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All Blog Posts Tagged 'Islam' - Think Atheist 2015-05-23T01:41:59Z http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blog/feed?tag=Islam&xn_auth=no Defeating Islam and the end of religion tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2014-02-12:1982180:BlogPost:1433041 2014-02-12T04:49:23.000Z Stephen Mooney http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/StephenMooney
There is no scientific and rational basis for believing in the existence of a god of any description. All religions involve irrational beliefs and practices. Islam is not only a religion, but also a political movement. Unlike other religions, its irrational beliefs and practices are a threat to all liberal democratic societies. We need to bring an end to religion. We also need to defeat Islam with a two pronged approach.

The first part of the approach is the head-on attack. The Koran…

There is no scientific and rational basis for believing in the existence of a god of any description. All religions involve irrational beliefs and practices. Islam is not only a religion, but also a political movement. Unlike other religions, its irrational beliefs and practices are a threat to all liberal democratic societies. We need to bring an end to religion. We also need to defeat Islam with a two pronged approach.

The first part of the approach is the head-on attack. The Koran (Qur'an) clearly contravenes laws against racial vilification and the incitement to violence in liberal democracies. If you doubt this, then read the following 14 instructions that appear in the Koran.

1. Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them (2:191). 2. Make war on the infidels living in your neighbourhood (9:123). 3. When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them (9:5). 4. Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax (9:29). 5. Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable (3:85). 6. The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them (9:30). 7. Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam (5:33). 8. The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque (9:28). 9. Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies (22:19). 10. Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them (47:4). 11. The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them (8:65). 12. Muslims must not take the infidels as friends (3:28). 13. Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur'an (8:12). 14. Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels (8:60).

The fact that so-called "moderate Muslims" don't act on these instructions, or that other parts of the Koran advocate peace and harmony, does not change anything. For the laws to be applied consistently, the Koran should be banned as a terrorist manual.

One way that you can explain the fact that some non-Muslims believe that Muslims have a right to embrace the Koran, is that they're ignorant of its contents. There is also the desire for some to see themselves as open minded and tolerant individuals. This is more important to them than understanding the true nature of Islam. There then is the mutual fantasy collusion of one group supporting the irrational beliefs and practices of another group if they support theirs.

Just as individuals who wish to leave Christian cults are rescued, those who wish to leave Islam should also be rescued. Given that Islam involves the punishment of death for anyone leaving, or encouraging anyone to leave, this is a direct challenge to the oppression (Apostasy) that Islam applies to its members.

All Muslims living in liberal democratic societies should be offered the opportunity to relocate to a Muslim country. This could include financial assistance with the relocation costs. Those Muslims who wish to remain must be prepared to denounce the Koran, and in particular those aspects which involve racial vilification and the incitement to violence.

Taking citizenship in a liberal democratic country should involve stating that the secular form of democratic government takes presence over all forms of religion. To this end, any person who travels overseas to engage in religious based violence should be denied the right to re-enter and their citizenship should be revoked.

The constitution of all liberal democracies should guarantee the right to freedom from the imposition of religion. As freedom of thought and speech is usually already guaranteed, within the limits of what's legal, the specific freedom to practice a religion is unnecessary. The constitution of many liberal democracies includes the provision for the freedom of religion. This is due to the fact that in the past some religious groups were persecuted because of their beliefs. These days, religious persecution is mainly perpetrated by Islam.

The second prong of the approach should be under-mining a most fundamental aspect of most religions. This entails the promise that an individual will have an existence after death.

If you explore the nature of establishment Physics and our understanding of the Universe, you may come to the following conclusion: "The Universe is a self-organizing, totally connected, and a strictly determined infinite cycle of the construction and de-construction of matter. It never had a beginning and will not have an end. It's infinite in distance and duration, space and time."

You might then go on to see that "Although there are obviously an infinite number of things in the Universe, if there were an infinite number of types of things (infinite variability) then we wouldn't observe the discrete types that we do observe."

This in turn might lead you "... to the realization that everything that can exist must exist an infinite number of times in the past and the present and the future. There are an infinite number and yet finite versions of myself writing this sentence. You don't need to believe in a mythical religious god to obtain eternal life, because it's a given fact of existence. We live and die forever."

Of course, "The majority of the Physics establishment believe in the Big Bang theory. This proposes that the Universe begun from an extremely small and dense clump of matter that exploded, and that the Universe is continuing to expand as a result. How this clump of matter exploded, is not explained. Sometimes the majority get it wrong."

The meaning and purpose of Human existence is the realization of constructive potential, both individually and collectively. The acceptance of this, along with acceptance of the infinite nature of existence and the spread of liberal democracy, will see most religions gradually fade away. Islam, on the other hand, as a political movement with its simplistic sharia law, will be more resistant. It will require on-going political action by those who believe in secular democracy. We should be under no illusion. Islamic terrorists have declared war on all liberal democracies and we must be prepared to defend our way of life with all necessary means.

 *All that is quoted is from my essay "Beyond the Abstractionist Paradigm of Physics", which can be found by simply putting the title into Google.

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 Putting 'Absolute Truth' into Context tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-07-27:1982180:BlogPost:1356990 2013-07-27T14:17:25.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

Slavery is wrong. Rape is wrong. Homophobia is wrong... The list goes on - and there aren't too many around in 'enlightened' society who'd disagree, because, generally speaking, people are better than their holy books (and their Gods).

This is obviously a very good thing. If it weren't the case, civilisation (if we could call it that) would be an immensely violent, fearful, unjust place. Your daughter gets raped? Marry her to the rapist. Someone steals a…

Slavery is wrong. Rape is wrong. Homophobia is wrong... The list goes on - and there aren't too many around in 'enlightened' society who'd disagree, because, generally speaking, people are better than their holy books (and their Gods).

This is obviously a very good thing. If it weren't the case, civilisation (if we could call it that) would be an immensely violent, fearful, unjust place. Your daughter gets raped? Marry her to the rapist. Someone steals a loaf of bread to feed their starving family? Chop off their hands.

If you're a believer entirely loyal and honest with your sacred texts, this may not seem so bad. If it's the word of God, then everything in it must be good, no? Fine. You're immoral to the core*, but at least you're honest - taking the good and the supposedly 'bad' in equally. 'Moderates' do not share this luxury. Their world is full of grey areas, of 'wishy-washy' metaphors and allegory and intellectual acrobatics.

Don't get me wrong, I have thousands of times more respect for these people - it's just that, in an open conversation on religion, I expect they'd be umm-ing and ahh-ing a tad more frequently. They're nicer folks, but the 'you have to put those bits into the context of their time' argument, especially when simultaneously professing an 'absolute truth' of the holy books, just doesn't hold up.

'Absolute truth' requires context? Objectivity is relative?
 Paradox. Contradiction.

Now, before it's pointed out, I don't think fundamentalists necessarily 'have it easy' at all cerebrally-speaking. Forget having to bend the meaning of verses so they fit together, fundies have to warp reality. A good example of this:

Every young-Earther with a driver's licence is a hypocrite. Why? Because the very science of the fossil fuels powering their vehicle tells us that that the world is greater than 10,000 years old.

Simple. (That's not mine by the way. What I've written is highly paraphrased, and I forget its origin.)

Ever had a browse of Ken Ham's 'Answers in Genesis' website? It's a gold mine of glitter-covered shit. Take, for instance, the actual reality of the existence of dinosaurs millions of years ago and the 'biblical reality' (read 'biblical baseless assertion') of the Earth being, again, only about a few thousand years young. How are these two things squared off? Simple:

AiG: "As God's written Word to us, we can trust [the Bible] to tell the truth about the past... Thus, dinosaurs lived within the past few thousand years."

Amazing! Which of course means 'dinosaurs were represented on the Ark' too... (And I thought it couldn't get any more cramped.)

But, hats off to these brainwashed loonies - at least they stick to their guns. For them, it's either 'all-in' or 'all-out', and I *admire* their conviction when it comes to defending the former.

However, I don't mean to push the wishy-washy moderates to one side or the other, as they're wholly entitled to their beliefs (or lack of them). They're the people - better than their Gods - that make democracy possible. I really do admire that... It's just that I see no problem, in perhaps an honest, open, friendly conversation, to point out to them that when they claim to credit the Bible or Qur'an (etc) for their own innate/learned 'goodness' they are in fact simply using very specific, chosen parts of the books to reinforce just that.

What's more, If we allow for the flawed 'context' argument to override this fact there's literally no reason to oppose any immoral practices with a cultural or religious background happening at present. Then it really gets 'wishy-washy', and people suffer because of it.

The decent believer shouldn't just ignore unsavoury scriptural passages and write them off as 'acceptable for their time' or 'metaphor', they should criticise them. If slavery, in your mind, is wrong now then it was wrong at the time of writing. It's really that simple.

Perhaps past slave owners, like some early American presidents, weren't necessarily immoral themselves - but the act of slave owning then and now certainly was and is. We only really move forward if we look at it like this... And it's not like we haven't got further to go (with, I'd argue, a lot of religion - even the more 'moderate' kind - getting in the way).

Carnun :P

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* 'immoral to the core' if you genuinely live by and celebrate all scripture has to offer knowingly, like making sure not to beat your slaves that little bit too much or burning an unfortunate old lady alive for sorcery.

Not if you're just a child who's been lied to by their fundamentalist parents about gay people. That child is not immoral - the ideology in which they are raised is.
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(Reposted from 'The Ramblings of a Young Atheist' by the Author.)
 How uncommonly generous! tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-07-23:1982180:BlogPost:1355365 2013-07-23T06:44:43.000Z SteveInCO http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SteveInCO
Crossposted from here:

Every once in a while you read something that makes you seethe.

In a generous display of clemency a woman from Norway is…

Crossposted from here:

Every once in a while you read something that makes you seethe.

In a generous display of clemency a woman from Norway is being pardoned by Dubai for being raped. How special. What generosity! What mercy!

Actually, shitheads, you are doing what you should have done in the first place, what should have been the default which is not to hold someone responsible for an act they did not commit.

This woman was the victim of a thug, and can bear no guilt for something he did. It's a basic principle of ethics that you can only be held morally responsible for things you have control over, yet someone else rapes this woman and she is guilty of sex outside of marriage. Even if I were to concede that this is a crime (and it's not) she didn't choose to commit it.

Oh I forgot. Women are to be held responsible for every out-of-control-with-lust male they encounter; they provoked it. I am not sure if that attitude is more insulting to the woman or the man. Though frankly it makes no difference. You are fucked up beyond belief to think this way.

This sort of thing is why the West thinks Arabia is a primitive shithole; even an affluent country like yours acts like a bunch of tribal barbarians.

Maybe your peninsula will eventually catch up to the nineteenth century some day. Too much to hope it will ever be worthy of the twenty first.

PS CNN covered this, Fox did not (though one would think Fox would cover bad stuff about the Islamic areas of the world). It pays to check out both sites (especially when Fox covers stuff CNN won't touch).

Crossposted from here:
 Causing Offence tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-07-12:1982180:BlogPost:1350957 2013-07-12T17:29:05.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

Picture courtesy of http://www.worth1000.com/contests/9726/visual-puns-3, used without permission.

"While I don't…

Picture courtesy of http://www.worth1000.com/contests/9726/visual-puns-3, used without permission.

"While I don't condone the behaviour of 'dick atheists', I can empathise with their frustrations. I'd like to think I'm not one, but I'm not prepared... to compromise my intellectual integrity to avoid causing offence. And I will not tell my students lies about the world just because it might be what their religious parents would like me to do." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook

I strongly feel, as I have a lot lot of reason to assume Alom does, that the teaching of science to children owes no censorship of its core ideas and historic developments to the chance of religious offence. Science is, and likely always will be, the best method we have of comprehending reality - and children have a right to know.

However, as I'm sure each and every reader is aware, there are some who feel that a parent's right to deny their children a decent education overrides this. Allow me to offend them:

Home-schooling a child, for example, with extremely conservative creationist material (like the infamous 'Accelerated Christian Education' stimulus Jonny Scaramanga lived through and now writes about over at 'Leaving Fundamentalism') not only infringes upon what I feel to be their own human right to a decent education (and exposure to information), but has the potential to harm both their mental health and even job prospects.

When everyone at University (with vastly superior qualifications) is doomed for hell in your eyes it can get pretty lonely. And when 'evolution' is a swear-word, it's very hard to be a biologist.

