A few further comments: How odd that HF cites Popper in favour of his argument that Freudian psychoanalytic theory-building is essentially no different from what happens in science, when Popper was explicitly *contrasting* psychoanalysis with science when he wrote that it “resembled astrology rather than astronomy” (“Conjectures and Refutations”).
By HF’s argument, fundamental Newtonian classical mechanics would never have been superseded by what Pais calls “the new dynamics” based on relativity theory.
>Every unpredicted case of observing a deviation of a body or atom from rest or from the straight path at constant velocity has, and it will always be by default, instantly theorized as the discovery of a new type of force.
>That is : tail win head you lose.<
Of course a hitherto well-validated basic theory, such as Newtonian gravitation, is held to be true in this sense – until there occur, in the long run, reasons to start to question it. Thus an undiscovered satellite of the sun was conjectured to account for the anomaly in the precession of the perihelion of Mercury – until the general theory of relativity accounted for the anomaly, and superseded Newtonian gravitational theory.
HF chooses to make a simplistic interpretation of Popper’s comment about observation being theory-laden. In a perspicacious analysis of the notion, Philip Kitcher points out that “the fact that concepts and categories are involved in observation doesn’t mean that the content of the experience is determined by them or that we cannot be led by experience to reconceptualize the phenomena.” (N. Koertge [ed], *A House Built on Sand* [1998, pp. 38-40]) See also Susan Haack’s discussion of this issue in *Evidence and Enquiry* (1993), chapter 5. Also Haack’s chapter 5, “Realistically speaking: How science fumbles, and sometimes forges, ahead”, in *Defending Science – Within Reason* (2003).
>Sulloway writes: “Time and time again, Freud saw in his patients what psychoanalytic theory led him to look for and then to interpret the way he did; and when the theory changed, so did the clinical findings.”
>We have been here before but unfortunately Allen still hasn’t understood how theories work and what is their relation with the experiment.<
Yes, we’ve been here before, and I’ve already responded to the absurd notion that the development of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories (and specifically the point made by Sulloway here) bears any similarity to the history of the progress of scientific theories, e.g., in physics and chemistry.
The idea that there is anything analogous in, e.g., physics and chemistry, to Freud’s technique of analytic interpretation by means of which he can *always* ‘validate’ his theories (and by means of which different schools of psychoanalysis ‘validate’ quite different theories) is nonsense.
About Edmund Standing’s piece on Israel and Palestine. I thought this recent extract from Allen Esterson’s Feb 1st posting was ironically relevant.
“Those on the British Left who voiced support for the Argentine case did so largely on the basis of a reflex “anti-colonial” stance that disregarded the central issue of whether a long established population should be forced to be incorporated into another nation against their virtually unanimous wishes (regardless of whether it was, as then, ruled by a vicious military junta).”
In the case of Israel, perhaps the Left – and quite a lot of people like me with more Centrist views – are not disregarding the ‘central issue’ this time. Thanks to the Balfour Declaration – an idea unthinkable today and much criticised at the time by many Jews – an ‘established population’ (established for very much longer than the Falkland Brits) was ‘forced to be incorporated into another nation against their virtually unanimous wishes’. The main differences were that the ‘other nation’ only gradually became able to incorporate the established one; and that when it was powerful enough, it didn’t ‘incorporate’ them but did its best to expel as many as possible or terrify them into fleeing and then preventing their return.
I am not against the existence of Israel, partly because I think 60 years of statehood has given Israel some pretty unshakeable squatters’ rights and partly because Nazi persecution and later the Holocaust gave a very powerful push to the Zionist enterprise. However, I do think that any negotiated settlement should include – or even start from – an acceptance that the establishment of Israel was grossly unfair to the established population and reflected colonialist, patronising attitudes of which few people would be proud today, though of course they still exist. This means some kind of apology. Unfortunately, as a recent article in Haaretz pointed out, any Israeli politician who said anything like this would make him- or herself instantly unelectable (or, possibly, another target for extreme Zionist assassins) so the prospects for a healing of very old and deep wounds do not look good.
