Miscellanea Agnostica

With the fighting going in in the Gaza strip between Israel and Hamas, it’s time I reviewed the best object-lesson in the dangers of religion that the world has ever seen. The conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs is a morass of hyperreligiosity, not only on the parts of Muslims and Jews, but Christians have been meddling in it as well — mostly to no good effect. It’s a problem that can theoretically be solved, but only once the religiosity and the raging sanctimony on all sides, have been extracted from the scenario.

Yeah, I know, good luck getting that to happen!

A lot has been said about this conflict — much of it wrong, or misrepresented. Because the matter is quite involved, I created a special extra page on my blog about it. I have linked it heavily to other reference material — mostly using the reference site Answers.Com — so that anyone who’s interested, can more easily delve into the many things and events I mention.

Of course, these reference pages I link to are, by nature, dynamic, and I have no control over their contents. They could be different tomorrow, or the next day, or the next year, depending on what is compiled within them by the reference service. They should, however, be more than sufficient to begin your own learning process. Do yourself the favor of reading the whole article, and exploring the reference links.

If you don’t like what I have to say on the matter — I know it’s controversial so I’m sure to have offended someone — at least do yourself the favor of looking at the reference material and find out why I said what I said. You don’t have to agree with my conclusions, but don’t accuse me of bias, because on this matter I am not: I clearly stated in my page — and will repeat here for clarity — that no party to the Arab-Israeli conflict has “clean hands.” No one.

With all of the problems the Anglican Church is facing worldwide (I’ve blogged on that church’s controversies here and here), you would think its head — Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams — would want to avoid any additional controversies. But he has reignited one that’s over a century old (as the (UK) Guardian reports), but had been dormant for decades. That controversy is called “disestablishment,” whether or not to sever the ties of the Anglican Church to the the British government (specifically, the monarch’s status as head of the Church):

The Archbishop of Canterbury has reignited the debate over the separation of church and state by saying that “it would not be the end of the world if the established church disappeared”.

In an interview with this week’s New Statesman, Rowan Williams argues there is a “certain integrity” to a church free from state sanctions.

Williams, who was born in Swansea, grew up in the Church of Wales, a disestablished church, and spent 10 years working as one of its bishops.

He said: “I can see that it’s by no means the end of the world if the establishment disappears. The strength of it is that the last vestiges of state sanction disappeared, so when you took a vote at the Welsh synod, it didn’t have to be nodded through by parliament afterwards. There is a certain integrity to that.”

At the time of his elevation to Archbishop, it had been thought — or perhaps, in some quarters, feared — that Williams might pursue disestablishment; but he never did. This is the first time the matter has come up during his tenure.

It seems an odd time in the history of the Anglican Church for Williams to kick up this matter, which had been somewhat contentious near the end of the 19th century. The (UK) Telegraph offers a possible reason:

What the Archbishop’s supporters say he is doing is defending the Church’s place in a society where only a minority are believers. The Church boasts that 1.7 million people attend its services each month, but the other side of this statistic is that almost 50 million of the English population do not do so. Therefore it must point to the other good works it undertakes on behalf of those who are not to be found in the pews each Sunday. Anglicans are estimated to carry out 23 million hours of voluntary work each year, helping the sick, homeless and needy.

Indeed, the second most senior figure in the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, recently said he wanted it to be more like a hospital and open to followers of any religion or none. “The Church remains the last bastion of defence for those who would find themselves close to jettison by society,” he wrote.

In other words, this is a way of converting the Anglican Church into the proverbial “Big Tent,” and giving it a wider appeal. Perhaps Williams is doing this at this very moment, precisely because he’s under siege by archconservatives within his own ranks and the Anglican Union already faces a pending schism … there appears no better time than this, to try to open up his Church.

The Disney company is a worldwide corporation which is highly visible, and thus subject to condemnation … in the same way that other large, visible companies like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are also constantly attacked. So I suppose this latest hue and cry against Disney is not unexpected, but it did seem a bit odd to me:

A British Catholic cleric says the Walt Disney Co. is corrupting the minds of children by making its products irresistible.