Tell this to a well-meaning fundamentalist Christian parent and you won't get very far though. There's a time and place for (often misrepresented) 'firebrand Atheism', and the issue of education - as it deals with the sensitivities of parents - may need to be approached a tad more carefully than simply telling people they may be ruining their children's lives.

But, and this is very important to reiterate time and time again, the possibility of offending is alone no reason to keep quiet. Some set their 'what offends me' lower limits so sensitively that the very concept of free speech altogether would be threatened if their inability to accept criticism were taken seriously... Only that is often is.

Rampant in countries such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, 'blasphemy' charges are all to liberally handed out for such petty offences as *allegedly* burning pages of the Qur'an or *allegedly* insulting the prophet Muhammad - often with severe physical punishments as the first port of call. The bottom line, from the point of view of secular ethics and Humanism, is that no matter how sacredly millions hold notions of a long dead paedophile, personal offence does not warrant violence towards anyone exercising their deserved freedom of expression (especially when it's reasonable, but even when it's not).

(And yes, that was meant to be provocative to make a small point.)

I recognise that, in many cases, it's hardly productive, as it may be to tell a parent they're doing it wrong, to speak with such intentional confrontational passion. I don't consider myself to be a so-called 'dick Atheist', but there is a balance all of us must draw between what's seen as 'politically correct' (I use the term loosely) and our outward sincerity. That said, I see no reason to pick fights where they need not be fought - and so, for example, I wouldn't seek out a Muslim friend just to criticise Muhammad in front of them. In Islam's case, like many other faiths (but certainly more so), my fight, for the sake of the victims, is with the religion's numerous cancerous teachings and the fundamentalists who seek to impose them on the world. Not Muslims.

Of course, if the topic comes up in conversation I will speak honestly - but I see no need to use language reserved for the likes of the Pope when in the company of friends.

Which, even when directed solely at ideas themselves, still sets people off. Perhaps on the smallest of hair-triggers too - which, while it can be annoying (to say the least), is fine. When I say/write something publicly, everyone who comes into contact with it has the right to legitimately and intellectually criticise it. The only place a thought I have is safe from judgement is in my own brain, and rightly so.

I just wish that others would feel the same, because it's funny how often something like this happens in public discussion (especially in America):

Person A: I think that black people are inferior.

Person B: That's terrible! I think you're wrong, and a bigot.

Person A: I CAN SAY WHAT I WANT! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO 'FREEDOM OF SPEECH' AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME OTHERWISE - I'M NOT A BIGOT!!!

And they never see the irony...

I think the point I'm trying to make (albeit in an unnecessarily roundabout way) is that it's perfectly fine to be occasionally labelled an arrogant, offensive, patronising 'dick Atheist' because if you're vocal about it at all there's bound to be someone who disagrees with you passionately and lazily enough - at even the smallest detail - to throw the supposed insult your way. All you should be concerned about is trying to prove them wrong in day-toady life by being anything but... If it worries you.

Carnun :P

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(Reposted from 'The Ramblings of a Young Atheist' by the Author.)
 Good Without God? tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-07-02:1982180:BlogPost:1346345 2013-07-02T18:32:34.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

"I think the idea that it is immoral not to believe in God is perhaps the most insidious one that parents encourage to take root in the minds of young children. It is what makes it so difficult for people to question the existence of God once they have acquired the ability to think and reason for themselves..." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's a very common theist standpoint, pairing off immorality with…

"I think the idea that it is immoral not to believe in God is perhaps the most insidious one that parents encourage to take root in the minds of young children. It is what makes it so difficult for people to question the existence of God once they have acquired the ability to think and reason for themselves..." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's a very common theist standpoint, pairing off immorality with godlessness. In most cases, it's probably nothing more than an innocent assumption. In others, it may well be tactical and malicious... But one thing's for certain: it's simply wrong.

The claim that morality stems from any one of the many 'good books' is easily refuted. Genuinely nice theists (that's quite a lot of them) are that way because - although they may not admit it - they outright reject some of their scripture's supposedly 'outdated' specifics. And 'outdated', of course, is how they justify it when pressed - "those bits [of the definitive word of an all-knowing, all-good God?] need to be put into the context of the time", you'll hear them say.

What they're doing, in effect, is selecting the source material for content which reinforces their own innate 'goodness', and nothing more, before then perversely crediting it for their own nature. Because, if they were to take it all in (which is hard, given the prevalence of contradiction), they would not be nice people*.

The argument also implies, among other things, that perhaps the only thing in the way of sensible believers being multiple murder-rapists is a book - and I'm sure the situation isn't that dire. On that, most religious people, I like to think, would agree.

It follows, then, that a decent person who leaves faith behind will still be 'a decent person' after the transition (unless other factors are at play). There's really no reason for a drastic negative change in personality, so the demonisation and even criminalisation of de-conversion is certainly tragic, especially when it happens to be from a person's own family.

I don't blame people for staying quiet about (or indeed outright casting aside) the doubt I know they think and feel in the more conservative, frankly backward highly religiously-dominated countries of the world when being open about it is dangerous. Common charges of 'blasphemy' or 'apostasy' - two utterly harmless non-crimes - sadden me greatly, and are perhaps some of the biggest personal drivers for my (safe, here in the UK) vocal Humanism.

In far too many places, such accusations carry a lot of weight. Add to the all of the worldly suffering a non-criminal 'defendant' is likely to experience at the hands of the hatefully deluded a perhaps genuine fear of literally burning for eternity and it's a nasty, nasty mix. It's torture, in every possible way.

Of course, what kind of moral God would let well-meaning people experience such Earthly suffering? And what kind of moral God would approve of any kind of eternal punishment for finite 'sins', for that matter?

I'm sure you've all heard of the famous 'Problem of Evil':

The logic's sound, I feel. Indeed, why call 'him' God?

See, when people come to this sort of conclusion and are themselves branded 'evil', it's more than a little ironic. The God they are rejecting is, as Richard Dawkins has previously named 'the God of the Old Testament' (although it applies to any conceived God-like 'higher power' due to the 'PoE'), easily "the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully", so it really is unfair to accuse the non-believer of getting anywhere close to being as bad an entity by default.

And, since this sort of highly analytical conclusion on the nature of God isn't really open to very young, impressionable, emotional minds I strongly second the sentiment of Alom's quote. It really is 'insidious' to suggest to small children that non-belief is bad enough to deserve hell-fire (or to teach about a literal hell-fire at all, for that matter), as it really does surround the concept in a fearful taboo which only has the potential to cause suffering, however minor, when the children grow up.

Maybe it is, again, unintentional. Or maybe, in the case of some parents, such baseless threats are a good way of keeping a child's mind in line, and they know it.

Either way, it's wrong - and not just in the factual sense implied at the start of this post.

Carnun.

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*Unless, of course, 'nice' is defined by the parameters the books themselves set, which I highly doubt places it anywhere close to the definition of the word known by any sort of global human rights-related standard.
 _____
 (Reposted from 'The Ramblings of a Young Atheist' by the Author.)
 The Problem of Children, and Inter-faith Love tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-06-28:1982180:BlogPost:1343738 2013-06-28T19:39:39.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

"Most religions insist that you do not marry someone of a different faith. This is a good way of ensuring the propagation of the religion, but it is something which must have led to millions of broken hearts throughout history." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's tragic, really, that what you happen to/choose to believe should dictate who you're allowed to love. From my own godless perspective, I…

"Most religions insist that you do not marry someone of a different faith. This is a good way of ensuring the propagation of the religion, but it is something which must have led to millions of broken hearts throughout history." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's tragic, really, that what you happen to/choose to believe should dictate who you're allowed to love. From my own godless perspective, I despair that religion should have such an influence on so many aspects of a person's life, all of the way down to relationships and basic human desires - but I'm not surprised.

When it comes to 'love', many religions are especially invasive and controlling. Scripturally, the rules are clear: homosexuality tends to be frowned upon, for starters. Then, in a heterosexual relationship, there are behavioural guidelines (right down to sex - which end up being inherently hostile towards female sexuality and enjoyment), and one is expected to partner off with another of the same faith.

And it is this last bit (although there may well be more to talk about I haven't mentioned) with which I wish to concern myself here and now in this (admittedly brief) post, because there really are significant obstacles - including frank verses on the subject from various religious texts - for inter-faith couples to overcome.

The first, and perhaps most concerning, is what to do with children.

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." - Proverbs 22:6

"O you who have believed, save yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is men and stones" - Surah Al-Tahreem 66:6

One problem a hypothetical Christian-Muslim couple may face, for example, is how to religiously educate their children, if at all. And supposing they each happen to be rather devout (or live in the company of strict traditionalist family, again for example), there is an absolute imperative to teach kids the right way to worship. Their very 'eternal soul' is on the line, after all.

Of course, every religious individual will have a different take on exactly how to ensure their offspring a place in the 'Kingdom of God', but this fact does not negate the extreme likelihood of a conflict of interests (if not from the couple but from loved ones) on this point. Sure, there's no reason compromise can't be made - like the child growing up attending both Mosque and the Church, or neither - but it's still an issue others don't have to face.

And what of marriage?

Marriage plays an integral part of the religious lives of many. For a Muslim man, marriage is often said to represent 'half of his deen' (roughly translated as 'religion' itself), and Christians are reminded, by their wedding vows, that marriage signifies 'the mystical union between Christ and the Church'.

So, does our inter-faith Christian-Muslim couple 'join' in a Church or Mosque? Perhaps two weddings can take place, to please both families - but will they each really be happy with that concession? And which vows are upheld - the ones said in Christ's name or Allah's?* The simplest way around this would be to get a neutral, secular marriage, but, unfortunately, many do not feel the same way about them as they do towards (the perhaps perceived as fairytale) religious occasions, and once again the disapproval of family can have a very big influence on decision-making.

For this party, the answer may be to ignore the idea of their child's possible inter-faith desires altogether, and instead arrange the marriage of their choosing... Which is a sad, if not dangerous, lucky dip for the individual(s) it affects.

...

You may be thinking that the core 'issue' is trivial. That pretending to extended family really isn't that hard; that it's no problem people are expected to live and love 'each to their own' and with the division it brings; or that 'a loving God wouldn't mind if people get married in a Church, Mosque, or Town Hall'. But some people do care - and when that gets in the way of a loving relationship, it's tragic.

It shouldn't be an issue at all, but it simply is.

Even if the couple can easily rationalise their way out of many of these supposed trivialities, they may very well still face the unfair, irrational judgement and exclusion of the people they've grown up loving - and that's not something many are, understandably, willing to risk. A broken heart is sometimes the easier option, lamentably.

But that does not make it the right one.

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*Not that it would, I suspect, really matter to most couples.

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(Reposted from 'The Ramblings of a Young Atheist' by the Author.)
 'Atheism is for white people' tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-05-08:1982180:BlogPost:1306351 2013-05-08T19:00:00.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

"My friends joke that I am a coconut: brown on the outside, but white on the inside." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

I wrote a post fairly recently for the Rationalist Association's blog (soon set to be in New Humanist…

"My friends joke that I am a coconut: brown on the outside, but white on the inside." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

I wrote a post fairly recently for the Rationalist Association's blog (soon set to be in New Humanist magazine too) entitled 'Does Humanism have a demographic problem?'. In it, I put forward the idea that organised humanism may experience a turnout perhaps unrepresentative of the total population of humanists. At the lectures that the British Humanist Association provide, for example, the audiences tend to be, on the whole, rather white and rather middle-class, and I think that this is a problem. I understand that this tendency is an issue shared by many membership organisations in the UK; but I can't help but feel that it needs to be more vocally addressed in humanism's case, as an idea or belief should have no racial or income-based requirements (even if they are unintentional or accidental).

The article focused more on the 'class' side of things though, simply because Alom Shaha himself had provided me with enough quotable material to 'leave it at that' when it came to race - but here I will go into more detail of my own on the topic.

The first thing I wish to say is that I think it would be insidious to suggest that skin colour dictates what ideas a person can/cannot hold. Religious identity is far too often conflated with cultural identity, and assumptions of how a person should think and behave based on their heritage result inevitably from this. With it, for example, comes the idea that to be an Atheist is to potentially betray one's background - after all, Atheism is just for white people, no?

