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Skeptical Debunker

BBC News - Irish arrests over 'plot to kill Swedish cartoonist' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8558022.stm

cartoonist Mohamed bounty arrests Ireland

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 09 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The Vilks controversy arose in 2007, when his entry in an arts project was published by the newspaper. It pictured a dog with the head of a bearded man in a turban. Several Muslim countries protested against the picture. At the time, Swedish officials expressed regret at any hurt caused to Muslims' feelings, but said the government could not prevent the publication of such drawings because of media freedom rules. The case came about a year and a half after a series of depictions of Muhammad in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper caused an uproar in early 2006. Those cartoons sparked protests from Muslims around the world. Dozens of people were killed in riots. Muslims regard any image of the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemy. In January, one of the cartoonists whose drawing appeared in Jyllands-Posten, the Dane Kurt Westergaard, was targeted in his own home, allegedly by a Somali radical Muslim with an axe. Mr Westergaard, who escaped unharmed, had depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Mr Vilks told The Associated Press news agency that the telephone threats in January had come from "a Swedish-speaking Somali. He reminded me about what had happened to Westergaard and threatened with a follow-up and that 'now it's your turn'."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 09 Mar 10
     
    Seven people have been arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad, police say. The four men and three women are all Muslim immigrants, according to media reports, though a police statement did not confirm this. Cartoonist Lars Vilks had depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper. Islamic militants put a $100,000 (£67,000) bounty on his head. Mr Vilks was quoted as saying he was unfazed by the arrests, which he said he thought could be linked to two death threats he had received by telephone in January.
Dripa B

Muhammad cartoons reprint sparks protests in Indonesia | JURIST (24.02.08) - 0 views

jurist.law.pitt.edu/...ad-cartoons-reprint-sparks.php

cartoon freedom_of_speech islam jyllands-poste kurt_westergaard media muhammad religion

shared by Dripa B on 26 Feb 08 - Cached
  • Dripa B on 26 Feb 08
     
    Protesters in the world's most populous Muslim country burned Danish flags and called for the death of the cartoon artist. Jyllands-Poste and 16 other Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon earlier this month one day after Danish police arrested three people suspected in a plot to murder Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for his characterization of Muhammad.
thinkahol *

YouTube - Sam Harris SALT - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

YouTube - Sam Harris SALT

shared by thinkahol * on 02 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 02 Jan 11
     
    December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or
Bakari Chavanu

answeringinfidels.com - 4 views

www.answeringinfidels.com/index.php

god

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 30 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Here Richard argues that Metaphysical Naturalism is better than any religion, because if society were to adopt his view, there would be no religious conflict.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 30 Oct 09
       
      I have to agree with this point. Richard in his presentation sounded very naive as to think enough people who accept "Metaphysical Naturalism" as a dominate worldview, when in actuality no particular worldview is dominate.
  • This seems pretty straightforward, but there is a gaping problem. Richard claims that the adoption of his view by society would bring an end to religious conflict. But what does he mean by “adoption”? He can’t be referring to a simple adoption of his view by a government, for this would not put an end to religious conflicts, whether internal or external.
  • For instance, if Congress suddenly voted in favor of a Metaphysical Naturalism Amendment to the Constitution, there would still be Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Jews, Mormons, and others contending for their faiths. Thus, there would still be conflict. 
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • His argument, then, amounts to this: “If we all believed in Metaphysical Naturalism, then there would be no disagreements about the truth of Metaphysical Naturalism.” If my point isn’t clear yet, just compare Richard’s reasoning with the following arguments, which are based on similar logic: 
  • If Christianity were adopted by everyone, then no one would disagree about whether or not Christianity is true. We wouldn’t have to worry about Muslim extremists anymore, for Islam would be a thing of the past. The war in Iraq would be over! Thus, everyone should adopt Christianity.
  • But this logic could be used to justify any policy change: If we just made it a law that immigrants could come to the U.S. at will, then we wouldn’t have to worry about patrolling our borders or making immigration policies. We could then take those resources and use them elsewhere. Thus, U.S. borders should be open to everyone. If people would simply agree that abortion is wrong, the abortion controversy would be over. This would allow officials to spend their time debating other issues, such as health care. Thus, people should agree that abortion is wrong. 
  • Needless to say, the Song of Solomon isn’t about the joys of child-rearing. I’m sure Richard is familiar with this part of the Bible, so I still don’t understand why he would say that the Bible teaches that sex is only for procreation.
  • Richard is also wrong when he says that the Bible lacks a mature view of sexuality. According to the Bible, God created sex. He could just as easily have given us the ability to reproduce asexually, but he didn’t. He wanted man and woman to be together, and he made sex pleasurable. When he finished creating us this way, he called everything “very good.”[23] And contrary to what Richard says, sex has purposes other than procreation. 
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 30 Oct 09
       