Abbot of Worth Christopher Jamison said Disney has created a child pilgrimage site out of Disney World and used spirituality to market its various products, The [UK] Daily Telegraph reported. …

The cleric said by using a marketing campaign that alludes to some higher meaning to the Disney brand, the global company is misusing spirituality.

“This is basically the commercial exploitation of spirituality,” Jamison told the Telegraph.

Disney has been attacked on religious grounds before, but not usually because of its influence over kids. For example, 10 years ago, Marion “Pat” Robertson famously condemned Disney for having a gay-pride day at Disney World, and issued a stark warning to the people of Orlando Florida (the closest large city to Disney World) that God would assail them over it:

“I would warn Orlando that you’re right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don’t think I’d be waving those [gay-pride] flags in God’s face if I were you,” Robertson said Monday on his TV show, “The 700 Club.”

Robertson also said the widespread practice of homosexuality “will bring about terrorist bombs, it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.”

(Of course, I need not point out that none of Patty’s promised calamities ever materialized. Not one.)

Many Catholic clerics have become rather strident in the last few words, involving themselves in politics and becoming more and more outspoken on many issues (such as the pro-life movement) at the expense of others (the Iraq War, which the Vatican has consistently condemned, but which the American Catholic Church — curiously — refuses ever to mention). So I thought, perhaps this abbot is getting worked up because of this growing Catholic political activism.

But then I read on, to the end of the story, which revealed his true motive:

The newspaper said Jamison offers families advice on how to live a simpler life in his new book, “Finding Happiness.”

The abbot is selling a book, that’s what this is all about … he’s trying to get a little bit of PR and maybe some additional sales.

How utterly cheap of a Catholic cleric, to be shilling for his own book and grubbing for sales.

I recently read a piece on USA Today’s Religion blog and saw an entry about atheism in the US. There isn’t much new there, in fact, I saw something that is now very commonly said but which is really not true:

The reputation of atheists has not been well-served by the surly attacks on religion by some of atheism’s highest-profile torch carriers. From the best-selling atheist manifestos of recent years to Bill Maher’s new Religulous movie, the loudest voices of non-belief have exhibited much of the same stridency and flair for polemics as the religious fundamentalists they excoriate.

I often hear how horrible it is that there are actually (gasp!) outspoken and candid atheists in the world. Why, these “uppity” people need to be put in their place! How dare they be as open, honest, and uncompromising about their non-belief, as militant theist are about their beliefs!

This entry goes on to talk about one champion of the non-confrontational “positive atheism” and compares her with those evil “militant atheist” types whose ferocity must be stomped out:

[Margaret] Downey does not move in the ways of the late atheist spokesperson Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who was known for her caustic mockery of religion and its followers. And despite Downey’s friendship with the outspoken atheist author Richard Dawkins, of The God Delusion fame (who likens the religious indoctrination of kids to child abuse), Downey is more interested in building bridges than walls.

While it is true that the oft-maligned late Madalyn Murray O’Hair wasn’t known for her tact or diplomacy skills, and Dawkins can be extreme in his commentary, I do not agree that it is necessarily “bad” to have such people speaking out about their atheism. After all, religion has its champions who are hardly very diplomatic themselves — but I never see articles or commentary saying they should keep quiet. Among these militant theists, I would list (click on the links to view their intemperate, ardently pro-religionist comments):

Marion “Pat” Robertson
Jerry Falwell
Fred Phelps

These are just three of religionism’s champions … I could easily have listed 10 times as many more had I wished to. Despite their words — which in most cases are as bad as, or worse than, Dawkins’s infamous “child abuse” remark — I’m aware of no “positive theism” movement to counter them, akin to this “positive atheism” movement.