Wrong. It's a disgusting, divisive, damaging and ultimately patronising charge, that suggestion. That a person's genes and chance place of upbringing would dictate what they are allowed to think is ridiculous. Atheism is not just an idea of 'the West' or a pastime reserved for old white men, it's 'universal'. Lacking belief in a God (or gods) is no more bound by race as liking a particular genre of music is.

Sure, someone living in a more-developed European country has a higher chance of being non-religious and favouring secularisation, but that's only because those countries tend to be more 'progressive' and secular themselves. It has nothing to do with skin colour, but people make this weak link, perhaps subconsciously, time and time again.

The irony of it, as I remember Nigerian human rights activist Leo Igwe mentioning at an event named 'Breaking the Taboo of Atheism in Black Communities' a while back, is that it is the developing world - largely non-white - which needs enlightenment the most. Many people suffer because of religious superstitions, from those accused of witchcraft to homosexuals, and it is them who would most benefit from a lack of said delusions. To call those atrocities but an aspect of 'their culture' is horrendously arrogant, and part of the problem.

From the little 'coconut' jokes to a more frank, as I have previously heard, "Atheism is for white people", non-belief is so wrongly portrayed as something racial. It's absurd. And like most absurdities, it does harm.

It's harder for non-white Atheists to 'come out' because of it, it stifles human progress, and it's deeply insulting. Which is precisely why Mr Igwe so praised the London Black Atheists group who organised the talk.

"We need this space!" he so often proclaimed - and he was right.

Carnun :P
 ___

 (Reposted from 'The Ramblings of a Young Atheist' by the Author.)
 The Scriptural Illiteracy of Believers tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-05-01:1982180:BlogPost:1302894 2013-05-01T17:29:39.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

"I find it astonishing and depressing that many people who lead their lives according to the ideas and rules laid down in these books have not read them" - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

You may have guessed it, but faith often has a lot to do with religious belief. Strip even the most 'educated' theological argument down to its core, and what you're often left with is 'we just don't know - therefore God'.

The 'we…

"I find it astonishing and depressing that many people who lead their lives according to the ideas and rules laid down in these books have not read them" - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

You may have guessed it, but faith often has a lot to do with religious belief. Strip even the most 'educated' theological argument down to its core, and what you're often left with is 'we just don't know - therefore God'.

The 'we just don't know' part is reasonable. The leap of faith required to justify the existence of a very specific, very personal deity is anything but... Yet, that is the argument many make. Even Theologians.

This argument is, essentially, Pascal's wager. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular non-position, it goes a little something like this:

'One should live as if God exists (even though this cannot be proved or disproved through reason), because there is nothing to lose and everything to gain from doing so.'

'... So long as Mr Supposedly-Omnipotent can't see through your deception.*Wink*'

The problem is, it can be applied to pretty much every God our species has ever thought up; from Allah to Zeus.

In light of this, the wonderful* William Lane Craig has, on his 'Reasonable Faith' website, attempted to argue that:

"There are two possible responses to this objection. First, in a decision-theoretic context we are justified in ignoring states which have a remotely small probability of obtaining. Thus, I need not concern myself with the possibility that, say, Zeus or Odin might exist. If the odds of these other deities' existing are negligible, then I would be justified in setting up a payoff matrix according to which the odds of the existence of the Christian God are taken to be roughly 50/50. The choice is effectively between Christianity and atheism."

Needless to say though, he's wrong. Sifting through the theological jargon, what he's trying to assert is that asking the question of all gods is plainly silly - after all, 'only the Christian God has any chance of existing' anyway!

So we're back, again, to 'I just believe'... And this is from a man who has devoted his life to studying the Bible.

Very few of his fellow Christians are so well-versed. But, when it comes down to the core of it, they're no better or worse off than he is. Neither 'sort' has evidence - Craig's just spent more time trying to bleed it out of his favourite book's pages...

(Continue reading this post here)
 "I once met a Texan who..." tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-04-23:1982180:BlogPost:1298656 2013-04-23T19:30:00.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

"I once met a Texan who bragged that he had only ever read one book from cover to cover: the Bible" - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

I've read the Bible; and if I'm honest, the prospect of having it come along with me, by default, to a celebrity/music-filled island is, to say the least, a little disappointing.

Don't get the reference? I'll explain... Desert Island…

"I once met a Texan who bragged that he had only ever read one book from cover to cover: the Bible" - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

I've read the Bible; and if I'm honest, the prospect of having it come along with me, by default, to a celebrity/music-filled island is, to say the least, a little disappointing.

Don't get the reference? I'll explain... Desert Island Disks is a popular and long-running radio show in which relatively well-known public figures are invited on to talk about what music they would least detest being stuck with for the rest of their lives on a fictional desert island. They also get a loosely enforced 'luxury item', as well as the choice of a book to go with the Bible (or alternate holy book) and the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Even though I've never thought about it, I think it'd be easier for me to pick the music than the book. I've read far too many to pick a favourite, and far too few to reassure myself that a decision would be in any way well-informed.

But, thankfully, this is a wholly fictional scenario - in real life I don't have to think about restricting myself to a single text.

Why anyone would do so voluntarily, and be proud of it, not only deeply confuses me but saddens me too.

Some people never get the chance to even learn how to read, so anyone wasting it is frankly upsetting. Of course, your average Bible-bashing Texan would likely venomously disagree. After all; the Bible is the only book a person needs, right?

I dispute that.

(Continue reading this post here)
 Being a Good Person tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-04-16:1982180:BlogPost:1295185 2013-04-16T19:32:23.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage

"Despite not believing in God, and not believing in an afterlife where I might be rewarded or punished for my behaviour, I try to be a good person. That's the most any of us can do." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's a favourite argument of the Theists: 'How can you be good without God?'

Even supposedly 'enlightened' Theologians (mean?) like William Lane…

"Despite not believing in God, and not believing in an afterlife where I might be rewarded or punished for my behaviour, I try to be a good person. That's the most any of us can do." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's a favourite argument of the Theists: 'How can you be good without God?'

Even supposedly 'enlightened' Theologians (mean?) like William Lane Craig stick by it, dragging the masses along with them. It's a powerful argument, precisely because the assumption of moral superiority is not something with which people have much incentive to wrestle with, I suspect. After all, if you can claim to give black and white, definitive answers straight from the creator of the universe, why even bother to listen to those who can't?

It's funny then, that many once-steadfast believers leave religion behind precisely for moral reasons - and years can go by before they even encounter the 'intellectual' arguments for their non-belief. We're emotional, social creatures, and the difference between 'right' and 'wrong' is important to us, whatever it means.

While I have no trouble admitting that I feel that most scripture - be it the Bible, or Qur'an, or Torah etc - with it's claims of moral certainties stuck millennia behind anything we know today regarding informed scientific opinion (such as the general consensus of psychology and neuroscience regarding mental illness, for example) is not very moral, I will admit that the vast majority of those subscribing to scriptural schools of thought are, in fact, nice people (despite the bits in their holy books that condone rape and slavery). It simply is true that the more secular a country is the more likely it is to accept homosexuality, gender equality, the rights of the child etc - but on the level of individuals, no complete assumptions of character should be made.

(Continue reading this post)
 Are Atheists 'Obsessed' With Religion? tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-04-12:1982180:BlogPost:1293172 2013-04-12T19:30:00.000Z Carnun Marcus-Page http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/CarnunMarcusPage
 For all practical purposes, I am an Atheist. I lack belief in a God (or gods).

It is that, and only that, with which I can confidently say that I share with other Atheists. We're a diverse group.

While there certainly are trends, we're all…

For all practical purposes, I am an Atheist. I lack belief in a God (or gods).

It is that, and only that, with which I can confidently say that I share with other Atheists. We're a diverse group.

While there certainly are trends, we're all individuals - our only shared 'rule' being to think for ourselves. In light of that, our specific attitudes towards religion itself are all placed on a spectrum: from outright anti-theistic to 'whatever floats their boat'-ness.

I, personally, am more inclined towards Dawkins' or Hitchens' take on it than not. In places, I see religion and superstition causing direct and measurable harm, and I feel that keeping this to myself is unfair - ultimately - to the victims.

But, as Dawkins and Hitchens don't either (but are misunderstood and misrepresented as doing so), I, when criticising religion, am not criticising religious people just for thinking in a certain way. I may severely dislike particular individuals, but I do not see 'moderate' religious people as anything other than a little deluded. In other words: I disagree with the thoughts, but I do not think, necesarily, that the people are stupid or immoral for - as is likely - simply having been born into and brought up within a certain world-view. Plus, many leave their parent's beliefs behind. Are they absolute idiots up to that point?

My specific use of the term 'deluded' should not be taken to be insulting either. It sounds it, I'll give you that; but there's simply no other way to express what I feel is an ignorance, whether wilful or not. I also detest the view that, say, those in the Middle-East 'don't know any better', or that us in 'The West' should avoid criticising certain practices in the name of cultural relativism. It's both patronising and untrue - again for the sake of victims and individuals.

Anyway, before I outline every one of my opinions, it's worth getting to the point of this post: is talking about these things, in public, an 'obsession' of Atheists?

I don't think so.

There are a few things at play here. The first obvious one is that the view that it is is a misunderstanding. True, some Atheists talk about religion a lot. But, in day-to-day life, with friends, I only mention it if relevant... What, then, makes it relevant?

I think it being in the news is a definite example. This shouldn't happen:

Person A: "Hey, did you watch the parliamentary debate on same-sex marriage?"
 Person B: "Yeah, what did you think about it?"
 Person A: "Isn't it funny that every single person arguing against allowing it did so for religious reasons?"
 Person B: "YOU'RE SO OBSESSED WITH RELIGION!"

(Continue reading this post)
 NBC and other networks seem to be afraid of Islam. tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-02-20:1982180:BlogPost:1262298 2013-02-20T02:19:36.000Z Ed http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/EdwardDelauter
The "DJesus Uncrossed" skit on Saturday Night Live was a parody that depicted the Christian savior as one of Quentin Tarantino's latest blood and guts shoot um up stars. It definitely garnered a response from the 'holier than thou's' who didn't appreciate the humor. I wonder why the major networks lack the balls to mock the other religion's holy figures? Is the fallout really going to be any more elevated? It would be nice to see these broadcasting companies paint ALL the religions in a…

The "DJesus Uncrossed" skit on Saturday Night Live was a parody that depicted the Christian savior as one of Quentin Tarantino's latest blood and guts shoot um up stars. It definitely garnered a response from the 'holier than thou's' who didn't appreciate the humor. I wonder why the major networks lack the balls to mock the other religion's holy figures? Is the fallout really going to be any more elevated? It would be nice to see these broadcasting companies paint ALL the religions in a comical light. We are not supposed to be a respecter of religions so let's give equal air time to Buddha and Mohammed as well.

No guts, no glory.....
 My response to a Muslim who sent me 27 tweets tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-04-30:1982180:BlogPost:1106333 2012-04-30T13:19:23.000Z _7654_ http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/7654
Thank you for sending me 27 tweets trying to save my soul, which i don't have from hell which does not exist upon being judged by a god that isn't there. Wanting me to go to a heaven, which does not exist is a nice though. It still bewilders me what i would do with 72 virgins, and would they stay virgins afterwards? How long would it be before all 73 of us would be bored by each other? Eternity can be a very long time you know.…

Thank you for sending me 27 tweets trying to save my soul, which i don't have from hell which does not exist upon being judged by a god that isn't there. Wanting me to go to a heaven, which does not exist is a nice though. It still bewilders me what i would do with 72 virgins, and would they stay virgins afterwards? How long would it be before all 73 of us would be bored by each other? Eternity can be a very long time you know.

The other bothersome question that comes to mind is, where do these 72 virgins come from, they can't be real human virgins since the ratio of 1:72 male to female is not available in nature, so are these virgins clones? Are they synthetic? or are they imaginary?

But let's leave heaven and it's tales alone for a bit. Let's visit hell, since it is getting a bit cold in heaven. A warmer place would be nice. In one of the descriptions of hell, from your holy book, it seems that hell is wood fired in your theology. Is that even feasible? the other problem with even hell existing and being the way it is, whether that is compatible with the notion that your god is a just and fair god. Posting an infinite torturous punishment for what is essentially a finite and very limited transgression seems to go against all known doctrines of justice and fairness.