I looked in vain for any reference to this particular mammoth-in-the-room in Standing’s piece.
>Any other sources on Freud’s lying about his cases? Thanks.<
Freud’s first misrepresentations occurred in relation to his claims in papers in the 1880s concerning a case of the alleged cure of morphine addiction using cocaine, reported by Ernest Jones in the first volume of his biography of Freud, but now documented in full on the basis of recently revealed letters by Han Israël in *Der Fall Freud: Die Geburt der Psychoanalyse aus der Lüge* (1999, trans. from Dutch), as reported in Borch-Jacobsen’s review: http://tinyurl.com/yqp9sz
Though Freud’s ever-changing retrospective reports of his “seduction theory” clinical experiences in 1895-1897 were inconsistent with each other, much of this may be put down to self-deception as much as deliberate deception, but there is no doubt he resorted to deliberate misrepresentation of facts to justify his changes of view. See: F. Cioffi, “Was Freud a Liar?” (1974), in *Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience* (1998), pp. 199-204. For considerably more detail, see http://www.esterson.org/Mythologizing_psychoanalytic_history.htm
Full documentation of the discrepancies between Freud’s original case notes and his published case history of the Rat Man is in P. Mahony, *Freud and the Rat Man* (1986), pp. 69-85. Cioffi (1985) had earlier provided an instance of Freud’s “doctoring” an important episode in the same case history; see Cioffi (1998), pp. 229-230. A summary of the misrepresentations in the published case history is in A. Esterson, *Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Work of Sigmund Freud* (19993), pp. 62-67. Discrepancies between Freud’s account of the Wolf Man case history and other sources, notably the patients own testimony reported in K. Obholzer *The Wolf Man: Sixty Years Later* (1982), are listed in Esterson (1993), pp. 69-72; see also pp. 77-93.
The case notes for all the major cases other than those for the “Rat Man” (which inexplicably survived) were destroyed by Freud, so we’re not in a position to make a comparison between them and the published accounts along the lines of that undertaken by Mahony for the Rat Man.
Dear Mr. Hoffman. I have read both your article and most of the content at tertullian.com, and find both to be a great amount of information, to much to sum up, in a comment such as this. But I being a devout follower of Christ, and a developing apologist, find one arguable error, that is quite apparent in your article. I quote: “Their favorite expressions are ‘Do not ask questions, just believe!’ and: ‘Your faith will save you! ‘The wisdom of the world,’ they say, ‘is evil; to be simple is to be good.’
PLease I beg of you, who’s favorites are these? The Bible is fundamentaly the greatest proponent of doubt just as much if not more than faith. By doubt I dont mean it’s content, but rather the challenge to discover truth for actuality, versus blind faith.
2 Timothy 2:15
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
i could write a paper on this subject, but this is not my motive, I respect your studies, I merely wanted to speak out as a Christian, who is well grounded, and neither follows the Church or mens declarations, but finds his firm hold, in faith constituted by fact.
One of the greatest achievements of western civilization is freedom of thinking and tollerance. I feel comfortable in the environment where there is no religious, political or racial prejudice. At the same time, I realize, that there is still much more to do in this respect. On the other hand, as long as, the Muslim society is immune to such values as religious pluralism, human rights, equal rights for women etc. it cannot be treated seriously by international community.
One of the greatest achievements of western civilization is freedom of thinking and tollerance. I feel comfortable in the environment where there is no religious, political or racial prejudice. At the same time, I realize, that there is still much more to do in this respect. On the other hand, as long as, the Muslim society is immune to such values as religious pluralism, human rights, equal rights for women etc. it cannot be treated seriously by international community.
Concerning the Triumph of the Hedgehogs article, I’d like to ask the author, Dave, who mentioned that the tech bubble went belly-up–Dave, which side was the belly side?
Nice one, Dabscheck! I suppose that makes Edmund Standing’s article on Palestine the product of a hedgehog (or even a porcupine) and may also explain why he hasn’t responded to my foxy criticism.
