Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Be firm but not too firm, dogmatic but not too dogmatic

    To continue…

    What I call dogmatophobia is the liberal fear of being judgmental of the beliefs of others. Because everyone has a right to her opinion and no one has a monopoly on the truth, there is a tendency to think that any kind of assertion of a truth, other than of the blandest factual kind (“Paris is the capital of France”), is intolerant and morally imperialistic. Hence, people who assiduously avoid factory-farmed meat will go out of their way not to condemn ritual animal slaughter that causes needless suffering. People who would not tolerate even the sniff of sexism in their workplace bend over backwards to allow religious traditions their “right” to systemically discriminate against women.

    Yes…

    It is, of course, true that an excessive desire for certainty is deeply problematic. But pretty much every reasonable person agrees with this, and most are not agnostic. Accepting that the world is full of uncertainty and ambiguity does not and should not stop people from being pretty sure about a lot of things. To criticise people who express a firm belief as suffering from a lust for certainty is therefore to see the speck in another’s eye while missing the plank in one’s own: an excessive lust for uncertainty that makes any conviction appear misplaced.

    Ok – but then what is it that is so terrible about “the new atheists”? In what way are “the new atheists” like religious fundamentalists?

    Well I guess I see why, but that’s not to say I understand it:

    Unfortunately, the middle ground in the God debate is occupied by too many people who screw up their eyes to create the illusion of a mist when the view is really clear. And this is not just wrong: it’s dangerous, because if we make too much of our inability to be certain, we make ourselves incapable of clear and unequivocal condemnation of just those extreme dogmatists whom agnostics and moderate but committed believers fear. The main problem with young-Earth creationists who assert that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, for instance, is not that they are certain, but that they are wrong. It’s the matter of the belief that is pernicious, not just the manner of its holding.

    Nope; I don’t understand it at all. Apparently the middle ground in the God debate is the good and right ground, so it seems fair to conclude that “the new atheists” are bad because we don’t occupy the middle ground. But what is the middle ground, exactly? It’s against extreme dogmatism, but how exactly does the extreme dogmatism of “the new atheists” differ from expressing a firm belief?

    Let’s go over it again. Religious fundamentalists and “the new atheists” are extreme; the right thing to be is a moderate who occupies the middle ground in the God debate and condemns those extreme dogmatists whom agnostics and moderate but committed believers fear. However, that moderate should also have and express firm beliefs.

    Ok, I get it. Moderates have firm beliefs and we new atheists are extreme dogmatists. It’s one of those irregular verbs. You’re stubborn; I have a firm will. You’re bad-tempered; I’m passionate. You’re dogmatic, I have firm beliefs. You get the idea.

     

  • Being truthful must sometimes trump being nice

    Reading Julian’s latest. I can’t wait until I’ve read the whole thing to comment on this:

    [Mark] Vernon’s advocacy of passionate agnosticism offers soothing camomile tea to those jittery after the triple espressos of the new atheists and religious fundamentalists. Since he is as genial in person as he is on the page, attacking him does feel rather like kicking a labrador puppy. But if we are serious about religion, being truthful must sometimes trump being nice, and intellectually, if not personally, Vernon needs a good kicking.

    No it’s not the part about the puppy, although it’s true that a good friend of mine was a labrador puppy just a few months ago and it would have been a terrible thing to have kicked him.

    No, it’s first of all the swipe at “the new atheists.” Julian can’t seem to write one of these without a swipe at “the new atheists.” I think that’s illiberal and wrong and that he should stop doing it. “The new atheists” are the favorite punching bag for way too many people (including non-”new” atheists!) these days, and they should knock it off. Are bishops and pundits not harsh enough about atheists already, is it really necessary for atheists to join in the mud-throwing? The equivalency is irritating, too – it’s incredibly banal, it’s false, and it’s malicious. “Aw youse guys are all just as irritating as each others.” The hell we are. Even if “the new atheists” are irritating beyond what words can say, they/we are still not like religious fundamentalists. The triple espressos thing is just a cheap shot, and I’m tired of cheap shots from people like Julian. Such people should know better.

    And second, it’s the fact that by the third sentence, he says pretty much exactly what “the new atheists” say and get so much shit for saying. We are serious about religion, so we think being truthful must sometimes trump being nice…just as Julian suggests. So where, exactly, does the similarity to religious fundamentalism and the triple espresso quality come in? You tell me.