 Gods in monotheistic religions are known not to have partners or family members or friends. Tho you will have to acknowledge that at least some of these monotheistic religions may have had a polytheistic origin of some sort. Judaism is one to being up on this subject, all you really need to look at is the first commandment..from the old testament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

 It would make no sense to make a statement like that, had there not been other gods.
 Given the nature of the monotheistic religions, we still have to notice that the monotheistic gods do keep helpers and aides to assist them in their day to day godly functions that they need to perform.
 If you can't comprehend it right away, then please read your holy book again.
 Creation myths predate monotheistic religions, so the creation of the world, or universe as many like to call it these days, does take some time, regardless of the creator being a monotheistic god or a whole group of polytheistic gods.

 Regardless, in your monotheistic god's case, he creates the universe in 6 days, then rests in the seventh. And that is a formidable achievement even when you try to diminish it by claiming that a day can mean an arbitrary length of time, usually too long for a human to comprehend or relate to.
 Two issues still linger.

The first of is, your god, being perfect and timeless must have existed in his perfectness and timelessness before the creation of the universe, that alone would pause a problem regarding the passage of time, but we will ignore that for the purposes of the continuity of the argument, and proceed to the first issue, god being perfect, but without a universe, must have had a perception of even better perfectness by creating the universe, a situation that leaves us with this possibility; god was not perfect without the universe lest he would not have crated the universe.

 As a consequence, god is not perfect on his own. Hence, he needed to create the universe to achieve perfection...
 I know, this is not the level of argument you are used to get, but hey, you asked for it.

 The Second issue is, taking a rest after finishing the big job he tasked himself with. This action can only be understood in terms of getting tired and needing a recess to recover, now before you act on the urge you feel to defend your god from such a shortcoming, think for a moment what are you defending, and how big is the universe. I am sure you will be fine he takes a brake for a day or so, after all, you don't want your god to expire from exhaustion...

 Taking a day off every week of work is a very human thing, and it seems we have projected it onto our gods too.
 Again, for an atheist, a god having a whole family or being quite alone makes no difference.
 You are not arguing the tenets of monotheism in general or your specific version of it with someone who thinks any version of a god, gods, god family or friends can be valid or real.

 You are talking to an atheist remember, we don't care what color, size, gender or temper your god has, we don't care if your god concept denotes a single god or a multitude of gods or goddesses. What we care about is these concepts are false, unreal and man made. And what you need to demonstrate very clearly, with evidence that comes not from your holy book, is that, these concepts are not man made. And you can't.

 And about your claimed god's message being one and clear. Any sane person can write a "one" and clear message, put it in a book, we call those people authors, and we have them sign our copies when we meet them. The mere fact that words, sentences, paragraphs of amazing text are written in book format does not change the nature of these words, sentences and paragraphs. Your holy book is not the evidence, it is the claim. Claims need supporting evidence, not more claims.

 #NudePhotoRevolutionary Calendar tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-03-13:1982180:BlogPost:1078752 2012-03-13T13:00:00.000Z Emilyhasbooks http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/emilyhasbooks

NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

In a press release today last week, Maryam Namazie formally announced the #nudephotorevolutionary calendar. As Aliaa Magda Elmahdy chose to stand up against female oppression, we too advocate for free-expression and women's rights. This calendar features black and white nude photographs, and I'm Ms.…

NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

In a press release today last week, Maryam Namazie formally announced the #nudephotorevolutionary calendar. As Aliaa Magda Elmahdy chose to stand up against female oppression, we too advocate for free-expression and women's rights. This calendar features black and white nude photographs, and I'm Ms. September. For Maryam's article announcing the calendar's release and to purchase a calendar (£12.00) click here.

It is my hope that this calendar will reach out to those who most need to hear our message, and that other viewers will find this to be an artistic and powerful display, and will unite with us in support of free expression and civil liberties. For any concerns/hesitations people may express about my participation in this calendar/movement, I've addressed it all in a recent blog post.

Here are my responses to the press release questions:

Why did you join the 'Scream' and Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar?

There are people who are actively trying to silence, shame, and control women, in this country and abroad. It is up to those of us who can make an impact, to do so. My involvement with this calendar has nothing to do with religion, other than it being a stand against those, this time in Islam, that wish to control women; it has everything to do with my values.

I have no shame about my body, and this is a stand against those who fear & despise women and want them to be hidden in society. If it weren't for people who took a strong stand against misogyny and for free-expression, we'd still be in an age where showing your ankles was taboo. Look to countries that still practice misogynistic practices, without opposition, they are successful at their attempts to bind and control women.

Why nudity?

The assumption from many detractors of the #nudephotorevolutionary movement is that if one is nude, one is also lewd. This simply isn't the case. Nude representations of the human form can be artistic and powerful, and the pose I have chosen is both. I don't have a strong desire to hide my "naughty bits," because to me, they aren't "naughty." Nudity is natural and normal and it's only those that seek to control your minds and bodies that fear it. Our bodies are nothing to be ashamed of. We're all naked, some of us just have clothes on.

The only negative impact I foresee will be caused by judgmental and misogynistic people reinforcing stereotypes with crude comments- the very people that need to hear the message that women's bodies are nothing to be ashamed of. This calendar is a tasteful, non-vulgar display of the beauty and strength of women united for free-expression and women's rights.

Why do you think the calendar is important?

We're currently facing waves of religious groups calling for 'religious freedom,' while trying to restrict everyone else from basic liberties. You can see this today with attacks by the religious 'right' against contraception, free-expression, sex-education, marriage equality, and valid science education. When religion attempts to infiltrate and rule our lives, we're faced with standing up for our rights or letting theocratic rule control us.

Follow the movement: #nudephotorevolutionary on twitter & at Maryam Namazie's blog.

Support free-expression & advocate for women's rights:
 Visit Maryam's blog & Purchase a calendar! £12.00

Calendar – Taghveem: http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/files/2012/03/NudeRevolutionary_Calendar_2012-13.pdf

Today's Article in International Business News on Calendar – Maghaleh dar International Business News Emruz dar morede Taghveem: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/310411/20120307/nude-photo-revolutionary-calendar-aliaa-magda-elmahdy.htm

Iranian women in support of Calendar – Zanan e Irani dar Hemayat az Taghveem
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OafFpdjEAaE

'Like' Calendar's Facebook Page – Safheye Facebook e Taghveem
 http://www.facebook.com/NPhotoRevolutionariesCalendar
 Ayaan Hirsi Ali:The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-02-14:1982180:BlogPost:1056303 2012-02-14T22:21:34.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/05/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-global-war-on-christians-in-the-muslim-world.html

Ayaan Hirsi Ali:The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World

Feb 6, 2012 12:00 AM EST…

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/05/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-global-war-on-christians-in-the-muslim-world.html

Ayaan Hirsi Ali:The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World

Feb 6, 2012 12:00 AM EST

From one end of the muslim world to the other, Christians are being murdered for their faith.

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring's fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.

The media's reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called "Islamophobia"—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.

But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.

At least 24 Coptic Christians were killed in Cairo during clashes with the Egyptian Army on Oct. 9., Thomas Hartwell / Redux

From blasphemy laws to brutal murders to bombings to mutilations and the burning of holy sites, Christians in so many nations live in fear. In Nigeria many have suffered all of these forms of persecution. The nation has the largest Christian minority (40 percent) in proportion to its population (160 million) of any majority-Muslim country. For years, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived on the edge of civil war. Islamist radicals provoke much if not most of the tension. The newest such organization is an outfit that calls itself Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege." Its aim is to establish Sharia in Nigeria. To this end it has stated that it will kill all Christians in the country.

In the month of January 2012 alone, Boko Haram was responsible for 54 deaths. In 2011 its members killed at least 510 people and burned down or destroyed more than 350 churches in 10 northern states. They use guns, gasoline bombs, and even machetes, shouting "Allahu akbar" ("God is great") while launching attacks on unsuspecting citizens. They have attacked churches, a Christmas Day gathering (killing 42 Catholics), beer parlors, a town hall, beauty salons, and banks. They have so far focused on killing Christian clerics, politicians, students, policemen, and soldiers, as well as Muslim clerics who condemn their mayhem. While they started out by using crude methods like hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes in 2009, the latest AP reports indicate that the group's recent attacks show a new level of potency and sophistication.

The Christophobia that has plagued Sudan for years takes a very different form. The authoritarian government of the Sunni Muslim north of the country has for decades tormented Christian and animist minorities in the south. What has often been described as a civil war is in practice the Sudanese government's sustained persecution of religious minorities. This persecution culminated in the infamous genocide in Darfur that began in 2003. Even though Sudan's Muslim president, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which charged him with three counts of genocide, and despite the euphoria that greeted the semi-independence he grant-ed to South Sudan in July of last year, the violence has not ended. In South Kordofan, Christians are still subject-ed to aerial bombardment, targeted killings, the kidnap-ping of children, and other atrocities. Reports from the United Nations indicate that between 53,000 and 75,000 innocent civilians have been displaced from their resi-dences and that houses and buildings have been looted and destroyed.

Both kinds of persecution—undertaken by extragovernmental groups as well as by agents of the state—have come together in Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. On Oct. 9 of last year in the Maspero area of Cairo, Coptic Christians (who make up roughly 11 percent of Egypt's population of 81 million) marched in protest against a wave of attacks by Islamists—including church burnings, rapes, mutilations, and murders—that followed the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship. During the protest, Egyptian security forces drove their trucks into the crowd and fired on protesters, crushing and killing at least 24 and wounding more than 300 people. By the end of the year more than 200,000 Copts had fled their homes in anticipation of more attacks. With Islamists poised to gain much greater power in the wake of recent elections, their fears appear to be justified.

Egypt is not the only Arab country that seems bent on wiping out its Christian minority. Since 2003 more than 900 Iraqi Christians (most of them Assyrians) have been killed by terrorist violence in Baghdad alone, and 70 churches have been burned, according to the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA). Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled as a result of violence directed specifically at them, reducing the number of Christians in the country to fewer than half a million from just over a million before 2003. AINA understandably describes this as an "incipient genocide or ethnic cleansing of Assyrians in Iraq."

The 2.8 million Christians who live in Pakistan make up only about 1.6 percent of the population of more than 170 million. As members of such a tiny minority, they live in perpetual fear not only of Islamist terrorists but also of Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws. There is, for example, the notorious case of a Christian woman who was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. When international pressure persuaded Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer to explore ways of freeing her, he was killed by his bodyguard. The bodyguard was then celebrated by prominent Muslim clerics as a hero—and though he was sentenced to death late last year, the judge who imposed the sentence now lives in hiding, fearing for his life.

Such cases are not unusual in Pakistan. The nation's blasphemy laws are routinely used by criminals and intolerant Pakistani Muslims to bully religious minorities. Simply to declare belief in the Christian Trinity is considered blasphemous, since it contradicts mainstream Muslim theological doctrines. When a Christian group is suspected of transgressing the blasphemy laws, the consequences can be brutal. Just ask the members of the Christian aid group World Vision. Its offices were attacked in the spring of 2010 by 10 gunmen armed with grenades, leaving six people dead and four wounded. A militant Muslim group claimed responsibility for the attack on the grounds that World Vision was working to subvert Islam. (In fact, it was helping the survivors of a major earthquake.)

At least 13 people were killed and 140 injured on March 8, 2011, when participants in a large Christian demonstration in a Cairo slum were attacked by residents of a surrounding neighborhood., Mohamed Omar / EPA-Landov

Not even Indonesia—often touted as the world's most tolerant, democratic, and modern majority-Muslim nation—has been immune to the fevers of Christophobia. According to data compiled by the Christian Post, the number of violent incidents committed against religious minorities (and at 7 percent of the population, Christians are the country's largest minority) increased by nearly 40 percent, from 198 to 276, between 2010 and 2011.

The litany of suffering could be extended. In Iran dozens of Christians have been arrested and jailed for daring to worship outside of the officially sanctioned church system. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, deserves to be placed in a category of its own. Despite the fact that more than a million Christians live in the country as foreign workers, churches and even private acts of Christian prayer are banned; to enforce these totalitarian restrictions, the religious police regularly raid the homes of Christians and bring them up on charges of blasphemy in courts where their testimony carries less legal weight than a Muslim's. Even in Ethiopia, where Christians make up a majority of the population, church burnings by members of the Muslim minority have become a problem.

