Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Finders keepers

    Dear old tradition.

    Bride kidnapping, or “bridenapping”, happens in at least 17 countries around the world, from China to Mexico to Russia to southern Africa. In each of these lands, there are communities where it is routine for young women and girls to be plucked from their families, raped and forced into marriage. Few continents are not blighted by the practice, yet there is little awareness of these crimes, and few police investigations.

    Well, you see, it’s something that happens to women and girls, and it doesn’t matter what happens to them. They aren’t really people you know. They look like people, sort of, but that’s deceptive – it’s just an outer thing, like the skin on a mango. They’re not really real people who feel things and think about things, the way you and I do. They’re hollow inside. It doesn’t matter what happens to them.

    Up to a third of all ethnic Kyrgyz women in Kyrgyzstan are kidnapped brides, and some studies suggest that, in certain regions, the rates of bride kidnapping account for up to 80 per cent of marriages. In six villages scrutinised for a recent survey, almost half of the 1,322 marriages registered were from bride kidnapping, and up to two-thirds were non-consensual. Earlier this year, two 20-year-old students committed suicide after falling victim to bridenapping. The deaths of Venera Kasymalieva and Nurzat Kalykova prompted demonstrations in their home province of Issyk-Kul, but little has changed.

    Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a reflex. It’s like lobsters trying to get out of the boiling water.

    Aminata Touré, chief of the Gender, Human Rights and Culture branch of the UN Population Fund, said: “What we really need is more research to come up with the level of the problem. For something to be registered as a crime, it has to be reported; that’s the problem, because it’s often seen as a cultural practice and not a crime. When it’s not perceived as a crime, it becomes even harder for this practice to be registered as one.

    “These are issues that sometimes it is problematic even to talk about. The bottom line is that women are considered as commodities – both by the husband who takes them and their own families who accept a deal.”

    It’s a beautiful romantic traditional way to get possession of a commodity.

  • Kidnapping women into marriage

    “It’s often seen as a cultural practice and not a crime. Women are considered as commodities – both by the husband who takes them and their own families who accept a deal.”

  • Ferocious extrapolation

    The new bandwagon (or meme): moan a deep moan about the persecution of Christians in places like the UK and the US. A guy called (inelegantly) Tom J Wilson does a particularly maudlin version for the Huffington Pest.

    The fact that British police would consider the displaying of Christian scripture an illegal offence is a concerning indication of the mentality that British society has come to adopt towards all things Christian.

    For anyone who follows the British media’s reporting of American politics, the continuous attempt to run down certain American politicians on account of their faith rather than engaging with their politics has now become a rather boring familiarity.

    Bush and Palin are crazed evangelical fundamentalists we are forever being told, oh yawn, is this kind of cheap and lazy defamation really what we have to make do with for journalism?

    Is it any more cheap and lazy than what he’s saying? And, is it not the truth? (And are we really forever being told that about Bush now?) And, is it not relevant and important? Do their evangelical beliefs not influence their policies? Is evangelical belief simply and safely inert?

    Yet what is far more concerning is what is happening to Christians here in our own country.  It is only when one steps back and takes an overview of the litany of cases where Christians have been discriminated against for their religious convictions, that it is possible to appreciate what resembles a sustained assault against the Christian communities in Britain.

    He then proceeds to offer a list of apocryphal stories, exaggerated stories, and “yes; so?” stories, which do not add up to anything that resembles a sustained assault against the Christian communities in Britain.

    It is as if there is a systematic effort to extrapolate British society from its Christian heritage and the values that have for centuries served as a basis for British culture and identity.

    Ah, the poor guy – he doesn’t know what “extrapolate” means, and he went and used it in a published article. So embarrassing.

    As much as I am not a Christian, it still seems clear that all of us who value the rights and freedoms afforded by a liberal democracy should ensure that there is fair treatment for Christians in Britain.

    More than that, we as a society need to recognise that Christianity has played a major and for the most part extremely positive role, in forming our nation’s history and national identity.

    More “positive” than a secular worldview would have played? Doubtful.

  • Child sacrifice in Uganda

    The mutilated bodies of children have been discovered at roadsides, the victims of an apparently growing belief in the power of human sacrifice.

  • UK Christians suffer extrapolation

    “It is as if there is a systematic effort to extrapolate British society from its Christian heritage.”

  • Ireland rejects UN HRC findings on abortion legislation

    No abortion even “when pregnancy poses a risk to the health of the pregnant woman.”

  • The Onion on progress for women in Saudi Arabia

    They  have been allowed to leave their homes under the guardianship of a male relative and celebrate the right to vote.

  • More godless groups in the world

    Leo Igwe sent me the link to a heartening article about the global energization of atheism.

    At the World Humanist Congress in Oslo in August, delegates from India,
    Uganda, Nigeria, Argentina and Brazil — all countries where belief in a supreme deity or deities has a strong hold — reported mounting interest in their philosophy.