  • The media think consumerism is feminism

    Celebrity’s contribution to feminism is: if you are hot enough you will be heard, but hurry up, because you won’t be hot for long.

  • Seumas Milne calls Tunisia’s Islamist party “progressive”

    Others are not so naïve.

  • QED next March

    There’s a fun thing going on in Manchester next March: QED 2012.

     

    Question.Explore.Discover. Back for an encore. Only £89

    I’ll be there – as will Steve Jones and David Aaaronovitch and Edzard Ernst among others – and Maryam Namazie! Maryam and I finally get to meet; we’re excited.

  • You do the math

    Jerry Coyne has posted (with permission) an email exchange with Dan Barker. JC asked DB – evangelical turned atheist and co-president of the FFRF – “what he thought about the accommodationist claim that promoting compatibility between religion and science could turn the faithful towards science.” Barker’s answer is interesting.

    I think you are right. I don’t know of anyone whose views on creationism changed as a result of hearing other religionists champion evolution. (Though I don’t doubt that could have happened. Well, I think it must have happened, given that some people do go through transitional processes, within religion and out of religion.)

    I think the reason you are (mainly) right is that few believers hold much respect for the authority or opinion of other believers who disagree with them theologically.

    There’s more, and then he ends with an equation:

    Religion + Good Works = Good Works

    Solve for Religion.

     

  • In which the rights of God are assured

    The “soft-spoken Islamic scholar” Rachid Ghannouchi has nice plans for Tunisia, he tells us.

    “We will continue this revolution to realize its aims of a Tunisia that is free, independent, developing and prosperous in which the rights of God, the Prophet, women, men, the religious and the non-religious are assured because Tunisia is for everyone,” Ghannouchi told a crowd of cheering supporters.

    He might as well say “We will continue this revolution to realize its aims of a Tunisia that will square the circle.” If the rights of God and the Prophet as understood by clerics and “Islamic scholars” are assured then the rights of women and the non-religious can’t be assured; it’s an impossibility.

    It’s blood-chilling that a political leader thinks he knows what “the rights of God” and “the rights of the Prophet” are, and that they have to be assured, and that they get top billing. It’s not surprising, of course, because that’s what Islamists do think, but it’s blood-chilling.

    The prophet is dead. He’s been dead for 14 centuries. What “rights” can he have?

    “God” is hidden and secretive and mysterious and indistinguishable from not there at all. What “rights” can it have?

    How can the cryptic spooky incomprehensible “rights” of a long-dead guy and a posited supernatural agent come ahead of the rights of living people?

    Those are general questions. More particular questions would ask how the “rights” of the god and the prophet can co-exist with the rights of women, such as the right to choose whether or not to marry and whom to marry; the right to be equal before the law; the right to education; the right not to be stoned to death for being raped; and similar items. They would ask how the “rights” of the god and the prophet can co-exist with the rights of the religious to stop being religious. They would ask how the “rights” of the god and the prophet can co-exist with the rights of the non-religious to point out that to all appearances the god in question doesn’t exist.

    H/t to Fin in comments for the quotation from Ghannouchi.
     

     

  • Ghannouchi vows to protect rights of God, prophet

    Promises “a Tunisia that is free, independent, developing and prosperous in which the rights of God, the Prophet, women, men, the religious and the non-religious are assured.”

  • Texas Freedom Network on a Board of Ed member

    In discussing the state board’s revision of social studies curriculum standards last year, he smears educators and scholars as “America bashers and America haters.”

  • Libby Anne on marrying before thinking

    Quiverfull daughters have no chance to grow up or mature. Then they marry. Then what happens?

  • No attempt would be made to force women to wear the headscarf

    Hmm. The BBC is looking on the bright side of life.

    The leader of the Islamist party that won the most seats in Tunisia’s elections has said women’s social gains would not be reversed.

    Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi promised to strengthen the role of women in Tunisian politics.

    “Leaders” promise lots of things; they don’t always stick to their promises. The BBC is a venerable news organization, venerable enough to be aware of this.

    But despite the reassurances, Ennahda’s victory is causing concern in some parts of Tunisia, who fear the party could later change its policies, our
    correspondent says.

    “Ennahda reaffirms its commitment to the women of Tunisia, to strengthen
    their role in political decision-making, in order to avoid any going back on
    their social gains,” Mr Ghannouchi said at a news conference.

    No attempt would be made to force women to wear the headscarf, including in
    government, he added.