It should be clear from this catalog of atrocities that anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem. No, the violence isn't centrally planned or coordinated by some international Islamist agency. In that sense the global war on Christians isn't a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities.

As Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, pointed out in an interview with Newsweek, Christian minorities in many majority-Muslim nations have "lost the protection of their societies." This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity—and government inaction often proves them right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks—that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens)—has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression.

So let us please get our priorities straight. Yes, Western governments should protect Muslim minorities from intolerance. And of course we should ensure that they can worship, live, and work freely and without fear. It is the protection of the freedom of conscience and speech that distinguishes free societies from unfree ones. But we also need to keep perspective about the scale and severity of intolerance. Cartoons, films, and writings are one thing; knives, guns, and grenades are something else entirely.

As for what the West can do to help religious minorities in Muslim-majority societies, my answer is that it needs to begin using the billions of dollars in aid it gives to the offending countries as leverage. Then there is trade and investment. Besides diplomatic pressure, these aid and trade relationships can and should be made conditional on the protection of the freedom of conscience and worship for all citizens.

Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let's take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world. Tolerance is for everyone—except the intolerant.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992. She served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 and is currently a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her autobiography, Infidel, was a 2007 New York Times bestseller.
 Atheist faces jail after Facebook remark tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-01-23:1982180:BlogPost:1033377 2012-01-23T07:57:28.000Z sjtoupin http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/sjtoupin
An Indonesian civil servant who declared himself an atheist on Facebook was arrested and is now facing jail for blasphemy after being attacked by an angry mob, police said today.

Alexander An, 30, who wrote "God doesn't exist" on his Facebook page, was beaten by a mob of dozens on Wednesday in his hometown in Pulau Punjung, West Sumatra province.

"He is suspected of having blasphemed against Islam," local police chief Chairul Aziz told AFP.

"The man told police…

An Indonesian civil servant who declared himself an atheist on Facebook was arrested and is now facing jail for blasphemy after being attacked by an angry mob, police said today.

Alexander An, 30, who wrote "God doesn't exist" on his Facebook page, was beaten by a mob of dozens on Wednesday in his hometown in Pulau Punjung, West Sumatra province.

"He is suspected of having blasphemed against Islam," local police chief Chairul Aziz told AFP.

"The man told police investigators that if God really exists and has absolute power, why didn't he prevent bad things from happening in this world."

An said on his Facebook page that he was brought up as a Muslim, like the vast majority in Indonesia, where blasphemy is a punishable crime carrying a maximum five-year prison term.

Dozens of locals stormed into his office after a heated debate with them on Facebook over religion, police said.

An was also an administrator of a Facebook group promoting atheism with 1243 followers. His postings no longer appeared online following his arrest.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/atheist-faces-jail-after-facebook-remark/story-e6frfku0-1226249817335#ixzz1kGXIZ9aw

Date published: January 20, 2012 9:47PM

Date retrieved: January 22, 2012 23:54 PST

 Iran Human Rights Official Calls Homosexuality 'Disease' tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-01-07:1982180:BlogPost:1020998 2012-01-07T18:30:00.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
http://www.rferl.org/content/iran_rights_official_calls_homosexuality_disease/24444986.html

Iran Rights Official Calls Homosexuality 'Disease'…

http://www.rferl.org/content/iran_rights_official_calls_homosexuality_disease/24444986.html

Iran Rights Official Calls Homosexuality 'Disease'

Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights (file photo)

January 07, 2012

The secretary-general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights has been quoted as telling a visiting German lawmaker that homosexuality is a disease.

 "The West says that the marriage of homosexuals should be allowed under the human rights charter, however, we think it is sexual immorality and a disease," Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Mohammad Javad Larijani as saying, according to dpa.

 Fars reported that Larijani made his remarks during a meeting in Tehran with German lawmaker Tom Koenigs, who chairs the human rights committee in Germany's parliament.

 In Iran and under strict Islamic law, homosexuality is punishable by death.

 Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad drew international criticism in 2007 when he said during a visit to Columbia University in the United States that there were no homosexuals in his country.

 compiled from agency reports

 Atheism is the "new cool"? tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-10-18:1982180:BlogPost:899358 2011-10-18T04:00:00.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble
On September 19 2011, the Telegraph website published an article titled "Atheism is cool, says Archbishop Rowan Williams". In the article the Archbishop claims the apparent rise in atheism due to it's "cool" factor, and that refutations of authors such as Richard Dawkins don't get the attention they "deserve" because atheism is the latest fad, not…

On September 19 2011, the Telegraph website published an article titled "Atheism is cool, says Archbishop Rowan Williams". In the article the Archbishop claims the apparent rise in atheism due to it's "cool" factor, and that refutations of authors such as Richard Dawkins don't get the attention they "deserve" because atheism is the latest fad, not religion.

Williams then claims that despite this "fad" that the Christian community in Zimbabwe continues to climb, and this is a symbol of the innate strength of the Christian message. I beg to differ on both of these points.

Firstly, the perceived rise in atheism among populations is far more likely to be due to the fact that religions can no longer stifle information the way that have in the past. For example, if one wants to find out facts about the church's historical role during the Second World War, all one has to do is do a Google search and they will discover that The Vatican signed a treaty with the Nazi Party that would guarantee that the Catholic Church maintained a role in Germany. Once upon a time, this information was hidden in deep in the history books; one would first need to know where to look, then have to struggle through page after page of extraneous information before they could discover things like The Reichskonkordat Treaty. This is to say that people are becoming less ignorant and more informed about matters of the church and its history, and likewise are able to find information about contemporary philosophy. Calling atheism and secularism "cool" only seeks to discredit the fact that people are no longer blind to the manipulative nature of organised religion. It is not a fad, and it's not going away any time soon.

Secondly, the fact that books refuting the likes of Dawkins' "The God Delusion" are not unpopular because they are uncool. They are unpopular because they are badly written books that so often lower their tone into ad-hominem attacks against Dawkins' personality and even his personal life. This is pathetic, and anyone taking these kinds of books seriously needs to do some more reading. People are more discerning than they used to be. We have the option of choosing our information, sifting through the good and bad writings, and making our own decisions. The fact is, the church is not the only kid on the block anymore with ideas and sway, so if the theistic apologists want to be taken seriously, they'd better step up their game. It's almost as though the facts as presented by the scientific community are on a completely different playing field to the theistic viewpoints.

The article continues with a quote from The Archbishop.

"The important, ongoing debate about the moral principles and values which are needed to underpin a stable, flourishing society is illuminated by the light of Religious faith."

The debate is illuminated by faith? I'd say the debate is muddied by faith-speak, and depends far too much upon the "gut" feelings of its participants who "just know" rather than taking a moment to weigh up arguments. There are many questions to which we don't know the answers, but to constantly come up with the same answer on all occasions of "God did it" no longer cuts it. Religions do not have a mandate over morality, and those who claim it does are not looking hard enough. People are questioning the religious dogma, and are not afraid to say so. In response to the Archbishop's quote above, I'd say: "The important, ongoing debate about the moral principles and values which are needed to underpin a stable, flourishing society is not illuminated by Religious faith, but rather is being revealed to be a part of human nature. Religion only claims to be the basis and the illuminator."
At the end of the article The Archbishop claims that the recent London riots just highlight a need "more than ever to build a new culture of social responsibility." Yes I agree, people should be held accountable, but where in the bible does it say "Thou shalt not riot in the streets when thou job prospects are basically nil, when the rich are getting richer and the class divide threatens to leave the lower-class behind"? It doesn't. Religion cannot lay claim to being the basis for social equality and stability.

As for Zimbabwe? Well it's a moot point, Christianity is falling in other regions of the world. Apart from this, the Christian church has missions specifically targeting the third world with the exclusive purpose of converting people to Christianity. Atheists don't do this, and yet the numbers of those who are coming out as atheists publicly are rising steadily. Maybe this should act as a message to society that we have outgrown the God issue, and should start dealing with one-another as people first, then worry about where morality comes from.
 Zombie Muhammad? Atheist Attacked by Muslim During Halloween Parade tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-10-14:1982180:BlogPost:895392 2011-10-14T17:31:49.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
Zombie Muhammad? Atheist Attacked by Muslim During Halloween Parade

Posted on October 14, 2011 at 2:31am by  Tiffany Gabbay…

Zombie Muhammad? Atheist Attacked by Muslim During Halloween Parade

Posted on October 14, 2011 at 2:31am by  Tiffany Gabbay

A Muslim attacked an Atheist marching in a local Pennsylvania Halloween parade Tuesday for wearing a "Zombie Muhammad" costume.

The Muslim man stormed out of the hometown crowd in Mechanicsburg and assaulted one of the Parading Atheists of Central Pennsylvania (PACP) who happened to be wearing the offending costume. The atheist in the Zombie Muhammad costume proclaimed he was the Prophet Muhammad, risen from the dead.

This proclamation and costume apparently offended the Muslim man enough to come out of the crowd, follow and harass the atheist, and then choke him. Subsequently, a police report was filed, and charges in the matter are pending.

The victim posted a video of the incident on YouTube, and in the description he writes:

Oct 11 2011 in the Machanicsburg City Parade I was attacked by a violent muslim IN AMERICA! This is proof that muslims want Sharia Law in America. He attacks me to pull my beard off so he could identify me and chokes me.

I understand many will say I deserved it, but no one has the right to abridge my freedom of speech and violence is never the answer to freedom of speech. Islam is a religion of Peace? not the case here.

Of course, some are questioning the wisdom of marching in a parade to intentionally offend a religious group, as well as the public relations value of such an activity. The intent, however, may not have necessarily been to offend, but merely to treat a sensitive issue with satire. Indeed, there was also a "Zombie Pope" who marched in the Halloween parade while claiming to be on the look out for little boys. Then again, many Catholics may have found that image quite offensive.

What do you think about Zombie Muhammad marching in a Halloween parade?

 "More from the religion of peace" - 12-year old Christian girl kidnapped & raped until she converted to Islam tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-10-13:1982180:BlogPost:894052 2011-10-13T11:31:29.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048261/Christian-girl-12-kidnapped-raped-beaten-converted-Islam.html

Christian girl, 12, kidnapped, beaten and raped for eight months until she converted to Islam

Asian Human Rights Commission claim girl was lured…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048261/Christian-girl-12-kidnapped-raped-beaten-converted-Islam.html

Christian girl, 12, kidnapped, beaten and raped for eight months until she converted to Islam

Asian Human Rights Commission claim girl was lured on shopping trip by friend before she was kidnapped.

Abductors drove her 120 miles before raping her, then forced her to sign marriage papers

Victim managed to escape eight months later, but police refuse to prosecute rapists because they are tied to militant Islam group

By Wil Longbottom

Last updated at 8:11 AM on 13th October 2011

A 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for eight months in Pakistan by a man who then falsified marriage documents with her, it was claimed today.

The girl was lured on a shopping trip in Lahore by a friend, before she was driven 120 miles to Tandianwalla and raped by the friend's uncle in January this year.

Two days later, she was forced to sign papers consenting to marriage with the man and beaten for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam.

Attack: A 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped, beaten until she converted to Islam and repeatedly raped for eight months in Lahore, Pakistan (pictured), according to a human rights organisation

She was then held against her will for eight months, before managing to escape and contact her family.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has said the rapists have not been arrested because of their affiliation with a militant Muslim organisation - the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

It claims the police have refused to order a medical check-up on the girl, and have warned her parents that it would be better for them to hand over the girl to her 'legal' husband or a criminal case would be filed against them.

An investigation into the kidnapping found the girl's father reported her disappearance in January and made complaints against her abductors, but police took no action for eight months.

Last month, the girl - who has not been named for legal reasons - called her family from Tandianwalla and told them she had been abducted, but had escaped and was hiding at a bus stop.

Militant ties: The Asian Human Rights Commission claims Pakistani police have refused to investigate the kidnapping because the perpetrators are tied to an extremist group (file picture)

The girl's parents travelled to the town and rescued her, before taking her to a local magistrate to give a statement.

The rapists then contacted the police through their religious group and produced a marriage certificate that claimed to show one of them was married to the 12-year-old.

As a result of their complaint, the Christian family has gone into hiding as members of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are searching for them.

The group claims the girl is pregnant, but her mother has denied this is true.