The fact is that we live in a free society; by definition, this means that many different voices will speak to many different issues in many different ways. Not all of them will be flattering, and it is not reasonable to expect them all to be so. There was a time when atheists like O’Hair or Dawkins would have been ostracized or worse for having said the things they did. (One can argue that O’Hair was, in fact, blackballed, eventually.) For a couple of centuries after they began cropping up in the Enlightenment, non-believers had to be very temperate and artful in their commentary and remain in the shadows, cloaking their non-belief in various labels or stating their opinions carefully so as not to offend the believing masses. Atheists of all stripes — including Margaret Downey and others of the “positive atheism” movement — ought therefore to be glad that the “militant atheists” they so dislike are able to say what they do and still go about their lives.

Finally, the vast majority of atheists and other non-believers generally remain quite reserved about their lack of belief and are in no way “militant.” In the US especially, they cannot — even in the 21st century — afford to offend the majority who still believe and still demand that everyone else believe. It is laughable to presume that all atheists are of the O’Hair/Dawkins sort. This presumption is effectively a “straw man” that theists use against atheists. But as with all other “straw men,” this is a fallacy, one that need not be validated by atheists themselves. That “militant atheists” represent the sum total of all atheism everywhere, is simply mythical, not real.

Everybody and his brother and sister seems to have ideas about how the economic crisis should be solved. Would you believe, religion has been proposed as the solution? We have this from one of the world’s foremost religious authorities:

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader appeared in a new video posted Friday calling on Americans to embrace Islam to overcome the financial meltdown, which he said was a consequence of the Sept. 11 attacks and militant strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ayman al-Zawahri, whose 80-minute recording touched on a number of subjects, also lashed out at Afghanistan’s government and said any U.S. gains in Iraq will be temporary. …

Appearing in a white turban and robe, Zawahri discussed the roots of the U.S. economic crisis. He said it was a repercussion of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, and that the crisis would continue “as long as the foolish American policy of wading in Muslim blood continues.” …

“The modern economy has been destroyed by the strikes of the mujahedeen (in Iraq and Afghanistan) and usury,” he said, using the Arabic term for holy warriors.

Under Islamic Sharia law, usury, like drinking alcohol, is among the grand sins.

Zawahri then called on the American people to “embrace Islam to live a life free of greed, exploitation and forbidden wealth.”

Funny how al-Qaeda’s number 2 is condemning wealth, his boss, Osama bin-Laden, is the son of a Saudi billionaire and a member of one of the wealthiest families in the world.

Then again, religious folk love hypocrisy (even though they condemn it, and are sometimes enjoined never to engage in it), so this ought not be a big surprise.

About the only response I can think of to al-Zawahri’s drivel is, “Bite me, Ayman.”

Ah, the “religion of peace” has struck again. The Indian city of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) is under attack by militants who are part of a group called the Deccan Mujahideen. CNN has a bit to say about them:

The Indian Mujahideen is a Muslim militant group which emerged about a year ago but has the organizational capability to carry out attacks such as those in Mumbai, said Paul Cruickshank, a fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New York University’s School of Law.

The group has declared “open war” against India in retaliation for what it said were 60 years of Muslim persecution and the country’s support of U.S. policies.

This is not the Deccan Mujahideen’s first attack on India:

In September, the group said it was behind a series of explosions which ripped through busy marketplaces in New Delhi, killing 24 people and wounding about 100.

The group also claimed responsibility in May for near-simultaneous bomb attacks that killed 63 people in the northwest city of Jaipur.

Also, the Deccan Mujahideen is not the only Islamist terror group now operating in India:

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Army of the Pure) is an Islamic extremist group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks on Indian troops and civilians in recent years. They are suspected of being behind the string of bombs that ripped through packed Mumbai commuter trains and platforms during rush hour in July 2006. More than 200 people were killed in that attack.

It’s interesting that so many groups are engaged in terror and/or violence as an expression of their faith in Islam, a religion which bills itself as the “religion of peace,” a point famously reiterated by President George W. Bush shortly after the al-Qaeda terror attacks in September of 2001:

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.