    Uh huh. Ask us again in a year.

  • The art of resistance: Ai Weiwei

    By the time Chinese authorities said they were investigating Ai for alleged tax evasion, over 140,000 people had signed Change.org’s online petition seeking his release.

  • Ghannouchi says Ennahda won’t squash women

    And the BBC buys it.

  • If conceptually coherent

    Dan Fincke takes issue with dismissiveness toward philosophy, and I agree with him about that, but I’m not sure about the particular example he’s chosen. That could well be just because I’m not a philosopher, so I’m not understanding.

    The example is a postdoc fellowship in philosophy funded (lavishly) by the Templeton Foundation.

    The fellowship enables young scholars to use contemporary analytic methods to pursue independent research in the fields of divine and human agency, such as moral responsibility and freedom of will; or philosophy of mind and its theological implications, such as the presence of the divine in a natural world and the emergence of consciousness.

    …

    [The] postdoctoral research project, “Divine Foreknowledge, the Philosophy of Time, and the Metaphysics of Dependence: Some New Approaches to an Old Problem,” assesses a core Ockhamist thesis about foreknowledge. William of Ockham was a 13th century philosopher.

    “The central contention of the Ockhamist concerns a point about the order of explanation. According to the Ockhamist, it is because of what we do that God long ago believed that we would do these things. That is, God’s past beliefs depend in an important sense on what we do, and thus, says the Ockhamist, we can sometimes have a choice about God’s past beliefs,” he explained. “The overarching goal of this project is to develop and assess this core Ockhamist thesis along two underexplored dimensions: the philosophy of time, and the metaphysics of dependence – both of which have seen an explosion of recent interest.”

    Dan wrote:

    …it does not matter whether there actually is a God. There is still philosophical illumination from exploring the implications of a hypothetical omniscient knower for our understanding of things like the connections between belief, causation, and time.

    That’s the part that I don’t get, that maybe I would get if I were a philosopher. I have a hard time seeing how there can be illumination from exploring the implications of a hypothetical omniscient knower when an omniscient knower is, as far as we know, in the world we inhabit, in the conditions we understand, etc, so impossible. All it seems to generate is absurdity. Then if you have to reconcile it with the inviolability of free will, it generates absurdity squared. Dan quotes Verbose Stoic doing just that (reconciling it with free will):

    Ockham likely argued that if we have an omniscient being — God — then that God would know what we’re doing right now. But that could mean that God knows that and can know that because He determined it, which would violate free will. So, then, if it is not pre-determined then God’s belief about what we will do must be formed as we do it right now. But God has always known it, which would mean that our decisions now have an impact on beliefs formed in the past. If conceptually coherent, this has major implications for the conceptions of time and of dependence — ie what it means for one fact or truth or action to depend on another — both of which are currently of interest in philosophical circles.

    But does it? If it starts with impossibilities, does it have implications for anything? This is what I don’t get.

  • Only 377 to go

    A Foxhole atheist needs only 377 more signatures on the petition to “End the Military’s Discrimination against Non-Religious Service Members” to get the 5000 necessary, but he needs them in the next four days. If the petition gets to 5000 signatures in the next four days the White House will have to respond. If you haven’t already signed it, please do.

    Please sign it: the petition.

    Update: people have been having trouble signing in. A Noyd offers a fix:

    What I did was sign out using the blue bar at the bottom of the page, refresh the petition page, and sign back in using the “sign in” button between “sign this petition” and “create an account.”  When I did that, the “sign this petition” button turned green and clickable.  Also, it took a few minutes and another page refresh before my signature showed up in the list below the petition, so don’t worry if there’s bit of a delay.

    Currently at 215. It’s working.

  • Ratzinger’s blood libel against atheists

    Ratzinger knows he can’t aim his pious invective at the Jewish people as his predecessors did. So he takes aim at the next best enemy of his faith: atheists.

  • Defining sexism downwards

    A re-post from January 2010 – of quite startling relevance: about a pro-rape Facebook page and sexist epithets and…Rod Liddle saying a woman should be kicked in the cunt. How about that.

    January 19, 2010

    I did not know – some male students at St Paul’s College at the University of Sydney set up a pro-rape Facebook page.

    The group, which was named “Define Statutory”, described its members as “anti-consent” and was listed in the sports and recreation section of the site…It was shut down at the end of [October], but had been live on Facebook since August, according to an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald…The Sydney Morning Herald said the page was part of a broader culture at the residential colleges that “demeans women in a sexist and often sexually violent way”.