    Like their counterparts in Europe and North America, they argue that morality
    is based in human nature and does not need a father-figure god to back it up
    with punishment in an afterlife, in which they do not believe.

    “There are more godless groups in the world than ever before,” Sonja
    Eggerickx, a Belgian schools inspector who is president of the International
    Humanist and Ethical Union, told the Congress.

    We can talk to each other more easily than ever before. (Of course, so can Dominionists…)

    U.S. delegates, including a serving army major who has just established an
    organisation for atheists in the military, spoke of a surge of rejection of
    religion in all its forms among young Americans — a point some recent opinion
    surveys back up.

    In Manchester in May, British Humanists — one of the world’s oldest
    groupings — were told of a sharp rise in humanist birth, marriage and death
    ceremonies, and strong growth in their association’s four-year-old student
    wing.

    In Ireland, a country where the influence of the Catholic Church was for decades dominant in
    all areas of life including politics and government decision-making, an optimistic national humanist association met in Carlingford in late August.

    …

    In Nigeria, where the openly non-religious face Christian preacher-inspired
    public opprobrium as “immoral reprobates” or “Satanists” and in the Islamic
    north are treated as apostates, the humanist movement held its Congress in Abuja
    in September.

    Leo’s talk at that Congress is at the ur-B&W.

     

  • Humanists, atheists drive for wider global impact

    Switzerland, India, Uganda, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, Malawi, Israel – even the US military.

  • Terry Glavin on Afghanistan and Absurdistan

    There’s a lot of crazy talk among pundits in the NATO capitals about how things haven’t changed for Afghan women.

  • Apostles have been raised up by God

    Via Ed Brayton, Terry Gross talks to the apostle C Peter Wagner. Be afraid.

    On demons

    “As we talk, in Oklahoma City there is an annual meeting of a professional
    society called the Apostolic — called the International Society of Deliverance
    Ministers, which my wife and I founded many years ago. … This is a society of
    a large number, a couple hundred, of Christian ministers who are in the ministry of deliverance. Their seven-day-a-week occupation is casting demons out of people. And they have professional expertise in this and they happen to meeting — to be meeting right now. My wife is one of them. She’s written a whole book called How to Cast Out Demons. And I don’t do that much. Once in a while when I get in a corner, I might. But that’s — that’s been her ministry.
    And so I’ve been very, very close to that for years. We’ve been married for 60
    years.”

    On people in American politics being possessed by demons

    “We don’t like to use the word possessed because that means they don’t have any power of their own. We like to use the word afflicted or, technical term, demonized. But there are people who — yes, who are — who are directly affected by demons, not only in politics, but also in the arts, in the media and religion in the Christian church.”

    This guy is seriously terrifying. He’s not some sad Dennis Markuze, he’s got a lot of followers. When exactly will the witch-hunts start, one wonders.

    On demon identification

    “Sometimes they know. Sometimes the demon has identified itself to the person. Sometimes you can tell by manifestations of superhuman, unhuman behavior. Sometimes you can tell by skilled deliverance ministers. My wife has a five-page questionnaire that she has people fill out before she ministers to them. So she asks the kind of questions that a medical doctor would ask to find out, to diagnose an illness. So she actually does diagnostic work on people to discover not only if they have demons, but what those demons might be.”

    She actually does diagnostic work, and demons are as real as bacteria, and her diagnostic work can detect them and say what kind they are, just like a medical doctor…Yet these people aren’t some hicks who live 4o miles up Cowshit Road and can’t do much damage.

    On whether other religions and nonbelieving Christians are
    demonic

    “Well, it means they’re not part of the kingdom of heaven. It means they’re
    part of the kingdom of darkness. An apostle, a friend of mine in Nepal, once
    told me that every Christian believer in Nepal that he knows of has been
    delivered from demons. That their former Hindu religion had implanted, or the
    demons had gained access, and that in order to become Christian believers, the
    demons had to be cast out. Of course, we have many examples in the Bible of the same thing.”

    Ah well if a friend of his told him that – there’s no more to be said.

    On what it means to be an apostle

    “In terms of the role of the apostle, one of the biggest changes from traditional churches to the New Apostolic Reformation is the amount of spiritual authority delegated by the Holy Spirit to individuals. And the two key words are authority and individuals — and individuals as contrasted to groups. So now, apostles have been raised up by God who have a tremendous authority in the churches of the New Apostolic Reformation.”

    He thinks he’s been raised up by God. He thinks he has spiritual authority. He’s apparently serious.

    If only these people were just a tiny minority.

  • A foxhole atheist speaks up

    A-News talks to Justin Griffith, FTB colleague, Military Director of American Atheists, and the guy behind Rock Beyond Belief.



    www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhKKLhGijuQ

     

  • C Peter Wagner on Fresh Air

    One of the biggest changes from traditional churches to the New Apostolic Reformation is the amount of spiritual authority delegated by the Holy Spirit to individuals.

  • United for separation of church and state

    Another reply to Wallis and Pinsky. (I like it when the objects of theist bullying fight back. Sue me.) This one is by Rob Boston of Americans United.

