Rory Fenton has a very apropos article at the Rationalist Association calling for non-religious students to resist the tide of religious privilege at universities.

What happens when you go to university? New stuff! New ideas, new people, new categories of ideas, new all sorts.

In the midst of this, many find themselves doubting or losing their religious beliefs. For them and for those who have never been religious, non-religious societies on campus, whether called “atheist”, “humanist”, “secular”, “freethinking”, “rationalist” or “ex-Muslim” (and non-religious groups can rival the gay rights movement for the sheer number of inclusive terms they use), can be a second home. At their best they are oases of free debate and discussion, challenging their members as well as the wider campus community to question dogma and speak up for reason.

But then that’s exactly why some people hate them, isn’t it. It’s also, depressingly, why some other people feel the need to support the people who are threatened by the questioning of dogma at the expense of the people questioning dogma. Last year at Reading University, for example.

It all started with a pineapple.

The pineapple in question was sat on the stall of Reading University’s Atheist Society. The pineapple was called “Mohammad”, as indicated by a sticker, and was there to promote an upcoming discussion on freedom of speech and blasphemy. Reading Students’ Union soon received complaints from Muslim students. Rather than defend their members’ rights to free speech, the union demanded the pineapple be removed. When Reading Atheists refused, they were kicked out of the Freshers Fair altogether. The union then updated their behavioural policy to forbid societies from causing “offence” to other students or even to members of the wider local community. The policy offers no definition of offence, creating in essence a blasphemy ban. The policy remains unchanged, forcing Reading Atheists to choose between signing the document and leaving the union altogether.

And, indeed, as I noted, the union has kicked Reading Atheists out of the union altogether.

The religious privileges that have censored atheist societies have also allowed religiously inspired bigotry to march on unheeded on UK campuses. Christian and Muslim societies regularly invite speakers with deeply homophobic and sexist views to their events, including those who have advocated the death penalty for homosexuals. Fortunately, the speakers are not permitted to air these views on campus, focusing instead on more general topics, but being invited to these universities lends them a perverse legitimacy.

It’s necessary to push back. Do what you can to help the student atheists, secularists and humanists.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Remember Reading University Student Union and its affiliated group Reading University Atheist, Humanist, and Secularist Society? The group that had a pineapple named Mohammed on its table at last year’s Freshers’ Fayre and got kicked out of the fayre by the Student Union as a result? I wrote about it almost exactly a year ago, quoting their statement via the NSS:

Among the material displayed on our stall was a pineapple. We labelled this pineapple “Mohammed”, to encourage discussion about blasphemy, religion, and liberty, as well as to celebrate the fact that we live in a country in which free speech is protected, and where it is lawful to call a pineapple by whatever name one chooses.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we were informed by a member of RUSU staff that there had been complaints about the pineapple, despite the fact that no complaints had been made at any point to anybody on the stall. Our commitment to freedom of expression meant that we refused to remove the pineapple from our stall. After a few minutes, we were told by another member of RUSU staff that “Either the pineapple goes, or you do”, whereupon they seized the pineapple and tried to leave. However, the pineapple was swiftly returned, and shortly was displayed again, with the name Mohammed changed to that of Jesus.

Shortly afterwards, the second RUSU staff member returned and ordered RAHS to leave the Freshers’ Fayre. At this point, a group of around five students, some of whom self-identified as Muslim, approached the stall and began to criticise us, asking and telling us to remove the pineapple. Though these students mainly engaged in discussion, one removed the label from the pineapple without our permission.

In the end they felt compelled to leave, so they did.

Now a year on, the Student Union has disaffiliated the ASH group and declared it dissolved, so they are again outside the tent for the Freshers’ Fayre. They’re there now, for another twenty minutes.

Apparently Reading University’s Student Union simply doesn’t allow avowed atheism or secularism or humanism. That’s no good.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This joke comes from 25 Jokes Only Book Nerds Will Understand, which headlines this week’s THE LIST LIST, our weekly round-up of the best bookish lists on the internet. Check out the rest here: http://wp.me/p1TMUr-eJB

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I knew that was a very rainy Saturday and a rainy windy stormy weekend but I didn’t know quite how rainy windy stormy it was. It broke records.

1.71 inches of rain Saturday, which is more than the normal amount for the whole month of September.

The center of the storm moved ashore the center of Vancouver Island (in British Columbia, Canada) early this morning* with a minimum pressure of 970 mb, deeper than any hurricane to form in the tropical Atlantic this hurricane season. On West Vancouver Island, a wind gust was clocked at 76 mph (122 km/h) Sunday night.

And there was even a tiny tornado 40 miles south of here.