The AHRC said that police never asked the religious group how a 12-year-old could be married. The legal age for marriage in Pakistan in 16.

It claims the Punjab provincial government is patronising banned militant organisations.

The British Pakistani Christian Association has launched a petition calling on the Pakistani government to investigate the attack.
 Al Qaeda Calls On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad To End 'Ridiculous' 9/11 Conspiracy Theories tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-10-03:1982180:BlogPost:882050 2011-10-03T03:40:27.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
I had to share this with y'all...I found it to be hilarious and to be another ridicule against the 9/11 conspiracy theorists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/28/al-qaeda-ahmadinejad-end-911-theories_n_985265.html

Al Qaeda Calls On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad To End 'Ridiculous' 9/11…

I had to share this with y'all...I found it to be hilarious and to be another ridicule against the 9/11 conspiracy theorists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/28/al-qaeda-ahmadinejad-end-911-theories_n_985265.html

Al Qaeda Calls On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad To End 'Ridiculous' 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

The Huffington Post   Mark Hanrahan   First Posted: 9/28/11 01:33 PM ET Updated: 9/28/11 01:59 PM ET

When he addressed the U.N. General Assembly last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated his belief that the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Speaking during the General Assembly debates, Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. of using the "mysterious September 11 incident" as a pretext to for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2010, he claimed that "9/11 was an inside job," while addressing the General Assembly.

It seems now that, along with a great many other people, even al Qaeda is sick of the Iranian leader's theories.

The latest issue of the terrorist group's English-language magazine Inspire, quoted in the Iranian media (via The Guardian), says:

"The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al-Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the US government," the article said, according to Iranian media. "So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?"

According to CBS News, the author of the Inspire article, Abu Suhail, claims that Ahmadinejad is trying to assign responsibility for the attacks because Iran is, in essence, jealous:

"Al Qaeda was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. Al Qaeda, an organization under fire, with no state, succeeded in what Iran couldn't."

The article blasts the Iranian government for merely paying "lip-service jihad against the Great Satan," and derides Iranian anti-Americanism as "merely a game of politics," according to The Jerusalem Post.

The New York Daily News says that Ahmadinejad claimed that those who question the official story of Sept. 11 are treated to "sanctions and military actions," and noted that the U.S. killed Osama bin Laden instead of bringing him to trial.

The Financial Times reports that the magazine also includes an article allegedly written by Osama bin Laden, where he tells fighters not to let American soldiers "become great in your eyes."

The terrorist group's dismissal of Ahmadinejad's theories is also a bizarre case of life imitating art. The satirical website The Onion ran a story about an al Qaeda terrorist who felt that claims of the U.S. government being behind the Sept. 11th attacks were "demeaning" to the terrorist group.
 Think Inc Conference Special tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-19:1982180:BlogPost:863991 2011-09-19T04:34:18.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Think Inc conference in Melbourne Australia, the inaugural event, and one that showed much promise with a line-up of speakers which included Professor Tim Flannery, YouTube sensation Christina Rad, activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali (appearing via Skype), poet Shane Koyczan, Professor Neil Degrasse Tyseon, Professor Michael Shermer and political commentator Christopher Hitchens (also intended to appear via Skype).

Unfortunately Christopher Hitchens…

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Think Inc conference in Melbourne Australia, the inaugural event, and one that showed much promise with a line-up of speakers which included Professor Tim Flannery, YouTube sensation Christina Rad, activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali (appearing via Skype), poet Shane Koyczan, Professor Neil Degrasse Tyseon, Professor Michael Shermer and political commentator Christopher Hitchens (also intended to appear via Skype).

Unfortunately Christopher Hitchens was unable to attend, and his voice was sorely missed.

Below is compilation of short interviews I conducted with attendees and presenters after the conclusion of the panel discussion. Enjoy.

You can download the mp3 here.
 Of Teapots, Santa Claus and Doubt tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-14:1982180:BlogPost:848591 2011-09-14T03:49:32.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble It was pointed out to me in a comment this morning about Bertand Russell's Teapot, that theists dismiss the ideas of Santa Claus and The Celestial Teapot outright because of the silliness of the ideas and the incredible unlikeliness that they exist, but fail to see their own shortcomings in judgement about their belief in god or Gods along the same premise. I see why this is, after all,… It was pointed out to me in a comment this morning about Bertand Russell's Teapot, that theists dismiss the ideas of Santa Claus and The Celestial Teapot outright because of the silliness of the ideas and the incredible unlikeliness that they exist, but fail to see their own shortcomings in judgement about their belief in god or Gods along the same premise. I see why this is, after all, who in their right mind would believe a Teapot could be orbiting the sun? The proposition is ludicrous of course, and it is untestable, unfalsifiable, and not least of all, completely fanciful.

 The problem as I see it is that, while the proposition of God is just as untestable, unfalsifiable and fanciful as the idea of a Celestial Teapot, the God believers have has this idea rammed down their throats by society for their entire lives, and been told not to question it by the same authorities and religious texts that make the claim in the first place. Like I said in my last piece, if something like Russell's Teapot were taught in every school to every child, and referred to by parents and others alike, there would be no doubt that it would be accepted as fact that the teapot actually exists. The difference here is of course that the teapot serves no purpose, whereas the God appeals to some of the very basest fears we have about our lives, deaths and the future. People also claim that we owe our very existences to a god or gods, and that by his very own divine words that we should never question that fact. But unlike the teapot, people make assumptions about the world based on the apparent certainty of God's existence, where he teapot only exists in philosophy and atheistic argument.

 If we were to apply the same level of scrutiny to gods as theists apply to Russell's Teapot, the answer would be that there is no proof for his/her/its existence. But even when this is pointed out, it is never enough to convince the true believer. And this is because of the problem of faith.

 As CJ Werleman pointed out in my interview with him last weekend, most people who claim to be Christians or Muslims, while they may be familiar with their holy books, have never bothered to try to place these books into an historical context, or question why an author may have written certain passages in a certain way. Who wrote it? What was their intention at the time of writing it? Has it been presented to the reader in these contexts, or has it been interpreted to the reader, either by translation or by a preacher? And if so, what is the likelihood that these texts have been manipulated to suit the wants and needs of the person interpreting it, or the authority over the religion?

 People fail to ask these questions of the one thing they claim guides their lives. Surely if something were as important as so many claim in their lives as religion, there would come a point that the questioning of what it really is should come up, but people are told that the victory in this situation is to believe regardless of facts, regardless of doubts and regardless of any historical or social context that may be presented. That's right, the victory over doubt is to ignore the doubt and continue on as if it had never been raised. Name any other situation in life where this is considered to be a virtue. In most cases where doubt surfaces the situation is analysed until either the doubt has proven to be either warranted or unwarranted, but not so for faith. Faith goes against all better judgement of the mind, and it depends upon unerring acceptance of a ludicrous proposition, that just because a person believes something that it is therefore true. If I truly believed that Russell's teapot existed, what would you say about my mental state, given everything else you take as reality in the world? No Fulfillment Without God? tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-14:1982180:BlogPost:848493 2011-09-14T03:47:03.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble What are some of the things in your life that make you happy? What are the greatest joys in your life? What gives you the greatest sense of achievement, and what are the moments in your life that you remember as the most important ones? Does religion play a part in any of these moments, feelings or personal possessions? Because according to many religious folk, the greatest thing in their life is their faith in God. This troubles me.

 To many, their belief in God, afterlife and eternity is what… What are some of the things in your life that make you happy? What are the greatest joys in your life? What gives you the greatest sense of achievement, and what are the moments in your life that you remember as the most important ones? Does religion play a part in any of these moments, feelings or personal possessions? Because according to many religious folk, the greatest thing in their life is their faith in God. This troubles me.

 To many, their belief in God, afterlife and eternity is what they claim spurs them on in life, and also gives them a sense of moral guidance. Some even claim that without this they would simply give up hope, kill themselves or go on a murderous rampage across their neighbourhood. "How can you possibly go on without believing in God?" they ask, as if their faith is in an indisputable fact. "If there were no God, there's be nothing to stop me from killing people for fun!" These are statements I have seen thrown about time and time again by pious individuals, who use this as their last-ditch justification for their belief in a higher power. They claim that by the mere existence of God that order is maintained in their lives, and that their belief in this God makes them better people.

 To this I say "Puh-shaw!" I have lived my entire life without a concrete belief in God, and more than half my life using my brain and experience to discover that the God these people worship does not exist. What really gets me is that people claim that you have to have God in your life to feel fulfilled. I lead a pretty simple life, I love my partner, my home and family, I relish moments of feeling appreciated, I like a good book now and then, I cook, garden and climb rock-faces for fun, and I feel quite fulfilled thank you very much. Who are you to tell me that my life could be better if I accept Jesus or Allah, or any other of the many Gods people claim to worship?

 Religion tells me that while I may have a good life here on earth, if I don't worship some kind of God that when I die that will be the end of it. This is exactly how I want it to be, and sorry to tell you this religious folk, in all probability, this is the way it will be for all of us. It is this fact that makes me strive for betterment in this life, not the promise of afterlife or being reunited with my loved ones. That is a fruitless pursuit, for as I understand it the only reuniting I'll be doing is in the ground with those who have died before me.

 So you need a God to tell you that slavery, murder and rape is wrong? This makes you a better person? Well I am glad you have God then, because with that attitude you'd be quite the unsavoury character if you didn't have God. Yet you continue to preach hatred toward other people for their life choices, people of different sexual orientations to you, people of other religions, and most of all women. If this is the way your life is guided by religion, then excuse me for not taking part in it. The laws you follow and call your morality are nothing but an excuse for you to hate others that are different from you. You claim it's the law of God, yet you pick and choose which laws you follow because some of them might not seem right to you? Well I can tell you that I also follow some of the 10 commandments, the ones that matter to the well-being of others, and not the ones that tell me to bow down before doctrine. This is not because God made the laws, this is because man devised a system that best suits a peaceful existence. To kill someone else is wrong, not because "Thou shalt not", but because it hurts others, it damages people's lives, and it is a completely selfish act. Don't tell me that you don't kill because God forbade it, the truth of the matter is you wouldn't kill because you have empathy for others and can understand what killing someone would mean to their families, friends and their community.

 Once you realise that your God is not the guide of your morals, but instead your humanity, the quicker you will see that people are all the same. We all need love, food, comfort, shelter and we all want to procreate. Next time you go bashing on people about their lives, why don't you look at yourself first and see what really matters in your life. If you, like me, have a life that is fulfilling without God, then great, keep it up. If however your life really would be empty without God, then I say you should look at improving your life and filling it with things that matter to you, really matter to you. Knowledge, love and life are not evil. The only evil this world holds is in the minds of those who would harm others needlessly. So Much Religious Fear tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-14:1982180:BlogPost:848394 2011-09-14T03:45:39.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble The power of religion lies in the power of fear; fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of people who are different, fear of God, and the fear that a lifetime of belief may in fact be wrong. Many religious folks might deny the last point, but I'll get to what I mean by that in a minute.

 All people fear dying, but not all fear being dead. As Mark Twain is famous for saying "I was… The power of religion lies in the power of fear; fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of people who are different, fear of God, and the fear that a lifetime of belief may in fact be wrong. Many religious folks might deny the last point, but I'll get to what I mean by that in a minute.

 All people fear dying, but not all fear being dead. As Mark Twain is famous for saying "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit."

 It is only natural to want to continue living, after all we are hard-wired to want to continue living. How could a species survive if it weren't? But the fear of dying, the actual act of dying, and the fear of death are two different things. Those who fear death are afraid of a few things:

 • That their life has been in vain, after all what is the point of trying if death is your only reward?

 • The finality of death, after all, life is the only thing they have ever known, so just ceasing to exist as a mind and entity is an unknown which is incomprehensible.

 • The unknown aspect of death. Nobody has ever said definitively what happens after death, and the great chasm of the unknown is more daunting than we dare think about.

 The fact that we all die is a part of life, and we see it all around us. Religion claims to have the answers to the question of what happens to us when we die, and thus has a way to allay the fears of those who are scared of death. "If you follow our doctrine", they say, "you will never die, you will live forever". For some this makes life a whole lot more bearable, meaning they don't have to worry about the end, because for them it's not the end. What this means for those who fear death is a way out, a carrot if you will, the promise of not only life after death, but the best of all possible lives free from pain, free from want and best of all, free from death. It's quite a compelling idea, given that none of us wants to die.