    There are people in this country who belong to fundamentalist Christian religious groups and who believe that they have the right (and perhaps the duty) to run your life.

    That is a fact. These people exist. I’ll be spending some time with them this weekend at the Family Research Council’s “Values Voter Summit.”

    It’s also a fact that some folks would like to pretend that these people don’t exist, or that they are a fringe group that can be easily dismissed. Some evangelicals are embarrassed by the antics of politically active, extreme fundamentalists, but instead of standing up to them, they’ve decided instead to criticize those of us who write about the Religious Right.

    It’s a classic “kill the messenger” scenario.

    …

    Our open letter sets the record straight. Those of us who write about the Religious Right are not overreacting. Nor do we, as Wallis and Pinsky seem to think, believe that all evangelicals are theocrats. Indeed, we know that the theocratic wing is a minority – but we also know that a minority can have influence far beyond its numbers.

    …

    We write about these things because we believe there are people out there who support church-state separation and maybe they’ll get involved in stopping the Religious Right – if they have the facts they need. So be assured that we’re not going to let two naysayers who can’t grasp what’s going on shout us down or intimidate us into silence. (In a USA Todaycolumn, Pinsky says that David Barton, a man whose phony “Christian nation” claptrap is considered gospel in fundamentalist churches all over America and who helped dumb-down social studies standards in Texas, is a marginal figure. Talk about clueless!)

    As long as I have the power to turn on a computer or pick up a pen, I’m going to keep writing about the threat the Religious Right poses to American values and freedoms. And yes, I intend to call out the theocrats when it’s necessary.

    Very well said.

  • Scenic interlude

    I took a dog friend to the beach at Golden Gardens this afternoon. It was beautiful and stormy.

  • Dude – Title II of the Federal Civil Rights Law of 1964

    The Center for Inquiry reports:

    Prejudice against atheists manifested itself again when The Wyndgate Country
    Club in Rochester Hills, Michigan (outside of Detroit), cancelled an event with
    scientist and author Richard Dawkins after learning of Dawkins’s views on
    religion. The event had been arranged by the Center for Inquiry–Michigan (CFI), an advocacy group for secularism and science, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

    The Wyndgate terminated the agreement after the owner saw an October 5th
    interview with Dawkins on The O’Reilly Factor in which Dawkins
    discussed his new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really
    True    .

    In a phone call to CFI–Michigan Assistant Director Jennifer Beahan, The
    Wyndgate’s representative explained that the owner did not wish to associate
    with individuals such as Dawkins, or his philosophies.

    Oh gee, that’s against the law. CFI has quite a few lawyers on the staff. The owner is in for a bumpy ride.

    “It’s important to understand that discrimination based on a person’s
    religion—or lack thereof—is legally equivalent to discriminating against a
    person because of his or her race,” said Jeff Seaver, executive director of
    CFI–Michigan. “This action by The Wyndgate illustrates the kind of bias and
    bigotry that nonbelievers encounter all the time. It’s exactly why organizations
    like CFI and the Richard Dawkins Foundation are needed: to help end the stigma attached to being a nonbeliever.”

    Stigma? Stigma? STIGMA? What stigma? There is no stigma! Everybody knows that. It’s all just a big cry-baby fuss by gnu atheists. Joe Hoffmann said so last April, and Jacques Berlinerblau totes agreed with him.

  • More from “religion makes people good” dept

    Haredi protesters pitch a fit about a new girls’ school – a religious school! – next to “their” neighborhood.

    Senior Beit Shemesh rabbis took part in the rally, in which participants called for “maintaining the purity of the haredi neighborhoods against strangers plotting to desecrate them, backed by the evil regime.”

    Got it all, dunnit –  purity, strangers, plotting, desecrate, the evil regime. You can’t get much more viciously crazy and anti-human than that.

    A female journalist was assaulted by a small group of young protestors, who
    cursed and spat at her as well…

    According to the students’ parents, groups of radical haredim arrive at the
    school from time to time and swear at the girls.

    Two haredi men were arrested this week on suspicion of throwing eggs and
    tomatoes at students. About two weeks ago, stones were hurled at a boys’ school belonging to the same educational network, injuring a student in the leg.

    …

    The haredim are opposed to the girls’ school due to its location, facing the windows of a haredi neighborhood. Efforts to reach an understanding between the haredi residents and the national-religious parents before the start of the school year failed.

    Religion makes people just wonderful.

     

  • Haredi men throw shit, call little girls “sluts”

    In September they staged a protest against the school and the “evil regime” that approved its founding. A female journalist was assaulted and spat on by a group of men.

  • Israel: Haredi Jews “picket” girls on the way to school

    They say their religious sense of modesty is offended by the sight of the girls and their families passing their homes on their way to school.

  • Anti-clerical party in Poland enrages conservatives

    The Janusz Palikot Movement wants crucifixes removed from public buildings, the Church taxed, gay rights promoted and Poland’s strict abortion law relaxed.