    And here I was fuming (or should I say bitching?) about sexist epithets and men who type thousands of words insisting that ‘stupid bitch’ is not sexist. Kind of puts it all in perspective. Except actually I think it’s (broadly speaking) all part of the same thing. I think both items are part of a broader culture in a lot of places that demeans women in a sexist way. I think the bizarro phenomenon of men who ought to know better verbally spewing on women whenever they feel like it is pretty much by definition part of a broader culture that demeans women in a sexist way. That’s why it shocks me that men give themselves permission to do that – it reveals that contempt for women is commonplace in areas where I would have thought it had gone out of fashion decades ago.

    But no – apparently it’s still seen as hip and edgy and funny to treat women like dirt. Apparently sexism is being defined downwards so that it isn’t really sexism unless, I don’t know, it comes with a signed affidavit stating This Is Sexism. Rod Liddle apparently is of that school, unless he really didn’t post this on a Millwall fans’ website:

    Stupid bitch. A year eight sociology lecture from someone who knows fck all. You could equally say that we were similar to any group which disliked a certain aspect of society, felt estranged from it but were sure we were right. The logical extension of her argument is that the status quo is always right, which is absurd, because if that were true nothing would change. Someone kick her in the cnt.

    He was there commenting right after I had, so I asked him if that one was his, saying bitches with cunts would like to know. He said

    I don’t remember saying it and it certainly doesn’t read like me, but it’s quite possible that at some point I might use that temrinology to make a certain point, perhaps the opposite to the one you imagine. Just as you have done, right now. “Bitches with cunts would like to know” is a canny, sardonic pay off to your post. Take it out of context and what have you got?

    I don’t know, but what you haven’t got is ‘I wouldn’t say shit like that in a million years.’ Instead you have men earnestly explaining the terrifically subtle and fascinating difference between saying ‘stupid nigger’ and saying ‘stupid bitch,’ a subtle difference that boils down to: the first is absolutely out and the second is really quite all right and you’re being a dreary fanatic if you say it isn’t. Which boils down to saying casual contempt for other races is not okay and casual contempt for women is fine.

  • Pakistan: more underage girls forced into marriage

    In late September 2011, a 12-year-old girl was given in marriage to an 85-year-old man in Punjab. Her father sold her in lieu of five acres of land to resolve a dispute.

  • How dare you enforce the law

    Stewart sent more links today. I’m still catching up. So…where were we? Oh yes –

    Womens’ rights groups and organizations opposing religious coercion have demonstrated against the segregation. Jerusalem councilwomen Rachel Azaria of the Yerushalmim (Jerusalemites) faction and Laura Verton (Meretz) petitioned the High Court of Justice against the practice.

    Well guess what. Guess what happened to Jerusalem councilwomen Rachel Azaria. She got an award from the Secular Lawyers’ Guild? No. She got fired. That’s right: fired.

    Mayor Nir Barkat has dismissed Rachel Azaria from Jerusalem’s coalition government, but the city denies he did so because Azaria is against gender segregation in the ultra-Orthodox Mea She’arim quarter. It says loyalty to city council policy is the issue.

    …

    Members of the Haredi community were delighted by Azaria’s dismissal. A headline on a popular ultra-Orthodox website, B’hedri Haredim, declared: “A joyous holiday in Jerusalem: Barkat fires the provocateur.”

    The Jewish Daily Forward blog The Sisterhood comments.

    Jerusalem City Council Member Rachel  Azaria quickly paid a high price for standing up for what she believes in.  On October 17, Jerusalem Mayor  Nir Barkat stripped her of her portfolios on the city council that concern  community councils and early childhood issues. She was being punished for petitioning  Israel’s High Court of Justice to enforce a previous ruling that ordered  police to prevent gender segregation on the streets of the Haredi Jerusalem  neighborhood Mea Shearim.

    In an exclusive telephone interview with The Sisterhood later the day she  lost her portfolios, she said that less than 24 hours after the Court  issued its ruling in her favor, she received an email from one of Barkat’s  assistants on behalf of the mayor stating that “because you went to the High  Court of Justice, I am relieving you of your duties.” Barkat did not personally  contact Azaria to inform her of this. But his office sent out another email  announcing the change minutes later to all 31 members of City Council.

