"Calgary Muslims to campaign against controversial film"

A local Muslim organization is speaking out against a controversial anti-Muslim film.

The group will be out this weekend, going door to door in a campaign to enable Calgarians to understand why the film has offended so many.

It's good that they're trying to communicate about the Muslim communities view of this problem.  I just don't know if Calgarians will be receptive to their message.  Calgary, although diverse and friendly, also has an underside of raw prejudice.  And the climate right now is to be judgemental of local Muslims because of the actions of extremists elsewhere.

It also depends on what their message is. I don't think there's any possible way you can go to non-believers and complain about blasphemy.  It's a meaningless concept in a society of free speech and free thinkers.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it will turn out well. Please recommend this post

Anders Pushing Transgender Hysteria

Calgary MP Rob Anders has once again drawn criticism for controversial comments, this time about the transgender community.Anders wants to stop Bill C279, a private member's bill that would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and hate crime section of the Criminal Code to include "gender identity" and "gender expression" as grounds for discrimination.He says the bill's goal is to give transgendered men access to women's washrooms, which has led it to be nicknamed the "bathroom bill" proposal.

He said it’s the duty of the House of Commons to protect children from any exposure or harm that will come from giving men this kind of access.

Rob Anders makes the news today for pushing a long standing myth that keeps circulating in social conservative circles, that transgendered people are sexual predators.  It is a variation of the blood libel .   Anders is trying to whip up hysteria among conservative church members who will  no doubt be contacting their conservative MPs.

A lot of effort goes into trying to figure out the secretive reasons why Anders is still a member in good standing in the Conservative caucus.  The simplest explanation is the best.  He holds a safe riding that brings in steady revenue.  The secondary reason is that Stephen Harper and Rob Anders are probably closer in thinking than most people think.  Anders feeds the pigs while Harper tries to look professional in the parts of Canada where he needs to win.
Please recommend this post

Draw Mohammed Day 2012

I forgot today was the third annual  Draw Mohammed Day, a popular internet movement born out of frustration with violent reactions to simple parodies such as cartoons.  While I had mixed feelings about it, on the whole I think these kind of movements are quite appropriate.  Islam is one of the last ideologies in the world where thought crimes, even by non-adherents can result in rather violent over-reactions.

People are right to insist on an unfettered right to make fun of something as a form of free speech or conscience. In our western tradition we have quite a long history of satire and mockery.  We finally got to a point in our civilization where we (mostly) no longer persecute people for mocking the sacred or important. Partly because of the spread of democracy and the corresponding individual rights it contains, but also because authoritarianism and intimidation never worked as way to change people's minds. Everyone knows it doesn't work.

I can't draw so I submit the above stock cartoon as my depiction of the prophet.  If I could draw I would make something subtle and tasteful.  I would make Mohammed a woman.  If the founder of Islam were a woman it would be the greatest irony of history.  It would drop a bomb on the widespread misogyny of religion in general, and Islam in particular.

The other problem is I don't really have a firm opinion on whether Mohammed actually existed or not. Like Jesus, there are a number of possibilities, from being made up completely, to being a composite of a few people, to being a real person obscured wholly by mythology.  So all this outrage could be over someone who didn't exist.

I am an atheist, someone who rejects god and gods, revelation,  and superstitions. As a result it doesn't interest me too much to get overly obsessive about one particular religion.  Among the social media types who argue about religion and culture there is definitely a sub-culture of Islamophobia.   I don't really wish to get involved with that level of hatred.  I think it's okay to hate ideas or ideologies, but not people or groups of people. It's irrational. In Canada nowadays you more than likely have friends, co-workers, and neighbors who are Muslim.  We have to co-exist.

And besides, if you wake up one day and find out you sound just like Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant, it's game over for your brain.



Please recommend this post

Dan Savage and the Economist

A few days ago the Economist magazine ran a short opinion piece on the Dan Savage "bible bullshit" speech and the predictable reaction that followed from the religious right.  A good number of atheist and humanist bloggers that I read were not entirely happy with the Economist's comments.  I think this is because they focused on the opening paragraphs where the writer tries to make an issue of Savage's style, rather than the real issue of substance which is the bullying of Gay youth.