      But how do you know this? Plus, sex like other behaviors in life is extremely problematic for human societies. It represents the best and the worst about our nature. What type of god would allow that to occur in humans?
  • “[A]s atheists know better than anyone else on the planet, if you say you don’t believe you often become a social outcast.”[24]  This is the epitome of egocentrism. Around the world, people have been shunned, oppressed, tortured, and killed for their beliefs, yet Richard thinks that he’s got it worse than all of them. He even shares with his readers the suffering that resulted from his stand against theism: “For the first time, rather than being merely constantly pestered, I was being called names, and having hellfire wished upon me.”[25] If
  • Even more interesting is that Richard inadvertently implicates a number of his atheist colleagues in his crimes against reason: The Internet Infidels were also instrumental in helping to complete the latest phase of my intellectual development, especially Jeff Lowder and many affiliated colleagues: Evan Fales, Victor Stenger, Keith Augustine, Dan Barker, just to name a few, who also gave advice about improving this work specifically.[31] Shame on all of them! Either they lacked the reasoning ability to see the flaws in Richard’s arguments from breasts and blue monkeys (in which case they should all stop writing), or they don’t care that atheism is based on ridiculous arguments (in which case they should stop trying to persuade the world that their beliefs are important). Either way, they are guilty along with Richard. Aristotle would not be pleased.
  • On the last page of his book, Richard says that atheists “gain a sense of community and conviction through fighting together against our common enemies—the foes of reason, truth, and liberty.”[32] He then pleads for his readers to join him in his battle against Christianity. Remarkably, half way down the page he adds, “Failing that, if you’d rather pass, then I would like to extend another plea: for tolerance, acceptance, and understanding.” Thus, Richard’s message at the conclusion of his book seems to be: “Let’s all join together and destroy Christianity, our greatest enemy, until it is gone from the earth! But for those of you who don’t agree with me, let’s all be tolerant and understanding toward one another.”
  • Indeed, Christianity has enslaved the minds of billions of people: The fact is that we believe in God and an immortal soul because of the missionary zeal and religious intolerance intrinsic to the Christian religion. We owe our superstitious ideas to sword and gun and flame. In this corner of the globe, the Christian church was the victor, and our minds were the spoil.[39] 
  • Richard calls for war, a battle “to defeat the nonsense and lies” that Christians have spread.[40] He even refers to his campaign against Christianity as a “crusade” and says that “it would be immoral not to fight it.”[41] 
  • In the first passage, Jesus is addressing the idea that he had come to usher in a golden age of peace. Contrary to Jewish expectations, the purpose of Jesus’ first coming was to die on the cross for the sins of the world and to tear down the barrier of separation between God and man.
  • That Jesus here uses the word “sword” figuratively to represent the division brought by the Gospel is obvious to anyone whose last name isn’t Carrier.
  • From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”[47] 
  • All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.
  • The story is meant to illustrate Jesus’ immanent departure. Jesus was leaving, but he would one day return. In the meantime, people can either serve Christ or they can rebel against him. We can do as we like, but we mustn’t forget that one day Jesus will return, and that we will all be judged. That’s the obvious meaning of the passage
  • In the other passage, Richard calls Paul an advocate of slavery. But notice what Paul says. He tells his readers that slaves shouldn’t rebel against their masters “so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.”
  • f Richard had been writing the letters, slaves would have rebelled, and Christianity wouldn’t have lasted very long.
  • Besides, in his letter to Philemon, Paul does ask a slave-owner to free his slave.[49] 
  • For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.[50] 
  • not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.[51] 
  • Paul says that we are all one. He tells slaves to render service with good will, then turns around and says that masters should do the same things for their slaves. He adds that our true Master is in heaven, and that there is no favoritism with God.
  • In other words, we are all equal in God’s sight. This idea ultimately resulted in the Founding Fathers’ declaration that “All men are created equal,” which in turn gave birth to democracy in America and to the eventual abolition of slavery.
  • As we investigate Richard’s claims, a pattern should be coming into view. Richard goes to the Bible searching for the most unfavorable interpretation he can find. It’s fine if that’s his method, but remember that he demands that the principle of interpretive charity be applied to his writings.
  • Are these really contradictions? I’m not so sure. Consider the following statements: 1. Yesterday morning, Aunt Ginger came to my house to visit me.2. Last night, Aunt Ginger and Uncle Tony came to Virginia to visit my father.3. Yesterday afternoon, my aunt came to town to go to the beach.4. Yesterday, my aunt and uncle came to my house to get a dog. Believe it or not, these four statements are all true. 
  • Atheists are free to accuse me (or the Bible) of gross contradiction, and in fact this is a very common approach in atheist apologetics. But for Richard to interpret obviously reconcilable statements (i.e. one passage mentions two women at the tomb, while another mentions three women, etc.) as horrible contradictions and then to demand that the principle of interpretive charity be applied to all of his writings would require a completely different type of charity. It would require us to say,
  • Since some Christians have done bad things, Christianity must be bad. For Richard, any bad deed that a Christian does is evidence against Christianity, even if the deed is contrary to Jesus’ teachings. 
  • Yet, strangely, nothing an atheist does counts against atheism. Stalin killed millions of people because he had no respect for the sanctity of life, but should this affect our opinion of atheism?  Hitler tried to apply atheistic evolution to society, concluded that the Jews needed to be removed from the gene pool because they were interfering with human evolution, and killed millions of people.
  • Second, Richard says that the Bible is useless, childish, and boring, for it contains “extensive genealogies of no relevance to the meaning of life . . ., long digressions on barbaric rituals . . ., lengthy diatribes against long-dead nations and constant harping on doom and gloom.”[56] 
  • Obviously, very few people lay awake at night tormented by the question “What do words mean?” Nor do they care about analyzing normative propositions or studying the differences between reducible and irreducible sensations. I’m sure Richard would respond by saying, “But these topics are important! If someone finds them unimportant, then something must be wrong with him!”
Jack Frost