Hello Carol, I saw your name on the British based “Irish Survivors” website. I saw too that you went into Goldenbridge Industrial School in 1964 & that you also left in 1964. In that respect from my standpoint, you would have been very lucky. Providing, of course, that you did not go into another institution of the ilk of St Vincent’s, Goldenbridge. Sister Clement would have been in charge of the manufacturing of rosary bead decades during your time. We both would have been in St Bridget’s at the same time slogging away at our quota of sixty decades per day. Nonetheless, I cannot say that I remember you at all.
I was very fortunate to not go into any other institute.My mum and dad were divorcing thats why we were there. I think we were the only kids in there with english accents. we were of course punished every day for speaking with english accents. I was in there with my 2 sisters and my brother all younger than me.I remember sister clement.
I wish I could remember more of the students there, but I was only 9 yrs old. the abuse is much easier to remember I wish it wasnt
Carol: You can say that again! About being fortunate in not being further institutionalised in another horrible, cruel place. So your younger three siblings and you (and thousands of other similar defenceless children) had to pay the penultimate price by being incarcerated in a children’s prison – and all because of the break-up of your parents marriage. That was so woefully wrong indeed.
It was always drummed in to us by the Sisters of Mercy to never take the boat to England. As we would lose the faith if we went across the water to that heathen country. It is doubtless, unsurprising to me to learn that you were punished by the staff for not having an Irish brogue. Your siblings and you must have felt exceedingly isolated because of being English. As if you did not have sufficient grief to withstand in that hell-hole. You know, Carol, a real flat, Roddy Doyle, Snapper, Dublin accent from certain inner city quarters, (which I wont mention) was also unacceptable by certain country staff members. I specifically recall a family who were considered “common” and were constantly jeered by staff because they spoke with this strong Dublin drawl. The ironic thing is that they do not to this day remember being mocked by Goldenbridge staff because of their “accent” I distinctly remember these incidences – as you do the punishment meted out to you by the staff because of your English accent.
Are you, Carol, aware of the fact that Goldenbridge was, way before your time, a women’s prison refuge? The buiding (from whence it was – way back when – a prison) would not (in design) have dramatically altered during your time there. The yard (where, every day, bread and scraps from the staff’s (St Ita’s) dinner table were, flung out of one of the windows) which had high built walls was just one typical example of the remainder of the prison. Thanks for your contribution to B&W!
Rowan Williams wants to build his little world of multi-religionism with the Church as its umbrella organization, and he as the head huncho in this multi-faith utopia.
If Christianity cannot get back into the State through the front door, then maybe with the help of the good Believers of child molesting Islam, he can come through the back door?
Very cunning. I am glad for once the clueless-Lefts figured this out. But I suspect their opposition is more to the Church than the Mosque. Probably the clueless-postmodern-Left is objecting to subservience of Shariah to the Church of England and not so much to Shariah itself.
Well, Sure tolerance is consistent with giving no respect to religion. But if people believe in funny things, derision is also appropriate.
I reserve the right to mock someone who even if otherwise an upright fellow, thinks that Elvis is alive and well and greets his fans every night in Graceland.
No long winded apology by me is necessary.
Now if you think that horses fly, snakes talk or fat men deliver presents down chimneys, it is you who had better be prepared to be tolerant buster.
>Very cunning. I am glad for once the clueless-Lefts figured this out.
The Leftist moonbats keep working hard at their gramscian project to destroy, debase and deconstruct the values on which the western-civilization is built.
Islam feels like an ally to them, as someone who “understands” and cheers their successes.
These seems to be a fatal confusion here between religion (which exists) and God (who doesn’t). It is entirely possible to disrespect releigion whilst not believing in God.
I am afraid that we – rationalists – are all ploughing the sand. Whom are we trying to convince? Only readers already committed to obeying reason are willing to consider and to weigh what we put forward.
