Author: Ophelia Benson

NPR proudly joins the vast majority of good decent centrist moderate sensible okay acceptable Americans in saying how horrible atheists are, especially the ones who don’t keep their atheism a tactful secret.

Last month, atheists marked Blasphemy Day at gatherings around the world, and celebrated the freedom to denigrate and insult religion.

No, that’s wrong, and tendentious. What atheists celebrated on Blasphemy Day was the freedom to say anything we like (barring incitement to murder and similar) including but by no means restricted to perceived denigration and insult. NPR was careful to trash ‘atheists’ in the opening sentence, so that nobody would be in any doubt even for a second that NPR is opposed to atheism.

They quote Stuart Jordan, a science adviser at the Center for Inquiry, tutting about the painting of Jesus doing his nails.

Jordan says the exhibit created a firestorm from offended believers, and he can understand why. But, he says, the controversy over this exhibit goes way beyond Blasphemy Day. It’s about the future of the atheist movement — and whether to adopt the “new atheist” approach — a more aggressive, often belittling posture toward religious believers.

Well, there you go, you see. We don’t think ‘aggressive’ is the right word (let alone ‘belittling’). We don’t think we are aggressive, we think we are no longer silent, which is a different thing. That’s the rock on which these two streams always separate – what is aggression and what is perfectly reasonable non-secrecy. It’s the same rock in Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, obviously. It was the same rock in the Civil Rights movement, and in feminism, and in gay rights. We don’t think we are obliged to be quiet, so we speak up, and the people who think we are obliged to be quiet then call us ‘aggressive’ for not being quiet. Then we get annoyed that mere speaking up is called ‘aggressive’ so we speak up all the more – so this kind of labeling backfires when it comes to silencing us but it works a treat when it comes to making everyone else think we are bad aggressive people. It’s a very loaded word, ‘aggressive’ – it’s one of those words it pays to be suspicious of, in case it’s being used in peculiar and dubious and even sinister ways.

The reporter got Paul Kurtz to make some unpleasant accusations about nameless ‘new atheists.’

Kurtz says he was ousted in a “palace coup” last year — and he worries the new atheists will set the movement back. “I consider them atheist fundamentalists,” he says. “They’re anti-religious, and they’re mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, they’re very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good.”

Who are? Who are all these ‘they’? Dawkins, Hitchens? That would be odd, since both have been affiliated with the Center for Inquiry and written columns for Free Inquiry for many years. Ron Lindsay, who replaced Kurtz as CEO of CfI and disagreed with him about Blasphemy Day? Possibly. Everyone else who’s ever been called a ‘new’ atheist? Possibly – but does Kurtz really know that all of those people are mean-spirited? No of course not – and he should have been more cautious than to let the pious NPR reporter bounce him into making such a claim. I’ve been called a new atheist, and Paul Kurtz didn’t act as if he considered me mean-spirited when I was at CfI in 2007. He told me how terrific he thought B&W was, too. He did talk about wanting atheism and humanism to be affirmative, but he didn’t talk about it as contrasted with any kind of fundamentalist or aggressive or mean-spirited atheism; not that I heard.

But things change, of course. That was then, this is now. The Great Sorting continues.

Misogyny gone wild.

Women seeking abortions in Oklahoma are to be forced to reveal an array of personal information, such as the state of their relationships, how many children they have and their race, which will be posted on an official website…Abortion rights groups have filed a lawsuit to try to block the new law, which requires women seeking abortions to provide doctors with answers to 34 questions including their age, marital status and education levels, as well as the number of previous pregnancies and abortions. Women are required to reveal their relationship with the father, the reason for the abortion and the area where the abortion was performed. Doctors are obliged to pass the information on to the Oklahoma health department, which will post it on a public website.

In other words…a pregnant woman has no rights at all, she is public property because she is pregnant and therefore everything about her is public property and nothing about her belongs to her and no one else. In other words she is not a real person – she is a vessel for a real person, not a real person herself, and her life and her wants and needs are of no significance. It’s everyone’s business whom she had sex with and under what circumstances, why she wants to end the pregnancy, and anything else that The State feels like asking.

Last month a judge struck down a state law requiring a doctor about to perform an abortion to carry out an ultrasound with the screen positioned in front of the mother and to then describe the developing limbs and organs of the foetus. The woman could not be forced to look at the screen but would have no choice but to listen to the doctor’s description. The law required that the ultrasound be carried out vaginally if the pregnancy was in its early stages in order to get a clear picture. Rape victims were not exempted.

