by a Republican, included on the panel a Catholic bishop, a rabbi, a minister, and two male academics, but no women.
No women.
No women on a Congressional panel discussing birth control.
No women.
No women on a panel discussing birth control. For the government.
Three clerics, and no women.
They have more in common with the Taliban than they have with me.
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Underpants bomber is proud to kill in the name of god
There were almost 300 people on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
In [a] statement to the BBC, the family of Abdulmutallab said they were “grateful to God that the unfortunate incident of that date did not result in any injury or death”.
Grateful to “God”? But without “God,” the incident wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Abdulmutallab thought he was doing a good deed for “God.” It’s ridiculous to thank “God” for Abdulmutallab’s failure to make the bomb go off.
A video from the FBI showing the power of the explosive material found in Abdulmutallab’s underwear was also shown at the hearing. As the video played Abdulmutallab twice said loudly “Allahu akbar” – Arabic for “God is great”.
Abdulmutallab himself made a brief statement. During the short trial, he had fired his lawyer and attempted to represent himself.
“Mujahideen are proud to kill in the name of God,” he said in court. “And that is exactly what God told us to do in the Koran… Today is a day of victory.”
See? Piety. Might as well thank god for that.
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They kept beating us with sticks
More religious bullying. (Of a much worse variety. Of a nightmarish variety. That’s how it is – we lurch from the bad to the horrendous, day by day and hour by hour. But the horrendous doesn’t make the bad something we should shrug off. We have to pay attention to all of it.)
Shakila, age 8, was grabbed by a bunch of men with AK-47s, and held for a year.
…the taking of girls as payment for misdeeds committed by their elders still appears to be flourishing. Shakila, because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman, was taken and held for about a year. It was the district leader, furious at the dishonor that had been done to him, who sent his men to abduct her.
A man did something so another man sent a bunch of men to do a horrible thing to a girl of 8. Makes sense.
“We did not know what was happening,” said Shakila, now about 10, who spoke softly as she repeated over and over her memory of being dragged from her family home. “They put us in a dark room with stone walls; it was dirty and they kept beating us with sticks and saying, ‘Your uncle ran away with our wife and dishonored us, and we will beat you in retaliation.’”
Despite being denounced by the United Nations as a “harmful traditional practice,” baad is pervasive in rural southern and eastern Afghanistan, areas that are heavily Pashtun, according to human rights workers, women’s advocates and aid experts. Baad involves giving away a young woman, often a child, into slavery and forced marriage. It is largely hidden because the girls are given to compensate for “shameful” crimes like murder and adultery and acts forbidden by custom, like elopement, say elders and women’s rights advocates.
And then after that cheerful beginning it gets a bit grim.
Views of baad differ sharply between men and women, with more men seeing it as a way of preserving families and stopping blood feuds, and women seeing it in terms of the suffering of the young girl asked to pay for another’s wrongs.
“Giving baad has good and bad aspects,” said Fraidoon Mohmand, a member of Parliament from Nangahar Province, who has led a number of jirgas. “The bad aspect is that you punish an innocent human for someone else’s wrongdoings, and the good aspect is that you rescue two families, two clans, from more bloodshed, death and misery.”
He also said he believed that a woman given in baad suffered only briefly.
“When you give a girl in baad, they are beaten maybe, maybe she will be in trouble for a year or two, but when she brings one or two babies into the world, everything will be forgotten and she will live as a normal member of the family,” he said.
Not so, said the Afghan women interviewed, especially if she is unlucky enough to give birth to a girl.
“The woman given to a family in baad will always be the miserable one,” said Nasima Shafiqzada, who is in charge of women’s affairs for Kunar Province. “She has to work a lot. She will be beaten. She has to listen to lots of bad language from the other females in the family.”
Shakila’s experience was horrible. Read on.
H/t Sunny
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In Cranston right now
JT has a post live-blogging (via informants) the Cranston school committee meeting to discuss whether to appeal the judge’s ruling on the goddy banner. It features a lot of grown-ups bullying a teenage girl for upholding the law.
WPRO, the Cranston radio station that has been nothing but horrible to Jessica makes the following tweet.
RT @WPRO_newsroom: Change of location for Jessica Ahlquist at #prayerbanner meeting tonight: she’s in the back instead of front row, crouching way down #WPRO
These are adults, and they’re acting like they’ve achieved some form of noble triumph when a young girl who has endured an environment of threats and is probably worried for her safety is trying to stay out of the line of fire from a crowd that doubtlessly contains some of the people who have threatened her.
Fucking bullies and their religion of love.
RandomfactorSomeone tells me they’re now passive-aggressively singing “God Bless America”. I can only assume the song will be retired as false advertising if the board decides not to appeal.
Large segment of the crowd just stood and yelled the pledge of allegiance at Jessica.
Pledge recited, “Under god” yelled obnoxiously. One can only wonder if god is so concerned why he didn’t show up himself.
Religious bullying – it just never gets old for some people.
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Afghan girls are punished for the misdeeds of men
Shakila, 8, was grabbed and held for a year because her uncle ran off with a married woman. This is a traditional Afghan form of justice. Well not so much justice…
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Why we have moral rules but don’t follow them
A twist on a classic psychology experiment suggests that our minds have two parallel moral systems, and they don’t always agree.