Mr Nola says that “it is hard to see how mindless respect can be extended to all [conflicting religions] at once.” No, it is not. The clue is in those two words “mindless respect”. All “believers”, however intelligent or cultured they may otherwise be, as believers they have to put their minds in cold storage.
Brilliant article, religious freedom is freedom from the state to interfere with believes, not warrant to censor others that might disagree with articles of faith.
However I have a small issue with your reference to Kemal Atatürk as “founder of the secular Turkish republic”.
It is a popular misconception of many intellectuals and self-deception of western elites, whose strong wish for a modern and democratic Islamic country took a life on its own.
In reality the Turkish laicism is rather the material form of a state ideology that amalgamates Turkish nationalism with a certain school of Sunni-Islam and discriminates religious and national minorities as well as Atheists. This effectively retards the development of a
pluralist Turkish democracy (a new liberal constitution is on hold for
a very long time now). Censorship on political, scientific or religious issues is commonplace (f.e. periodical bans of youtube, or books that offend the religious).
Or as Niels Kadritzke puts it (Le Monde
diplomatique, German edition) in Eurozine on “Headscarves, generals,
“Laiklik is a term charged with the idea of a struggle, which does not mean a separation of state and religion, but state control over religion. This role is carried out in Kemalist Turkey by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi – DIB), a government institution to promote the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam. The DIB is geared to the ideal of a homogenous Turkish nation as defined by the “Turkish-Islamist Synthesis”, which after the 1980 military coup became the state ideology. The DIB also regulates the compulsory –purely Sunni– religious education in state schools. In the view of political scientist Sahin Alpay, it functions as a state instrument for imposing Sunni identity. Non-Sunni taxpayers, like Jewish and Christian Turks, finance their own discrimination. The Alevis, the largest Muslim minority, are not recognized as belonging to an independent denomination, while non-Muslims are considered as “foreigners” and barred from working in the public sector.
For this reason, Kemalist laicism is also a misnomer, because it shields one specific religion.”
>a small issue with your refernce Kemal Atatürk as “founder of the secular Turkish republic”.
Small indeed.
Kemal did a lot for pushing Turkey toward modernity and for secularism, there is no point in downplaying his achievements.
What he did was actually great when one realizes what formidable opposition he had to overcome.
The Caliphate (the position of nominal head of the Islamic faith, held by the Ottoman Sultans), was abolished in March 1924. The title of Pasha was abolished. The theological schools madrassas were closed, the Sharia law of Islam was replaced by a law code based on that of Switzerland. The Italian Penal Code and the German Commerce Code were also adopted.
The emancipation of women was was set in motion by a number of laws. In December 1934, women were given the vote for parliamentary members and were made eligible to hold parliamentary seats.
The veil for women was banned and women were encouraged to wear western dress and enter the work force.
Visual representation of human forms was banned during Ottoman times following the Islamic faith. Kemal opened new schools to teach art to boys and girls.
Don’t compare Turkey with France compare it with any other islamic countries ( present day, let alone 1923) and with fact the the Islamist Erdogan-Gul AKP-party nowdays in power in Turkey fights hard to roll back the Kemal-reforms
(2 days ago the Kemalist ban on the islamic veil in universites was lifted by Gul-Erdogan).
I’m aware of the reforms and achievements of Mustafa Kemal that you mentioned. Those were not my point. They are to be scrutinized by historians. Anyway do his reforms deserve him to have his face displayed in every Anatolian kindergarten?
My point was that the Turkish form of Laicism (today) is not what we understand by that word and thus Turkey de facto and de jure not a secular country. This is a fact that although it is a regional power, Nato-ally and a candidate for the EU nobody in “the West” really wanted to see. However this premise helps to put in perspective a lot of things: the headscarf-fuss, the murder on Hrant Dink, the expulsion of Orhan Parmuk and the desperate attempts to remilitarize politics by bombing the PKK bugaboo.