When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world.

I keep thinking about the open warfare now being waged in the hotels of Mumbai — and the many other similar actions of the Deccan Mujahideen and other Islamist groups — but somehow I can’t see how they can be said to represent, or be acting in the name of, a “religion of peace.” Killing people and taking over hotels is not typically what one thinks of as an expression of “peace.” I wonder if, perhaps, I missed something … ? After all, how can this vile godless infidel be expected to understand the wishes of almighty al-Lah?

By now we’re all used to the raging immature intolerance of the Islamic world when it comes to their own religion. They will not permit any “insult to Islam,” whether perceived or real — and are more than willing to resort to violence over it. They issued fatwas and death sentences against Salman Rushdie in the late 1980s over his novel The Satanic Verses. They rioted and destroyed property over the Mohammed cartoons in 2005. A year later Pope Benedict XVI dared quote the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, inciting more riots, death threats, and the usual vitriol.

But the latest example of this irrationality and immaturity took place in Morocco recently — and for no apparent reason:

The Moroccan government has banned the most recent issue of the French magazine L’Express International for insulting Islam.

Information Minister Khalid Naciri said Sunday that he had no choice but to ban the issue because of the offensive nature of the articles it contained. The minister said that Article 29 of the kingdom’s press code allows the government to shut down or ban any publication deemed to offend Islam or the king.

Note that the Moroccan government took this action without even bothering to explain the exact nature of the “offense” — making this particular example of Islamic intolerance even more incomprehensible than the usual example of furious intolerance (in which a reason for the outrage is cited, even though it usually makes no sense).

About the only good thing about this episode is that L’Express International hasn’t been firebombed or threatened (but it’s a little too soon yet to rule out that possibility). Someday the Islamic world is going to grow up and get over itself … but probably not in my lifetime, and not even in the next few centuries.

A little over a month ago I blogged about the UK Royal Society’s director of education, Michael Reiss, demanding creationism teaching in science classrooms. I wondered, then, what might have been going through the guy’s head. It turns out that in addition to his scientific degrees, Reiss is an Anglican priest — so my question was answered!

He resigned within a few days, claiming that he was misunderstood, and that he was talking about how to address creationism if a student brought it up in class. While he did discuss such a scenario in his remarks, and he later claimed to believe that creationism is not appropriate in a science classroom, his initial remarks included the following sentence:

I feel that creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view.

Reiss’s problem, of course, is that — scientifically speaking — creationism is most assuredly a “misconception.” Whether or not it’s a worldview, is irrelevant, in light of that.

Reiss’s remarks and his subsequent resignation are controversial in Britain’s science world. There are some who think his position reasonable and that he should not have been fired for it. He also has vehement critics. A sampling of the matter:

A defender of Professor Reiss’ position on the BBC radio I heard argued that the creation myth was a metaphor, not to be taken literally. Hence scientists should not be so touchy. A critic could argue, however that if that were the case then that is exactly why the teacher should indeed to refer the pupil to poetry, drama or religious studies where parables as metaphor are appropriate. The problem is that as soon as you bring it into a science lesson you risk confusing science and parable. This is not helped by creationists who insist that the creation myth is not a parable but true and should at the very least be taught as a valid theory alongside evolution. This then makes a mockery of science.

That, of course, is the real problem here. If we were talking about a kid who — say — denies the reality of gravity, that’s easily addressed in science class, by explaining the workings of gravity and devising an experiment to show that it works.

But if a kid says, “Mah preacherman dun tol’ me we ain’t no apes, ’cause the Bobble dun says so,” there is really no way for a science teacher to address and debunk this … because nothing the teacher says or does can do so! The kid’s preacherman has pre-empted any possible scientific response, by convincing the child to take the literal word of the Bible over anything and everything else — including valid, time-tested science. It is, in short, a game that the science teacher cannot win.

