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Susan Thur

Freedom as Self-Determination, Democracy as Independence from Religion - Citizenship in... - 0 views

atheism.about.com/...SelfDetermin.htm

freedom religion atheism Christianity god atheist Politics

shared by Susan Thur on 21 May 10 - Cached
  • Susan Thur on 21 May 10
     
    "The very act of calling America a "Christian Nation," for example, is at a bare minimum a symbolic attempt to describe America in Christian rather than secular terms. A "Christian" nation is one in which the Christian beliefs of people or institutions become relevant to their status in the political community. We would not all be equally "citizens," but first and foremost "Christian" as defined by the state or "not Christian" - and thus politically inferior. This, then, means that the assaults on the separation of church and state are, in the end, also assaults on not only liberty and freedom, but also on the very concept of citizenship in a liberal democracy."
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.
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.
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