The proper alternative to Erdogans backwards islamist campaign is not Kemalism, (discredited as a form of chauvinistic etatism), but rather a new liberal and truly secular constitution, on the base of the European Declaration of Human rights. This could mean true religious (and in effect ideological) plurality, not ongoing state indoctrination and discrimination. (The Alevi, a discriminated muslim minority are suspected to be 20 to 25 percent of the population of Turkey)
About the “Turkey/France comparison”: I do not believe that “Islamic” countries are unable of becoming secular democracies. We should stop giving excuses to political forces that play the “Islamist exeptionalism” card, either in favour or against it.
If you have time, read the article by Niels Kadritzke on Eurozine that I mentioned in my first post.
The Harvard University gym is now closed to men for six hours a week, on demand of the Harvard Islamic Society: To accommodate Muslim students, Harvard tries women-only gym hours.
Wonderful article. Some of the commenters think that publication here may be a form of “preaching to the choir”, but they have a good point. It is important to engage the religious whenever they try to engage us (the non-believers) in any sort of “missionary work”, just tailoring the response to they type of conversion attempted. Whenver the Jehovah’s witnesses show up at my door, I politely respond that I do not believe, and am not interested. This usually sends them on their way, and no one is worse for it. If someone says that they will pray for me, I politely tell them not to waste their prayers on me.
When they try to engage me further, I have a standard disclaimer that I give them: “If you really want to discuss religious matters with me, I will do so (if I have the time), but you have to realize that I am going to respond to your arguments with counter-arguments that are going to challenge your fundamental beliefs, and which you may find highly offensive. If you can deal with this, then off we go.” This usually stops further discussion.
However, on one airplane trip, I sat next to a young LDS missionary who took the challenge. Needless to say, when we got off the plane he had a lot of things to think about that had never occurred to him before, while I just went on my way, confident in my lack of any need for any sort of spiritual guidance.
Sort of a proportional response, escalating according to the religious attack plan. I hope I don’t ever see a need to “go nuclear” about this, but people have probably been fighting one-another over religion since the first belief was communicated between two people, and it is not likely to stop any time soon. And now the environmental earth-worship religion is gaining strength, with the born-agains taking environmentalist ideas into their strategy, so I am certain that it will be a long time before religion is considered just a quaint affectation.
A few further comments: How odd that HF cites Popper in favour of his argument that Freudian psychoanalytic theory-building is essentially no different from what happens in science, when Popper was explicitly *contrasting* psychoanalysis with science when he wrote that it “resembled astrology rather than astronomy” (“Conjectures and Refutations”).
By HF’s argument, fundamental Newtonian classical mechanics would never have been superseded by what Pais calls “the new dynamics” based on relativity theory.
>Every unpredicted case of observing a deviation of a body or atom from rest or from the straight path at constant velocity has, and it will always be by default, instantly theorized as the discovery of a new type of force.
>That is : tail win head you lose.< Of course a hitherto well-validated basic theory, such as Newtonian gravitation, is held to be true in this sense – until there occur, in the long run, reasons to start to question it. Thus an undiscovered satellite of the sun was conjectured to account for the anomaly in the precession of the perihelion of Mercury – until the general theory of relativity accounted for the anomaly, and superseded Newtonian gravitational theory. HF chooses to make a simplistic interpretation of Popper’s comment about observation being theory-laden. In a perspicacious analysis of the notion, Philip Kitcher points out that “the fact that concepts and categories are involved in observation doesn’t mean that the content of the experience is determined by them or that we cannot be led by experience to reconceptualize the phenomena.” (N. Koertge [ed], *A House Built on Sand* [1998, pp. 38-40]) See also Susan Haack’s discussion of this issue in *Evidence and Enquiry* (1993), chapter 5. Also Haack’s chapter 5, “Realistically speaking: How science fumbles, and sometimes forges, ahead”, in *Defending Science – Within Reason* (2003).
HF:
>Sulloway writes: “Time and time again, Freud saw in his patients what psychoanalytic theory led him to look for and then to interpret the way he did; and when the theory changed, so did the clinical findings.”