In other words the state mandated that women be raped by a machine if they were getting an abortion.

Two councils in East London have irritated a lot of people (and perhaps pleased a few, though that looks doubtful) by instructing all schools under their control to shut for the annual celebrations of Eid-Ul-Fitr, Diwali and Guru Nanak’s Birthday. They have their reasons.

The council has said that the policy is intended to “raise awareness of different faiths and cultures within the school community, which in turn supports cohesion for the wider community”.

Dear god – do people just swallow nauseating bromides in pill form so that they will belch them for a stipulated period afterwards? Do they get them inscribed on the inside of their eyelids? Or am I over-thinking this – is it simply a matter of learning five or six key words and then just trotting them out on all occasions so as not to have to think at all ever under any circumstances? I ask because that sure is what it looks like – and it frankly makes me want to punch something. Community community community, pause, cohesion. Then again – community community different, cohesion community different. Let’s raise awareness of our differences so that we can have more cohesion. Are you sure about that? Are you sure that’s how it works?

Especially when, if the Telegraph is right, there are more Jews in Waltham Forest than there are Sikhs, yet ‘schools have not been told to close for any Jewish holidays.’ What’s that about?

I have a question, too. I don’t understand this usage:

Parents and teaching unions have joined in the criticism of the Waltham Forest policy, which affects all community primary and secondary schools in the borough, although not Church of England or Catholic schools.

What on earth does ‘community’ mean there? Is it a euphemism for secular? If so, why is a euphemism needed? It presumably doesn’t mean ‘state’ since C of E (and Catholic?) schools can be state schools…right? Or am I confused? Does ‘community’ just mean ‘without specific religious affiliation’? Is that the normal way of saying that? Is it new?

A priest who works for something called ‘the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’ doesn’t like the way secularists use the word ‘tolerance’. He says that ‘neutrality toward world views cannot be truly tolerant and respectful’ – which could be because he is inflating ‘tolerant’ to mean ‘respectful’ and ‘respectful’ to mean ‘obedient’ or ‘groveling’ or ‘slavish.’

When secularized citizens act in their role as citizens, they must [not] deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth.

Ah yes – you’d like that, wouldn’t you. You’d like us to stop – when acting in our role as citizens, which presumably means doing anything at all public, such as writing for magazines or on blogs – pointing out that there is no reason to believe that ‘religious images of the world’ have anything to do with ‘expressing’ truth. You’d like us to pretend that the Catholic ‘image of the world’ is just as reasonable as any other ‘image of the world’ – despite its long-established refusal to check its world-image against the real thing and its long-established habit of building up its world image out of authority and tradition and selected bits of a very old book and its long-established contentment with just asserting things about the world and human beings and ‘God.’ Of course you would like that, because then you could go on asserting things and laying down the law without any interference from people who think you don’t know what you claim to know. But you don’t get to have that. You get to have a huge amount of power and influence and authority, and money as well; you don’t get to have universal submission. Suck it up.

Oh dear, poor Tony Blair.

A couple of days ago Matthew Parris went to visit the bones of St Thérèse of Lisieux which are paying a neighborly visit to Westminster Cathedral. It was all very festive.

Already there was a near-carnival atmosphere surrounding the bones. A temporary fish-and-chips stall had sprung up beside a smoothies-and-coffee tent.

And that’s not the only treat.

Next, a big notice. “The Plenary Indulgence … A plenary indulgence is the complete remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.” Apparently Pope Benedict has declared a special grant of indulgences to pilgrims to these relics at Westminster. “One plenary indulgence may be gained each day and may be applied either to a soul in Purgatory or the pilgrim himself or herself.”

Ooooooh I do like a nice bit of magic.

And then the relics. Or rather the casket containing the relics. Or rather the big arched glass box containing the ornate wooden house with little tiles, embracing the sealed alabaster box in which the bones lay. Or rather were presumed by the pilgrims to lie.

Well naturally – would you have them strain at a gnat and swallow a camel?

At the front of the cathedral, among the departing pilgrims, was a man apparently alone. It was Tony Blair. He half-acknowledged me, and walked away. Blimey. Can these relics help a man become president of Europe? This was no photo-opportunity: our former Prime Minister and warrior for Western values had not expected to see a journalist — his expression betrayed that. So he really means it. Means it not just about God, but the God to whom Catholics think they have access.

Oh lordy. Poor Tony Blair – wanting to do that, and doing it, and being caught by Matthew Parris doing it.