*Yesterday

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Nick Cohen has no time for what aboutery, for “how can you from the West talk about that instead of talking about the West,” for righteous indifference. He wrote that piece last week about the way Qatar treats immigrant labor, and got some whataboutery in response.

After publication, a couple of people contacted me to say that the Open Democracy website had published a ‘reasoned’ critique of my article.

Maybe I had got my facts wrong, I thought. I did not seem to be wide of the mark. The next day Robert Booth of the Guardian ran a tough and well-sourced piece on how Qatar’s World Cup building programme would cost 4000 lives by 2022. The International Trade Union Confederation denounced Fifa’s culpability in the scandal, and the International Labour Organisation said that Qatar was refusing to follow basic standards.

But the misnamed “Open Democracy” was more interested in making excuses for a closed and absolute monarchy than the vulgar business of ascertaining how many corpses were piling were up in morgues.  If one must talk about the bodies, it said as it began its reproof, one must abjure vulgar emotion and adopt a polite tone. I had ‘overstepped some lines’, and forgotten that ‘the way one words a critical piece about Qatar affects the way it is perceived’.  (Not perceived by the 1.7 million migrants in Qatar, of course, but by the 225,000-strong group of natives above them.)

How does the author of the Open Democracy piece, Michael Stephens, put it?

Simply put, the way one words a critical piece about Qatar affects the way it is perceived. Most Qataris know there are serious problems with labour rights in the country, they are not cold unfeeling monsters. Yes, there can be racial divides and negative stereotypes which reflect badly on the local population. But the vast majority of Qataris know reform must come, and that the clock is ticking down towards 2022, a time in which the country will come under the spotlight of the world’s gaze. If the laws stay as they are, that gaze will be not be a favourable one.

Covering important issues such as the issue of Gulf workers and the Kafala (sponsorship) system needs the input of the locals themselves, and to actually get them to engage with the issue. Nowhere in Cohen’s piece is there actually a view of a Qatari expressed. We’re not even made aware if the locals have an opinion on this issue or not, or the Emir, or the Ministries.

The idea seems to be that one mustn’t just criticize from outside, although it’s not really spelled out why. Let’s assume the why is “because only insiders can fix the problem and they won’t do that unless you consult them.” But that’s not true. Often it is external pressure that pushes vicious systems into reform. In any case, as Nick points out, the 1.7 million migrants are insiders too, so why shouldn’t Nick address them rather than the 225,000 locals who exploit them?

Open Democracy believes that reform is coming – although a little late for the maimed and dead, it concedes. We should put our faith in the ‘young emir’ – in much the same way that credulous Russian peasants once hoped that young Tsars would ease their burdens. Outsiders, however, must bite their tongues and mind their p’s and q’s as they wait. My critic, a British ex-pat, who teaches in a local university, said that even liberals in the Qatari elite would respond to my piece by saying:

“Who are you Westerner, who built your power on the extermination of locals across the globe and the exploitation of human beings for centuries, to lecture us on how to treat people?

You criticise us but are more than happy to take our money when you need it for everything from paying off your debt, to your shops, to your skyscrapers, and your football teams.

When your western construction companies come into Qatar they are the first ones to hire teams of cheap Asian labourers to do the job. Look at yourselves first before criticising us.”

The writer was all for this notion that Western outsiders were too compromised to complain. But notice how he packages his justification: indifference to the suffering

of exploited workers is what you would expect to hear from a PR man in a global corporation. But here it is dressed up in the clothes of anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism – of righteousness, in short. Righteous indifference is still indifference, but it makes doing or saying nothing sound like the liberal course to follow.

As Open Democracy raised the question of tone, I should say I loathe its tone of voice more than any other. It is the note you hear when you are told to forget about secularism or women’s rights (especially women’s rights) as religious conservatives march. It is the throat-clearing used to justify tyranny and excuse the barbarism of radical Islam. It is that sing-song, world-weary note that makes shrugging your shoulders and turning away appear virtuous.

A pox on whataboutery.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

New information: women shouldn’t drive because driving bends their ovaries and that makes their babies come out broken.

It’s a Saudi cleric who discovered this, via research he hasn’t mentioned yet.

“If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards,” Sheikh Lohaidan told the news website Sabq.org.

“That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees.”

Sheikh Lohaidan is reported to be opposed to reform more generally and granting women more rights in the kingdom.

Maybe if Saudi women did yoga as well as driving, they’d be all right.

Update: illustration by Gnu Atheism.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Countries other than the US are puzzled by the US’s reckless destructive way of governing.

That leaders of one of the most powerful nations on earth willingly provoked a crisis that suspends public services and decreases economic growth is astonishing to many.

American policymakers “are facing the unthinkable prospect of shutting down the government as they squabble over the inconsequential accomplishment of a 10-week funding extension”, Mexico’s The News wrote in an editorial.