>We have been here before but unfortunately Allen still hasn’t understood how theories work and what is their relation with the experiment.< Yes, we’ve been here before, and I’ve already responded to the absurd notion that the development of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories (and specifically the point made by Sulloway here) bears any similarity to the history of the progress of scientific theories, e.g., in physics and chemistry. The idea that there is anything analogous in, e.g., physics and chemistry, to Freud’s technique of analytic interpretation by means of which he can *always* ‘validate’ his theories (and by means of which different schools of psychoanalysis ‘validate’ quite different theories) is nonsense.
About Edmund Standing’s piece on Israel and Palestine. I thought this recent extract from Allen Esterson’s Feb 1st posting was ironically relevant.
“Those on the British Left who voiced support for the Argentine case did so largely on the basis of a reflex “anti-colonial” stance that disregarded the central issue of whether a long established population should be forced to be incorporated into another nation against their virtually unanimous wishes (regardless of whether it was, as then, ruled by a vicious military junta).”
In the case of Israel, perhaps the Left – and quite a lot of people like me with more Centrist views – are not disregarding the ‘central issue’ this time. Thanks to the Balfour Declaration – an idea unthinkable today and much criticised at the time by many Jews – an ‘established population’ (established for very much longer than the Falkland Brits) was ‘forced to be incorporated into another nation against their virtually unanimous wishes’. The main differences were that the ‘other nation’ only gradually became able to incorporate the established one; and that when it was powerful enough, it didn’t ‘incorporate’ them but did its best to expel as many as possible or terrify them into fleeing and then preventing their return.
I am not against the existence of Israel, partly because I think 60 years of statehood has given Israel some pretty unshakeable squatters’ rights and partly because Nazi persecution and later the Holocaust gave a very powerful push to the Zionist enterprise. However, I do think that any negotiated settlement should include – or even start from – an acceptance that the establishment of Israel was grossly unfair to the established population and reflected colonialist, patronising attitudes of which few people would be proud today, though of course they still exist. This means some kind of apology. Unfortunately, as a recent article in Haaretz pointed out, any Israeli politician who said anything like this would make him- or herself instantly unelectable (or, possibly, another target for extreme Zionist assassins) so the prospects for a healing of very old and deep wounds do not look good.
I looked in vain for any reference to this particular mammoth-in-the-room in Standing’s piece.
Any other sources on Freud’s lying about his cases? Thanks.
I writes:
>Any other sources on Freud’s lying about his cases? Thanks.< Freud’s first misrepresentations occurred in relation to his claims in papers in the 1880s concerning a case of the alleged cure of morphine addiction using cocaine, reported by Ernest Jones in the first volume of his biography of Freud, but now documented in full on the basis of recently revealed letters by Han Israël in *Der Fall Freud: Die Geburt der Psychoanalyse aus der Lüge* (1999, trans. from Dutch), as reported in Borch-Jacobsen’s review: http://tinyurl.com/yqp9sz
Though Freud’s ever-changing retrospective reports of his “seduction theory” clinical experiences in 1895-1897 were inconsistent with each other, much of this may be put down to self-deception as much as deliberate deception, but there is no doubt he resorted to deliberate misrepresentation of facts to justify his changes of view. See: F. Cioffi, “Was Freud a Liar?” (1974), in *Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience* (1998), pp. 199-204. For considerably more detail, see http://www.esterson.org/Mythologizing_psychoanalytic_history.htm
Full documentation of the discrepancies between Freud’s original case notes and his published case history of the Rat Man is in P. Mahony, *Freud and the Rat Man* (1986), pp. 69-85. Cioffi (1985) had earlier provided an instance of Freud’s “doctoring” an important episode in the same case history; see Cioffi (1998), pp. 229-230. A summary of the misrepresentations in the published case history is in A. Esterson, *Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Work of Sigmund Freud* (19993), pp. 62-67. Discrepancies between Freud’s account of the Wolf Man case history and other sources, notably the patients own testimony reported in K. Obholzer *The Wolf Man: Sixty Years Later* (1982), are listed in Esterson (1993), pp. 69-72; see also pp. 77-93.