But the last paragraph of the piece really lays it out well:

Mr Savage's apology did not stop the outrage machine. Some seem to have taken particular delight in hurling Mr Savage's epithets—bully and basher (of Christians and Christianity, rather than gays)—back at him. The American Thinker harrumphs, "Evidently, bullying is one of those things that is defined by the 'victim'." Well, yes: in fact it is. Bullying is the strong picking on the weak, not the other way around (the other way around is satire). One could make the argument that in the case of Mr Savage's speech, he was the strong one, and the high-school students were "victims", but that would be weak tea indeed. Mr Savage is one person, not a movement, and of course those students whom he gave the vapours were free to leave. Not everyone has such freedom. Gay teens, not Christian teens, kill themselves at higher rates than the general populace. Nobody calls Christianity an abomination. One blogger accused Mr Savage of "Christian-bashing" for pointing out the Bible's position on slavery. A writer for a Focus on the Family site said that "using profanity to deride the Bible...is obviously a form of bullying and name-calling." In fact it is neither: Mr Savage, however intemperate his language, was arguing, not name-calling. That is a crucial distinction, and one that too often eludes the showily devout. If the Bible is in fact the word of God it can survive a few arguments about context and application.

And then there's a letter writer's acerbic comment about the piece:

The reason the psycho end of the right wing is *really* angry at Dan Savage isn't over the one word "Bullshit". The actual reason the psycho end of the right wing is angry at Dan Savage are the three words he brought into public consciousness: "It Gets Better".

There shouldn't be any doubt as to who the real victims are in this debate.


Please recommend this post

Hijacking Penn State

As if the tragedy at Penn State wasn't bad enough in and of itself, people with unrelated axes to grind are now using it to get attention.

1.  A spokesman for an anti-gay hate group blames gay men and homosexuality for the alleged sexual assault(s) at Penn State.  By repeating the old lie about how pedophilia is linked to homosexuality they managed to suck up a considerable amount of media attention.  Actually, this myth doesn't need to be debunked, as such, because there has never been any real scientific research to support the claim.  Some might disagree with me, but I've come to believe that any kind of social science analysis or theory offered by religious groups is completely worthless.

2.  Some climate change denialists who have been engaged in long term harassment of Penn State researcher Michael Mann have linked the sex scandal to Mann's research.  I'm not even sure I understand the logic here, but it seems to be something like...because Penn State had governance problems as seen in the alleged sexual abuse scandal, therefore the prevailing climate change science must be wrong.  Oh, that hurt my brain.

Because in the fractured minds of these people the victims don't really matter.  They are only props, used to further narrow misguided ideological crusades.


Off topic, but speaking of religion and social science I found this article about Michael Pearl, a Christian dominionist author who advocates beating children as young  as a few months old. The article is written by Frank Schaeffer who knows his way around these circles.  I was reading about this before on a few christian mommy blogs. It's really kind of scary.








Please recommend this post

Should University Athletes Get Private Chaplains?

Via Pharyngula:

The University of Iowa is using University funds to hire a Christian chaplain to minister to the needs of the school’s football team. It’s not hard to see how patriotism, athleticism and religion all get stirred into the same pot. It’s a potent cocktail as well as a huge industry.

An online poll at a radio station asked viewers if they favoured the University creating this position. Prior to the Pharyngula blog post it was running at 60% yes, but after…98% against.

Oh well. Myers' blog has a huge following and they tend to crush polls now and again. But I would seriously like to know how many people in Iowa favour a public university creating this position. Please recommend this post

Minnesota Archbishop: Opposing Marriage Equality Is Not Anti-Gay

Via ThinkProgress:

Archbishop John C. Nienstedt: “The Minnesota Catholic Conference, made up of the seven Catholic bishops from the state, support this amendment not for prejudicial or political reasons, but rather for reasons that are theological, biological and pastoral.”

(Original news item.)

Lets assume for a second that the Archbishop's homophobia is not born of prejudicial or political reasons (which no intelligent person would believe for a second). That leaves his pseudo-humanist argument that it's about theology biology, and pastoral authority or care.