 The second fear is fear of the unknown. This includes the fear of death but runs much deeper. Religion offers no real answers to the origins of life on earth, at least not beyond several fanciful creation stories, each one as different from the one in another religion as imagination can muster, each is mutually inconsistent. Religions say you must believe in the words of that religion or you won't reap the benefits of belief. It follows from this that ideas that are different from the ones in the religious doctrine are shunned and feared. Scientific theories which posit the most likely of circumstances that have led to us as we are now are shunned too, for science says we evolved from earlier species to become human. But this causes even more fear in the believer who likes to think of themselves as special, hand created by God. "How can we be related to mere animals?" they ask. "How can evolution be true if the earth is only 6000 years old?" they ask. "How can morals be an evolutionary trait if God bestowed us with his unchanging an perfect rules?" they ask. It is fear that people may be merely animals that religion takes under-wing and proposes further answers to, giving solace for those who are fearful. The answer from religion is "God made you, you are special, you deserve to be celebrated."

 The third fear is the fear of those who are different. Religions like Christianity say to love their neighbour, yet cause people to become insular, fearing those who don't believe the same as they do, fearing those who don't act according to their particular doctrine, or fearing those who don't believe in a god at all. They are told that unbelievers and believers in different faiths stand to undermine the fibre of their society with their ungodly ways, and should be either converted or should be shunned. In the worst of these situations, the "infidels" should be killed to protect the honour of the religion or religious person. This fear, because it is backed up by the religion, becomes a xenophobic bigotry toward gays, women, foreigners (especially those of different religions who look "weird") and people who practice different faiths from their own. While once this insularity was a good way to ensure the bonds inside a tribe, in this day and age it simply gets in the way of a peaceful multifaceted society.

 Religion tells us to fear God, because it is God who will judge us when we die. When we fear God, the religion that says we must do so also has to be feared, because the religion is the one that claims to have the rulebook that God has written for us. God is all powerful, and if you go against his rules you will not be able to quell your fear of death with the promise of afterlife. God sees and knows you better than you know yourself, so you'd better fear him because there's no lying to him. Fear God because he will be the one to judge you when you die.

 Religions teach us not to question them. As noted above, they are the authority of God himself, and therefore the words he speaks through his book/s are to be treated as truth. But if any of the rules or stories or rules go against anything you might feel in conscience, you have to fear these feelings and push them down. Questioning religion is harmful to the religion, so therefore they say within the doctrine that questioning is bad. These are seen as temptations, and religions even invented an agent of temptation, Satan or a devil or demon figure, to make you fear these feelings. Religions hold your true judgements down, telling you they are wrong. "Don't believe in your own judgement, believe only in the words of your religion". Most claim that not following a religion is being closed-minded, but when you follow only a doctrine, how can you possibly be the open-minded person you claim to be. The fear that they could be wrong is in itself something that the religions hold sway over, calling it a test, and claiming that the only way to salvation is to push down any doubt and simply believe.

 As you can see many of the fears that religion claims are intertwined, and overlap in many areas. The fact remains that fear is the single most powerful tool religion has to control people. Once you recognise this, maybe it will be easier to go beyond the shackles of religion. Why Single Out Christianity and Islam? tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-14:1982180:BlogPost:848491 2011-09-14T03:45:01.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble
I've had a few people ask me lately "Why don't you pick on other religions apart from Christianity and Islam? After all, there are thousands you could choose from." Well the answer is pretty simple, but threefold.

 Firstly, I live in Australia, which is a predominantly Christian nation. Upwards of 60% of Australians identify themselves as Christians (according to the 2006 census). Most of the first westerners to arrive here were Christian, and that tradition has been carried on…

I've had a few people ask me lately "Why don't you pick on other religions apart from Christianity and Islam? After all, there are thousands you could choose from." Well the answer is pretty simple, but threefold.

 Firstly, I live in Australia, which is a predominantly Christian nation. Upwards of 60% of Australians identify themselves as Christians (according to the 2006 census). Most of the first westerners to arrive here were Christian, and that tradition has been carried on from that point onward. Many Christians like to identify Australia as a Christian Nation, while denying the fact that for some 40,000 years previous, the traditional landowners of this country followed their own ancient tradition of storytelling and ritual. And while it is true that our legal system was set up by people who may have been Christian, this does not in fact make our laws Christian laws.I am familiar with the Christian faith, and it is Christianity that I see rammed down the throats of the school children in Australia, not Zoroastrianism or some other faith. This familiarity with Christianity is why they are a topic of many of my criticisms.

 Secondly, Christianity is also the largest single religion in the world at around 33%, closely followed by Islam at around 21% (according to adherents.com). This means that just over half of the world is a religious adherent of an Abrahamic tradition. (Note: according to the percentages at adherents.com, "Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist" account for around 16% or people worldwide.) If I were to focus my attention on, say, indigenous Australian traditional religious beliefs, while just as fanciful, I would be only addressing a very small part of the whole.

 Thirdly, because the Abrahamic traditions are the most adhered to religions worldwide, their influence and actions are wide and far-reaching. The are in governments and the military, in our schools and in out communities. People in power worldwide subscribe to either one of these religions. Many decisions of political and social importance are made according to, and in the name of, the major Abrahamic religions, and the religions themselves can be seen by many as an extension of patriotism, nationalism and country-hood. Those in power know this and use the emotionally charged religious doctrines to win people over, to urge them to fight to defend their freedoms and their nation from the influences of the "other" religion, depending upon which side you happen to come from.

 In the map above we see the relative distribution of Christianity versus Islam worldwide. The Middle-East is obviously the area with the highest level of Islam adherents, and also the place where many of the world's major conflicts are taking place. Christianity, however seems to be more heavily adhered to in South America and Europe than in the "Christian Nation" of the USA, and yet the leaders of the USA still use rhetoric pertaining to "God's will" when invading Middle-Eastern countries on "peacekeeping" missions, when it's pretty clear they are actually after oil to keep the fuel-hungry country afloat.

 Of the remaining third of the world that does not adhere to the Abrahamic traditions or secularism, the religions practiced by these people are either of the Asian tradition (Buddhism, Hindu, Sikh, and Chinese Traditional), or are adherents to small and splintered beliefs like Zoroastrianism, Rastafarianism and Scientology. If I were to draw my attention away from Abrahamic traditions, I guess the next biggest target would have to be Buddhism and Hindu, however the countries that predominantly follow these religions are not the ones that wield the balance of power at this time.

 So my focus remains on Christianity and to a lesser degree Islam (although some would say that Islam is a far more deserving target than Christianity). To me, however, all religions are as guilty as any other; of indoctrination of children, of willful ignorance about the universe, of sectarian violence and hatred, and of promoting the supposed wants of a higher power over the interests of humanity and the rest of the world.

"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett
 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says "Islamicism biggest threat to Canada" & Tony Blair says "Iran is our Real Enemy" tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-10:1982180:BlogPost:839230 2011-09-10T02:30:00.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
It is refreshing to see that our northern border ally has too come to see the true threat facing humanity in the 21st century. It is also refreshing to see the visionary and bold former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom taking a clear stance against the illegal regime of the Islamic Republic - especially since he has strong influence with the Quartet - I am feeling more and more confident that the international community will soon stand more firmly with the Syrian people…

It is refreshing to see that our northern border ally has too come to see the true threat facing humanity in the 21st century. It is also refreshing to see the visionary and bold former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom taking a clear stance against the illegal regime of the Islamic Republic - especially since he has strong influence with the Quartet - I am feeling more and more confident that the international community will soon stand more firmly with the Syrian people in assisting with their liberation and that this will trickle down to Iran when Iranians rise up en masse in approximately 2-years during their next round of fake Presidential elections when the people can use it as an excuse to spill in the streets - I have included both articles below:

http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-blair-iran-is-our-real-enemy-2011-9

TONY BLAIR: Iran Is Our Real Enemy

Adam Taylor | Sep. 9, 2011, 8:15 AM

In an interview with the Times of London to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that Iran is the real enemy.

He told the British paper:

"Regime change in Tehran would immediately make me significantly more optimistic about the whole of the region..."

"If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons capability it would destabilize the region very, very badly.

"They continue to support groups that are engaged with terrorism and the forces of reaction. In Iraq one of the main problems has been the continued intervention of Iran and likewise in Afghanistan."

Blair also said he approved of regime change in Syria. In his view, President Bashar Assad "has shown he is not capable of reform. His position is untenable. There is no process of change that leaves him intact."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/harper-says-islamicism-biggest-threat-canada-032041587.html

Harper says 'Islamicism' biggest threat to Canada

CBC – Tue, 6 Sep, 2011

In an exclusive interview with CBC News, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the biggest security threat to Canada a decade after 9/11 is Islamic terrorism.

In a wide-ranging interview with CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge that will air in its entirety on The National Thursday night, Harper says Canada is safer than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda attacked the U.S., but that "the major threat is still Islamicism."

"There are other threats out there, but that is the one that I can tell you occupies the security apparatus most regularly in terms of actual terrorist threats," Harper said.

Harper cautioned that terrorist threats can "come out of the blue" from a different source, such as the recent Norway attacks, where a lone gunman who hated Muslims killed 77 people.

But Harper said terrorism by Islamic radicals is still the top threat, though a "diffuse" one.

"When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world," he said, citing domestic terrorism in Nigeria.

The prime minister said home-grown Islamic radicals in Canada are "also something that we keep an eye on."

Harper said his government will bring back anti-terrorism clauses that were brought in in 2001 but were sunset in 2007 amid heated political debate.

There were two clauses at the heart of the debate:

One allowed police to arrest suspects without a warrant and detain them for three days without charges if police believed a terrorist act may have been committed.

The other allowed a judge to compel a witness to testify in secret about past associations or perhaps pending acts under penalty of going to jail if the witness didn't comply.

Neither clause was used by police or prosecutors in the five years before they expired.

In October 2006, a parliamentary committee recommended extending the two provisions.

The Conservatives put forward a proposal to keep the measures in place for three more years, but the three opposition parties united to defeat the proposal in February 2007 by a 159-124 vote.

The rest of the legislation remained in force.

When asked by Mansbridge if he would try to bring those laws back, Harper replied: "That is our plan."

"We think those measures are necessary. We think they've been useful," he said. "And as you know … they're applied rarely, but there are times where they're needed."
 SHAME ON YOU MICHAEL MOORE tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-06:1982180:BlogPost:831192 2011-09-06T07:00:00.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
KAHLILI: Michael Moore, rethink your trip to Iran

Filmmaker fixates on anti-Americanism while ignoring mullah massacres

By Reza Kahlili

The Washington Times

Monday, September 5, 2011…

KAHLILI: Michael Moore, rethink your trip to Iran

Filmmaker fixates on anti-Americanism while ignoring mullah massacres

By Reza Kahlili

The Washington Times

Monday, September 5, 2011

Illustration: Michael Moore by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

American filmmaker Michael Moore has asked for permission to travel to Iran to attend Cinema Verite, an Iranian international festival for documentary films, according to Mehr News, the mouthpiece news agency of Iran's Islamic regime.

In a big-headlined story in the Iranian media, Mr. Moore is quoted as saying he wants to visit Iran to do research about the country. In addition, he is an opponent of U.S. government policies, and he wants to show his objection by traveling to Iran.

Mr. Moore, who has directed several well-known documentaries, has always claimed to take the side of ordinary people and has portrayed himself as someone who stands up for the rights of the abused.

It is this reputation that makes Mr. Moore's proposed visit to Iran a betrayal of the very principles he claims to stand for.

Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic regime of Iran has executed tens of thousands of Iranian youths without giving them the right to a defense. During the summer of 1988 alone, about 30,000 young people were executed and buried in mass graves because they were accused of being "mohareb" - enemies of Allah - all because they objected to the harsh rule of the clerics.

Mr. Moore should know - he should understand - that Iranian citizens have no rights. Women are subjected to flogging for failing to wear the Islamic hijab; men are beaten for drinking, even in the privacy of their home. People suffer amputation for stealing; they are stoned for adultery; and rape, torture and hanging are common for speaking out against the clerics. Thousands of Iranian girls, boys, poets, writers, activists, teachers, artists and others from every walk of life remain in Iranian prisons without the right to defend themselves. Iranian officials are routinely sanctioned for violating human rights in Iran.