The case notes for all the major cases other than those for the “Rat Man” (which inexplicably survived) were destroyed by Freud, so we’re not in a position to make a comparison between them and the published accounts along the lines of that undertaken by Mahony for the Rat Man.
Dear Mr. Hoffman. I have read both your article and most of the content at tertullian.com, and find both to be a great amount of information, to much to sum up, in a comment such as this. But I being a devout follower of Christ, and a developing apologist, find one arguable error, that is quite apparent in your article. I quote: “Their favorite expressions are ‘Do not ask questions, just believe!’ and: ‘Your faith will save you! ‘The wisdom of the world,’ they say, ‘is evil; to be simple is to be good.’
PLease I beg of you, who’s favorites are these? The Bible is fundamentaly the greatest proponent of doubt just as much if not more than faith. By doubt I dont mean it’s content, but rather the challenge to discover truth for actuality, versus blind faith.
2 Timothy 2:15
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
i could write a paper on this subject, but this is not my motive, I respect your studies, I merely wanted to speak out as a Christian, who is well grounded, and neither follows the Church or mens declarations, but finds his firm hold, in faith constituted by fact.
NIce site ever visited. The tug of war between theism and atheism
SHARIA LAW: A DIRECT CHALLENGE TO DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTIONS AND RULE OF LAW
One of the greatest achievements of western civilization is freedom of thinking and tollerance. I feel comfortable in the environment where there is no religious, political or racial prejudice. At the same time, I realize, that there is still much more to do in this respect. On the other hand, as long as, the Muslim society is immune to such values as religious pluralism, human rights, equal rights for women etc. it cannot be treated seriously by international community.
One of the greatest achievements of western civilization is freedom of thinking and tollerance. I feel comfortable in the environment where there is no religious, political or racial prejudice. At the same time, I realize, that there is still much more to do in this respect. On the other hand, as long as, the Muslim society is immune to such values as religious pluralism, human rights, equal rights for women etc. it cannot be treated seriously by international community.
>Conclusion : The nightmare must end. Sharia oppresses the citizens of Islamic countries. >
Give war a chance. It is still preganant (first Iran needs to get the bomb) but it eventually come.
LOVED “The Sound of Mullahs”.
Now, how about West Side Story?
Sharia,
I’ve just broken laws called Sharia:
No longer wonderin’ why
That I have got to die
Today . . .
Concerning the Triumph of the Hedgehogs article, I’d like to ask the author, Dave, who mentioned that the tech bubble went belly-up–Dave, which side was the belly side?
Who provides the” Facts”? Seems to have a slight bearing
Nice one, Dabscheck! I suppose that makes Edmund Standing’s article on Palestine the product of a hedgehog (or even a porcupine) and may also explain why he hasn’t responded to my foxy criticism.
hello
I just read your essay on goldenbridge.
I was one of those kids that made the rosary beads.I was there in 1964 .
Hello Carol, I saw your name on the British based “Irish Survivors” website. I saw too that you went into Goldenbridge Industrial School in 1964 & that you also left in 1964. In that respect from my standpoint, you would have been very lucky. Providing, of course, that you did not go into another institution of the ilk of St Vincent’s, Goldenbridge. Sister Clement would have been in charge of the manufacturing of rosary bead decades during your time. We both would have been in St Bridget’s at the same time slogging away at our quota of sixty decades per day. Nonetheless, I cannot say that I remember you at all.
hello Marie Therese
I was very fortunate to not go into any other institute.My mum and dad were divorcing thats why we were there. I think we were the only kids in there with english accents. we were of course punished every day for speaking with english accents. I was in there with my 2 sisters and my brother all younger than me.I remember sister clement.
I wish I could remember more of the students there, but I was only 9 yrs old. the abuse is much easier to remember I wish it wasnt
all the best
carol
Re; English accents, etc
Carol: You can say that again! About being fortunate in not being further institutionalised in another horrible, cruel place. So your younger three siblings and you (and thousands of other similar defenceless children) had to pay the penultimate price by being incarcerated in a children’s prison – and all because of the break-up of your parents marriage. That was so woefully wrong indeed.