    She was fired for enforcing a legal ruling. So adhering to the law is a firing offence in the Jerusalem city government?

    Azaria said she was buoyed by how seriously the judges of the Court,  especially its president, Dorit  Beinish, regarded her petition. “There was a very ideological discussion in  the Court. Beinish herself said how important it was to have this discussion.  She brought in Jerusalem’s chief of police, and really tried to find solutions  that would be implementable,” Azaria said.

    “The Haredim know that it’s illegal. Really it’s just a small segment of that  community that thinks that they can just keep doing what they want and that the secular and more liberal religious people will just get tired and give up,” the  religiously observant Azaria said. “But I won’t give up on such an important  issue.”

    Theocrats are busy everywhere you look, thinking they can just keep doing what they want and the rest of us will just get bored and give up. This is why the world needs gnu atheists. Gnu atheists don’t get bored and give up. We refuse. We just get more pissed off and stubborn.

    The Sisterhood says women are disappearing from public life in Jerusalem.

    Haaretz reported  recently that there is a glaring lack of women on billboards and in local  Jerusalem newspaper and magazine ads.

    “Believe me, this is real,” said Ayalon. “I am out there every day counting  the dwindling number of women seen in advertisements.” He is not talking about “women in bikinis on cars,” which Ayalon stresses that he and Yerushalmim are,  like the Haredim, opposed to. Rather, he is talking about the complete absence  of respectably dressed women in ads in which they used to appear in Jerusalem — and still do in other parts of the country. Suddenly there are a whole lot of  images of men selling food, furniture, and other home-related products. Men’s being more focused on domesticity can, of course, be a good thing — but not at  the expense of women’s civil rights.

    That sounds like Hollywood movies, which almost all star three or four men these days, as if only men existed. I guess we need gnu feminists, too.

     

  • Shoving people off the sidewalk, again

    Stewart sent me a couple of interesting items last week. I was having technical issues and am catching up.

    Israel High Court upholds ban on Sukkot gender segregation in Jerusalem.

    Oh yes? There was gender segregation?

    Rather.

    During this year’s Sukkot celebrations, police gave ultra-Orthodox leaders of Mea She’arim’s Toldos Aharon community permission to erect a barrier dividing the street by gender, despite the fact that, last year, the High Court ordered community leaders to revoke the segregation they imposed on women on Sukkot.

    …

    Large billboards posted throughout the capital’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods last week forbade women to enter Mea She’arim Street during the Sukkot celebration.

    This is a public street, you understand. It’s not private property, it’s not the grounds of a synagogue, it’s a public street.

    Last year, community leaders put up tarpaulin partitions along the sidewalks on Strauss and Mea She’arim streets, creating a narrow path on one side for women to walk on, and women were forbidden to walk on certain sidewalks and streets during Sukkot’s intermediate days.

    Womens’ rights groups and organizations opposing religious coercion have demonstrated against the segregation. Jerusalem councilwomen Rachel Azaria of the Yerushalmim (Jerusalemites) faction and Laura Verton (Meretz) petitioned the High Court of Justice against the practice.

    The Jerusalem Post also reported.

    Separation barriers erected in the streets of Mea She’arim designed to prevent male and female intermingling during Succot have been ordered dismantled.

    At a hearing of the High Court of Justice on Sunday, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch ordered the police to remove the separation barriers and also ordered the police to remove private security personnel enforcing the gender separation.

    Can you imagine? Walking on a public street and having private security personnel forcing you behind a partition because you’re a woman?

    The decision, also heard by Justice Asher Dan Grunis and Justice Hanan Melcer, comes following a petition filed by Jerusalem City Councilwoman Rachel Azariah on Friday, demanding that last year’s high court ruling, which affirmed that gender separation is illegal, be enforced.

    “Succot has arrived and once again there is illegal segregation [of men  and women],” Beinisch stated during the hearing. “There has been a  takeover of public places by a minority in the neighborhood… The private-security personnel and the canvas partitions should be removed  now and beginning at the end of Succot, and from then on, there should be no segregation in Mea She’arim [in the future].”

    …

    “The court established today once again that segregation in the public domain on the basis of gender is illegal and has to be acted against,” said Azariah in response to the decision. “There is a long way to go  until we reach equality between men and women, but… if Rosa Parks  succeeded in the racist period of US history in the 1950s, then we in  the democratic State of Israel of 2011 will also succeed.”

    Let’s hope so.