Atheism and politics - 0 views

atheismandpolitics.blogspot.com

Atheism Free Thinking Religion Politics Philosophy God Truth Beauty Goodness Christianity Catholicism Islam Muslim Bible Ontology

shared by Jack Frost on 11 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Jack Frost on 11 Apr 10
     
    Atheism, religion, God, politics, philosophy, and all the other stuff we are supposed to put out of our minds.
Jack Frost

Atheism and politics: Oh, the blessings of Islam! - 0 views

atheismandpolitics.blogspot.com/...oh-blessings-of-islam.html

Politics atheism religion Islam Christianity muslim

shared by Jack Frost on 12 May 10 - Cached
  • Jack Frost on 12 May 10
     
    A 64 year old man gets attacked by Islamic Extremists over some more depictions of their pedophile prophet. The video of the attack is *slightly* violent, certainly no Van Gogh incident, but this speaks volumes about the intolerance and warped conception of freedom among the Islamic faith.
Bakari Chavanu

Uncertain Humanism and the Water of Whiteness - TheHumanist.com - 4 views

thehumanist.com/...ism-and-the-water-of-whiteness

humanism racism

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 04 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Uncertain humanism is not just about how we approach “facts.” It involves how we approach our very identities and who we think we are.
  • It’s about asking: Who are we, as humanists, and will we let ourselves become more uncertain so that we might more fully realize that black lives matter?
  • My major point is this: race (and especially racism) has developed largely as a response to feelings of uncertainty that get rationalized away.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 04 Jul 15
       
      Racism has developed to justify oppression and protect privilege. 
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • In what follows, I intersperse several quotes and paraphrased wisdom from Wallace with commentary directed at white humanists
  • Therefore, determining if black lives matter to (white) humanists might require determining the direction our humanism is oriented: towards certainty, security, and facts; or, uncertainty, compassion, and attention to the limits of what is possible as humanists, and as humans.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 04 Jul 15
       
      This part is not clear to me.
  • But we tend to toe a fine line between experiences of our own ideological alienation, and expressing tolerance (of other beliefs) precisely because of our own feelings of having been alienated.
  • Rationality is this process of faking it, and it is always secured through violence. Rene Descartes, one of the fathers of rationalism, even defines it as transforming intellectual uncertainty into certainty. But this certainty is only ever an idea; the social world is never certain. So when people like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or Trayvon Martin­—or places like Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; or Cleveland, Ohio—cause a person to feel uncertain, when black bodies trouble the “rational” order of things, they get killed.
  • If humanism is used to procure a sense of certainty—that God doesn’t exist, that humans can achieve whatever we set out to accomplish, or to procure certainty of self—then it will at best capitulate to a mentality that allows racism to flourish. And at worst, it will directly reinforce racist ways of thinking and acting.
  • Do black Christian lives matter to humanists? Do black Muslim lives matter to humanists? Or are we so hung up on not believing that our concern for all humans grows cloudy?
  • For instance, couldn’t the American Humanist Association (AHA) organize a group of humanists to march alongside community folks who are declaring that black lives matter?
  • When will black lives matter as much as humanist lives? All of us, and I’m including myself, could do more to put our ideological freedom to work in the service of those who face the brunt of a social world where God has really only ever been a proxy for power, anyway. In this respect black lives are atheist lives. They are humanist lives.
  • At what are our efforts directed? Are we trying to change the world through some sort of self-righteous (and ironic) messiah complex? Do we think we have all the answers and lament that others will not follow us? Or are we holding conversations about how we might change so that the world might be changed—becoming fish that finally feel the full weight of water?
  • Many white humanists still fight the notion that black lives matter to humanists, and that such mattering requires intense self-reflection. If you think I’m simply constructing a
  • But the highest rated comment is this: “I am fully a humanist, and will always fight for equal rights and justice, but putting Michael Brown’s name on this meme is divisive and reactionary. As the evidence comes out, we are seeing that he committed several serious crimes. It cheapens our movement to look at this as a non-gray issue.”
  • Are there still so many of us who are more concerned with securing our own (humanist) identity and increasing our numbers that we’re willing to be complicit with a social arrangement where certain identities are not simply facing various modes of marginalization, but literal death? As a humanist, these perspectives are embarrassing. And as a white person, I am ashamed of them.
  • Or will we worship at the altar of full humanity where #AllLivesMatter only once #BlackLivesMatter? Let us be uncertain, using our relative freedom to choose not to wallow in selfish indifference or guilt-ridden stagnation, but for the sake of imagining new, uncertain possibilities of social life where black lives matter more than a god that doesn’t exist anyway.
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