Theology isn't a useful factor here because there are many different theologies. Some theologies actually acknowledge the whole person and accept gay people as equal and normal. Shock! Aside from that theology is a useless guideline for public policy.

Biology has no relevance to gay marriage, or the legalization of it. The Archbishop still thinks he lives in a world where his distortions of modern science are actually relevant to society at large.

That leaves us with Pastoral authority or care. This only applies to Catholics. Leave the rest of us and public policy out of it.

(Shakes angry atheist fist up to the sky) Please recommend this post

Religious Literature In Public Libraries

I laughed a bit when I read this this Daily Mail article twisting a simple story about a Muslim society in the UK requesting that the Koran be placed on a higher shelf. Apparently Muslim scholars believe the Koran should always be on the higher shelf to show respect.

The Library responded by putting all religious texts on the uppers shelves. This caused a predictable counter-reaction from some Christian groups who now claim to be persecuted victims. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

I think the Library made an acceptable compromise, although it wouldn't bother me either if the Library just ignored the request. The Dewey decimal system works fine and there is a strong argument to be made for pragmatism.

If you made me the Librarian I just might slap warning labels on those books that they are not suitable for children. Some of the stories in ancient religious literature are violent and sexist. And its fairly obvious that religious texts nurture severe bigotry in some people

The story does show how a simple request from one group gets turned into a whole Christian vs Muslim war of Civilizations controversy. Mark Steyn would be proud. The rest of us find it tiresome.

I'm in favor of Libraries stocking primary religious texts and I'm in favor of people reading the Bible and the Koran at least once to complete their general education. My own Library has a fairly diverse collection of primary religious texts. I also know there is a subtle pressure to stock some fairly ugly religious literature.

I wouldn't want to be a librarian these days having to use public money to purchase materials, and probably getting angry letters and phone calls from unbalanced people who aren't seeing their kind of books. Or mad because they see something they don't like. Please recommend this post

A Vortex of Hypocrisy and Shame

I was really saddened this week when I read about the death of 16 year old Aqsa Parvez, allegedly murdered by her father. I was having a bad week to begin with and events like this don't help any of us. To me it is purely a case of domestic abuse and not an issue of immigration, race or religion. Nonetheless, the blogospere swarmed on the story, and honestly I found a lot of the commentary quite disgusting.

Unfortunately this tragedy is being used as a wedge in the ongoing Islamophobia that our society has steadily descended into since September 11, 2001.

I grew up with a friend whom I'll call B. When we were children our fathers were good friends so we saw each other a lot. I don't know how our fathers met. B's father was a WWII Pow in Hong Kong and had life long health problems because of the starvation and torture he endured. After my father passed away I didn't see B nearly as much. B and myself and our families were remarkably alike. Born in the 60's, white protestants, United Church, Boy Scouts of Canda, parents who moved into the new suburbs of Edmonton to raise their new families, etc.

B's mom and my mom occasionally talked and I'd often hear about what he was up to. After high school he had a deep Christian experience and became active in a large Pentecostal church. Neither he nor his family were particularly religious as far as I can remember. Eventually he became a leader in the Church, married and started a family. As some point I lost track of him as he moved to BC.

Sometime in 2006 B was arrested and charged in suspicion of the murder of his 16 year old daughter. I couldn't have been more shocked and saddened by this news. Talk about the last thing you would expect to find out about someone you knew.

The murder did not make the national news. It made the news in the locality where it occurred and made the news in Edmonton, but only because they were from there. The story quickly fell off the media radar and is difficult to find references on the internet at all. I still don't know if B has been convicted and sentenced yet. Last bit of information was the judge sending him off for a Psych evaluation.

When this crime occurred there was not widespread swarming in the blogosphere. No one made broad sweeping hate filled comments about Pentecostals. No one demanded that B go back where he came from. No one blamed it on the fact that B refused to assimilate into our way of life. (An Orwellian term if there ever was one. ) No one cried moral outrage because Pentecostal leaders did not hold press conferences to denounce the crime.

I'm afraid I find this contrast slightly jarring and not particularly flattering to our attitudes. I grieve for an old friend and his family. And I grieve for another family that I do not know who in addition to all else, has to deal with media glare and tightly focused racism. Please recommend this post