What’s more, the science teacher’s failure would only become further “evidence” of creationism’s truth, in the eyes of the child. (There are, in fact, already apocryphal stories of believers demolishing atheist teachers, which are — in spite of their known apocryphal nature — used among other believers as “evidence” of the intellectual bankruptcy of atheism. So don’t think this cannot happen.)

Yes, creationism teaching is an insidious force in the lives of the world’s youngsters. Its goal is not only to indoctrinate them in certain metaphysical beliefs, but also to cheat them of the possibility of ever learning the truth. In short … it’s evil.

That Saudi Arabia is stuck in the Middle Ages is not news. What is news is that a prominent Saudi cleric is taking on what has become a major cultural trend in the Arab world, as reported by Reuters:

A senior Saudi cleric has said purveyors of horoscopes on Arab television should face the death penalty, a paper said on Sunday, days after another cleric argued death for TV owners.

“Sorcerers who appear on satellite channels who are proven to be sorcerers have committed a great crime … and the Muslim consensus is that the apostate’s punishment is death by the sword,” Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan told al-Madina daily. …

Many of the hundreds of Arab satellite channels have sprung up in recent years specialise in horoscopes and other advice to callers on solving problems that is seen as “sorcery.”

In their capacity as judges, clerics of Saudi Arabia’s austere form of Islam often sentence “sorcerers” to death.

Fozan, a member of the Higher Council of Clerics, was responding to a controversy ignited by a Council colleague, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, who said last week that owners of Arab TV shows should be tried and face death over some shows. …

Lohaidan, who is the head of Saudi Arabia’s Islamic sharia courts, told Saudi radio: “I want to advise the owners of these channels that broadcast programmes with indecency and vulgarity and warn them of the consequences … They can be put to death through the judicial process.”

He was referring to comedy shows and soap operas airing in Ramadan, a month of fasting when Muslims are supposed to focus on God. Critics say Ramadan has become an orgy of food and television consumption once the fast ends at sunset. …

The Reuters article concludes by explaining the tension between state and religion in Saudi Arabia that drove these clerics to lash out:

The owners of Arab entertainment channels, including MBC, ART, Orbit, Rotana and LBC, are mostly Saudi royals and businessmen closely allied to them.

Concerned about the country’s international image, some key members of the Saudi royal family have promoted liberal reforms. The clerics fear plans to limit their extensive influence in what is the world’s largest oil exporter.

Like little children, when faced with opposition, the Saudi clerics react in typical immature fashion — by stamping and fuming and making threats. Nice, huh?

A museum in Italy has put on display a fairly silly, cartoonish even, sculpture depicting a frog being crucified. In response, Pope Benedict XVI has called for it to be taken down and the regional governor went on a hunger strike in protest (here’s a report from the (UK) Telegraph):

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano has refused to take down the modern art piece which the Vatican has condemned as blasphemous. …

The sculpture called “Zuerst die Füsse,” meaning Feet First, depicts a frog of about four feet high nailed to a brown cross holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another. …

Museum staff said the artist, who died in 1997, considered the sculpture a self-portrait representing human anguish.

However, the German Pope did not agree and the Vatican wrote a letter to the regional government, whose President, Franz Pahl, went on hunger strike in opposition to the frog and had to be taken to hospital.

The Vatican’s letter said the amphibian “wounded the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God’s love.”

These two really need to get over themselves. The sculpture is, as I said, cartoonish-looking. I’m no art critic, so I have a hard time considering it a wonderful representation of the human condition … but come on, the thing is just too goofy-looking to take seriously! One would think the world has managed to get over depictions and mentions of crucifixions. After all, the controversy over The Ballad Of John And Yoko happened a little less than 40 years ago … haven’t people grown up since then?

In case you don’t remember or are too young, this Lennon tune from 1969 — which was banned in some places — included these lyrics:

Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me.

At any rate, I’m not aware of any entitlement for believers never to be offended, not even in Italy, homeland of the Roman Catholic Church. Hopefully the Holy Father will grow up and see this whimsical little frog as just that — too whimsical to be worthy of any of his time.