The very cinema festival that Mr. Moore wants to endorse is subjected to extreme censorship by the Guidance Ministry, which decides which films will be shown and which will be banned. Many movies don't make it to the screen because they promote free thinking or give a hint of what freedom really means. Many directors and actors end up in prison because they try to defend the rights of the people.

More recently, one of the most influential Iranian filmmakers, Jafar Panahi, was imprisoned - because he supported the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and had sympathized with the youths who had protested the fraudulent 2009 presidential elections. The secret police arrested him in March of 2010 along with his wife, children and friends. He was sentenced to prison and barred from making movies for 20 years.

Mr. Panahi stated in an open letter on the occasion of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale (which he was barred from attending) "The reality is that they have deprived me of thinking and writing for twenty years; however, I cannot avoid dreaming that in twenty years the inquisition and intimidation will be abolished. ... They have condemned me to 20 years of silence. However, in my dreams, I scream for a time when we can tolerate each other, respect each other's opinions, and live for each other."

Many before Mr. Moore have traveled to Iran to show their opposition to the policies of America, the very country that has provided them the opportunity of free thinking and free will.

Mr. Moore fails to understand what endorsing evil does. He fails to understand that any affirmation, any recognition of the radicals ruling Iran is a direct insult to all the Iranians who have paid dearly with their blood to have what Mr. Moore takes for granted.

Instead of traveling to Iran, where the Islamic government will use him as a means for its propaganda, as it has done with others, Mr. Moore should make a documentary about the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy - a documentary about the injustices done to young people, middle-aged people, old people who want nothing more than their rights as human beings.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who is a fellow with EMPact America and the author of "A Time to Betray," about his double life in Iran's Revolutionary Guards (Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, 2010).
 An Atheist and Spirituality tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-08-09:1982180:BlogPost:766446 2011-08-09T09:31:58.000Z Martin Pribble http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble I've been thinking lately about spirituality. No, I'm not suggesting I am about to join a cult, take up tantric meditation or go on a vision quest. What I have been wondering is, is there any basis or evidence for a spiritual or metaphysical part of human existence?

 Firstly, I think we need to define what it is we mean by "spirituality". If it means we are all inhabited by everlasting souls, that our existence on earth is a stepping-stone to the afterlife, or that our personalities and… I've been thinking lately about spirituality. No, I'm not suggesting I am about to join a cult, take up tantric meditation or go on a vision quest. What I have been wondering is, is there any basis or evidence for a spiritual or metaphysical part of human existence?

 Firstly, I think we need to define what it is we mean by "spirituality". If it means we are all inhabited by everlasting souls, that our existence on earth is a stepping-stone to the afterlife, or that our personalities and memories live on as ghosts or spirits after death, then I think we can discount "spirituality" right away. There is no evidence for such a state of being, only anecdotal stories from mystics, shamans and holy-men. If, however, we talk of spirituality as a connectedness we feel for other humans, other animals and the physical world in a way we can't explain (yet), then maybe there is room for such a description. I'll come back to this idea later, but first let's look at the semantics of the idea of "spiritual".

 Sam Harris suggests that "spirituality" is a natural part of humanity, that somehow humans have evolved to have transcendent thoughts. He sees the spiritual part of life as just another facet of being human, as almost a necessary part of life. But far from it being a religious state, he can see it as a way to end religion. In his book The End Of Faith from 2004 he writes:

 "Clearly, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world. This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns. It would also be the end of faith."

 It's a nice thought, but I'm not sure I agree with the idea of "spirituality" as such.

 My friend and author of the blog Near Earth Object, Paul Fidalgo surmised the use of the term thus:

 "(The term 'spirituality' is) a shorthand for brain-based experiences that we have yet to fully explore scientifically, so I'm okay with it."

 This is more along the lines of what I'm talking about.

 There are two things here I think should be noted. Firstly, the use of the word "spiritual" is a misleading premise, because the word is fraught with connotations from religion, magic and "crystal-gazing" hippy talk, and by its wishy-washy and intangible nature, it makes the term "spiritual" such a subjective term that it ceases to have any real value in this context, except as an admission of being stumped for a better word. Secondly, I have only used the term "spiritual" here because I can't think of a better term, but over the course of this blog I hope to be able to devise a better descriptor. For me using the word "spirituality" is uncomfortable, and for the reasons I've stated above, I've come to think that it is indeed the wrong word for what I am talking about here. What makes me particularly uncomfortable is the idea that "spirituality" implies "higher states of consciousness", a statement which I think is a little too far on the hippy side of the fence.

 So what is it I am talking about here?

 Well let's clear away the detritus of the priests and the muddiness of magic, and see what facts are available. What do we know about humanity that can help us to come up with an answer to the question of "spirituality"?

Humans are a product of evolution, and all the evidence suggests that our bodies and brains have evolved over millions of years for us to be what we are. Human culture has developed alongside mental and social processes, an as a result we experience feelings and emotions such as empathy. Mirror-neurons in the brain make us feel the pain and joys of others, allowing for better social bonding. Bonding with others makes for a stronger community, which is definitely beneficial to the whole group. Societies, cultures and countries are merely larger applications of the group empathy advantage.

As far as I can discern, everything that we see, feel, touch, taste, think etc. is a product of the thinking brain. The way we react to situations comes from the brain and it's processes, so spirituality, if it exists, does so inside the human brain also.

While altered states of consciousness have been recorded and tested under scientific scrutiny under the influence of mind-altering drugs, during mediation, trance-like states and hypnosis, there is nothing to suggest that these states are "higher" than normal thought, merely different. There are many ways this altered state has helped people to make realisations that have led to advances in maths and science, but to use the word "higher" implies that what is actually an impaired or rewired brain as working in an advanced or better mode than normal brain function. The question is, are these so-called "higher" processes actually "higher" or simply the way our brains react to chemical and physical changes?

 The other question is, what is metaphysical? By definition it means "beyond physical", but is this even possible? Again, things we once thought of as unknowable and explained as spiritual have turned out to be explainable, so what are the chances that "spirituality" will turn out to be "beyond the physical?

 I'd like to venture that "spirituality" is a way to describe a natural process in the brain that we don't yet understand, rather than something metaphysical. What makes me say this? Well, evidence does. All signs point to the brain being our connection to the world, translator, interpreter and decoder of our lives and the physical world around us. The fact that we don't yet understand it is the reason we hold it in a place of reverence and fear, and as the source of "woo". Just as we once believed epileptic fits to be possession by the devil, we will one day look back on our notions of "spirituality" with a truer understanding of what makes the human brain, therefore humanity, tick. Rather than labelling the so-called spiritual "higher" we will one day call it what I think it really is, something that is different from our current ability to understand.

 Where, then, does that leave us? If it's not metaphysics I'm talking about, then what is it, and what label shall we give it? Could we instead use a less heavily laden term? Muslim extremists now in China?? tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-08-01:1982180:BlogPost:756712 2011-08-01T13:27:06.000Z Sassan K. http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/SassanK
Wow...starting jihad in China??

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-says-extremists-trained-abroad-behind-attack-west-034315503.html

China blames Muslim extremists for attack in Xinjiang
 By Chris Buckley |…

Wow...starting jihad in China??

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-says-extremists-trained-abroad-behind-attack-west-034315503.html

China blames Muslim extremists for attack in Xinjiang
 By Chris Buckley | Reuters – 5 hours ago

<img src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/4zeoBlSMkTEHzibMnG8LWQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9Mjk5O2NyPTE7Y3c9NDUwO2R4PTA7ZHk9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD0xMjc7cT04NTt3PTE5MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2011-08-01T034315Z_01_BTRE7700AC600_RTROPTP_2_CNEWS-US-CHINA-XINJIANG-ATTACK.JPG" alt="A handout picture shows armed policemen trying to rescue hostages at a police station during a clash in Hotan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region July 18, 2011. REUTERS/Xinjiang Public Security Bureau/Handout" title="A handout picture shows armed policemen trying to rescue hostages at a police station during a clash in Hotan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region July 18, 2011. REUTERS/Xinjiang Public Security Bureau/Handout" height="127" width="190"/>
A handout picture shows armed policemen trying to rescue hostages at a police station …

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday that Islamic militants had mounted an attack that left 11 people dead in the restive western region of Xinjiang, which announced a crackdown on "illegal" religious activities at the start of the Muslim fasting month.

The attack in Kashgar city on Sunday afternoon was the latest violence to rattle the region where Muslim Uighurs have long resented the presence of Han Chinese and religious and political controls imposed by Beijing.

It came less than 24 hours after two small blasts hit the city, which is dominated by Uighurs.

"The malign intention behind this violent terror was to sabotage inter-ethnic unity and harm social stability, provoking ethnic hatred and creating ethnic conflict," the Kashgar government said on its website (http://www.xjks.gov.cn).

Captured suspects confessed that their ringleaders had earlier fled to Pakistan and joined the separatist "East Turkestan Islamic Movement," and received training in making firearms and explosives before infiltrating back into China, the Kashgar government said.

"The members of this group all adhere to extremist religious ideas and adamantly support Jihad," said the statement, referring to the Arabic term for struggle used by advocates of militant Islam to describe their cause.

Police shot dead five people and arrested four others after they stormed a restaurant, set in on fire after killing the owner and a waiter, and then ran onto the street and hacked to death four people, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Chinese-language Global Times newspaper said all the suspected attackers were Uighur.

For the ruling Communist Party, the bloodshed presents a tricky test of its control in Xinjiang, where Uighur and Han Chinese residents view each other with suspicion. (For more on the issues see.)

Beijing has been wary of contagion from uprisings across the Arab world inspiring challenges to Party power in China.

"I think it's a testament to how tense the region remains, and the fact that you have increased polarization between ethnic groups," said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher on China for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.

"There's a lot of pent-up anger and resentment of Chinese policies in Kashgar," added Bequelin, noting a controversial program to raze homes in traditional Uighur neighborhoods and relocate them to housing under firmer official control.

The top Communist Party official in Xinjiang, Zhang Chunxian, announced a crackdown on religious extremism and vowed harsh punishment for those found guilty of attacks, according to the region's official news website (www.tianshannet.com).

"(We will) resolutely attack religious extremist forces and effectively curb illegal religious activities," Zhang said.

DESERTED STREETS AFTER BURST OF ATTACKS

Kashgar city lies in Xinjiang's south and has a population of some 600,000 people, about four fifths of them Uighur, according to the government. The city is divided between Uighur and Han Chinese areas, and many residents depend on tourism for their livelihoods.

China sees Xinjiang as strategically vital, and Beijing has shown no sign of loosening its grip on the territory, which accounts for a sixth of the country's land mass and holds deposits of oil and gas.

In July 2009, the regional capital, Urumqi, was rocked by violence between majority Han Chinese and minority Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people, many of them Han Chinese.

Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking people who have usually not embraced stricter forms of Islam, but in recent years religious traditionalism has made inroads.

Critics of Chinese policy in Xinjiang and advocates of Uighur self-rule say that Beijing has exaggerated the influence of terror groups, and its tough policies have deepened Uighur anger by smothering avenues for peaceful protest.

Bequelin, the human rights researcher, said he was skeptical about Chinese suggestions that the "East Turkestan Islamic Movement" (ETIM) was behind the attack.

"It's now an umbrella term used by China for any kind of Uighur separatist or anti-state activity," Bequelin said of ETIM, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2002.

Earlier on Sunday, Chinese media reported that two men wielding knives attacked a truck driver and then a crowd of people following two explosions in Kashgar on Saturday night, leaving eight people dead including one of the attackers.

Eighteen people including 14 "rioters" were killed in an attack on a police station in Xinjiang on July 18, according to the government.

In July 2009, Xinjiang was hit by a public backlash from Han Chinese residents of the regional capital Urumqi, who said officials acted too slowly to quell bloody rioting by Uighurs after police broke up a protest by Uighur students.

The latest attack also brought calls on the Chinese Internet for a harsh response.

"Our hope rests in policy-makers completely cutting through entangling shackles, our hope rests with the military," said one comment about the assault on Sina's popular Weibo microblogging site (http://weibo.com).

(Additional reporting by Sally Huang; Editing by Ken Wills and Jonathan Thatcher)