In the United States, however, government shutdowns – or the threat thereof – have become an accepted negotiating tactic, thanks to the quirks of the American federal system, which allows different branches of government to be controlled by different parties. It was a structure devised by the nation’s founders to encourage compromise and deliberation, but lately has had just the opposite effect.

Oh I don’t think it’s become an accepted negotiating tactic. Most people see it as plain gangsterish extortion.

“Canadians can only pray their economy won’t be collateral damage,” writes John Ibbitson in Canada’s Globe and Mail. “Anything that drags down the American economy drags the Canadian economy down with it.”

And this could be another reason why the United States has shutdown crises and other countries don’t – because the United States can afford to. At least up until now, the American economy has been able to continue to grind along despite shutdown disruptions that would stagger other nations.

And it also makes it all the more disgusting – dragging down not just our economy but those of other countries too, out of sheer infantile pigheadedness and resentment.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A useful item that someone gave me on Facebook.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So the Tories are planning to ditch the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Conservative party is prepared to withdraw from the European convention on human rights (ECHR) after the next election, the home secretary Theresa May has said, as she detailed a fresh drive to curb the appeal rights of 70,000 people who face deportation every year.

“The next Conservative manifesto will promise to scrap the Human Rights Act. It’s why Chris Grayling is leading a review of our relationship with the European court [of human rights],” she told the party’s conference. “And it’s why the Conservative position is clear – if leaving the European convention is what it takes to fix our human rights laws, that is what we should do,” she said to applause.

May was followed by the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, who set out a timetable for the development of their policy for a radical reform of human rights law. He said the Conservatives would publish a document in 2014 “setting out what we will do, when we will do it, and how we will do it”, followed by a draft bill setting out the legal detail later in the year.

May’s explicit statement followed David Cameron’s hint on Sunday that the Tories were openly considering the “nuclear option” of withdrawing from the ECHR, despite warnings from the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, and others, of the damage to Britain’s international standing.

What could possibly go wrong?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From April 2009, Jesus and Mo on Blasphemy Day:

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Sara Mayhew is still desperately seeking attention. Every once in awhile I grant her wish. Today is one such time. She fired off a bunch of tweets at me earlier today; I retweeted some; Nick Cohen (who’s a friend of mine) replied to one.

Not quite accurate.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

It’s International Blasphemy Day, people!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More on Golden Dawn.

A Greek lawmaker sought by police surrendered on Sunday, bringing to six the number of legislators from the extreme-right Golden Dawn party now in custody and facing criminal charges.

Christos Pappas — a lawmaker described by prosecutors as the Golden Dawn’s No. 2 official — was formally charged with membership in a criminal organization with intent to commit crimes, like his five fellow legislators, including Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos.

Besides the six lawmakers, another 14 Golden Dawn members and two police officers have been arrested and charged with the same crimes. Another 10 suspects, for whom arrest warrants were issued Saturday, are still at large, officials said.

They’ve been gathering the goods.

The prosecution was made possible by a report from a Supreme Court prosecutor, Haralambos Vourliotis. The report lays out the allegations against the Golden Dawn leadership, including murder, attempted murder, carrying out explosions, possessing explosives and robbery.

The prosecutor’s report says that from the moment Golden Dawn was founded, in 1987, as a neo-Nazi organization, the party structure was paralleled by a military-type operational force whose trained members attacked people, mainly immigrants, based on the party’s ideology. The strict hierarchical structure meant the party leadership knew of every local attack and commands flew from the top to local chapters, the report says.

The recurring lust for fascism.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Have you ever noticed what a terrible literary character “God” is?

Not like the Greeks. Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo – they were interesting, and they got involved. But “God”? Blegh.

That’s why Jesus, you know. People got bored, and they wanted a god who could put bums on seats, one with some good lines. Jesus can be pretty entertaining, in a rebel without a cause way. He’s uneven, but he has moments.

But “God” is so boring they had to get George Burns to play the part, so that people would think there’s someone interesting behind the name. But there isn’t. George Burns was just acting (he was acting George Burns), and the ____________ behind George Burns is boring as fuck.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Education is Forbidden but murder is not. That’s a strange thing.

Suspected Islamist gunmen have attacked a college in north-eastern Nigeria, killing up to 50 students.

The students were shot dead as they slept in their dormitory at the College of Agriculture in Yobe state.

…

A witness quoted by Reuters news agency counted 40 bodies at the hospital, mostly those of young men believed to be students.

College provost Molima Idi Mato, speaking to Associated Press, also said the number of dead could be as high as 50, adding that security forces were still recovering the bodies and that about 1,000 students had fled the campus.

I suppose they were jealous of the statistics from the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)