It was always drummed in to us by the Sisters of Mercy to never take the boat to England. As we would lose the faith if we went across the water to that heathen country. It is doubtless, unsurprising to me to learn that you were punished by the staff for not having an Irish brogue. Your siblings and you must have felt exceedingly isolated because of being English. As if you did not have sufficient grief to withstand in that hell-hole. You know, Carol, a real flat, Roddy Doyle, Snapper, Dublin accent from certain inner city quarters, (which I wont mention) was also unacceptable by certain country staff members. I specifically recall a family who were considered “common” and were constantly jeered by staff because they spoke with this strong Dublin drawl. The ironic thing is that they do not to this day remember being mocked by Goldenbridge staff because of their “accent” I distinctly remember these incidences – as you do the punishment meted out to you by the staff because of your English accent.
Are you, Carol, aware of the fact that Goldenbridge was, way before your time, a women’s prison refuge? The buiding (from whence it was – way back when – a prison) would not (in design) have dramatically altered during your time there. The yard (where, every day, bread and scraps from the staff’s (St Ita’s) dinner table were, flung out of one of the windows) which had high built walls was just one typical example of the remainder of the prison. Thanks for your contribution to B&W!
Rowan Williams wants to build his little world of multi-religionism with the Church as its umbrella organization, and he as the head huncho in this multi-faith utopia.
If Christianity cannot get back into the State through the front door, then maybe with the help of the good Believers of child molesting Islam, he can come through the back door?
Very cunning. I am glad for once the clueless-Lefts figured this out. But I suspect their opposition is more to the Church than the Mosque. Probably the clueless-postmodern-Left is objecting to subservience of Shariah to the Church of England and not so much to Shariah itself.
Regarding: Tolerance and Respect by Robert
Nola.
Well, Sure tolerance is consistent with giving no respect to religion. But if people believe in funny things, derision is also appropriate.
I reserve the right to mock someone who even if otherwise an upright fellow, thinks that Elvis is alive and well and greets his fans every night in Graceland.
No long winded apology by me is necessary.
Now if you think that horses fly, snakes talk or fat men deliver presents down chimneys, it is you who had better be prepared to be tolerant buster.
>Very cunning. I am glad for once the clueless-Lefts figured this out.
The Leftist moonbats keep working hard at their gramscian project to destroy, debase and deconstruct the values on which the western-civilization is built.
Islam feels like an ally to them, as someone who “understands” and cheers their successes.
re. Robert Nola
These seems to be a fatal confusion here between religion (which exists) and God (who doesn’t). It is entirely possible to disrespect releigion whilst not believing in God.
Re: Robert Nola’s “Religion is Owed no Respect”
I am afraid that we – rationalists – are all ploughing the sand. Whom are we trying to convince? Only readers already committed to obeying reason are willing to consider and to weigh what we put forward.
Mr Nola says that “it is hard to see how mindless respect can be extended to all [conflicting religions] at once.” No, it is not. The clue is in those two words “mindless respect”. All “believers”, however intelligent or cultured they may otherwise be, as believers they have to put their minds in cold storage.
D. R. Khashaba
http://khashaba.blogspot.com
Brilliant article, religious freedom is freedom from the state to interfere with believes, not warrant to censor others that might disagree with articles of faith.
However I have a small issue with your reference to Kemal Atatürk as “founder of the secular Turkish republic”.
It is a popular misconception of many intellectuals and self-deception of western elites, whose strong wish for a modern and democratic Islamic country took a life on its own.
In reality the Turkish laicism is rather the material form of a state ideology that amalgamates Turkish nationalism with a certain school of Sunni-Islam and discriminates religious and national minorities as well as Atheists. This effectively retards the development of a
pluralist Turkish democracy (a new liberal constitution is on hold for
a very long time now). Censorship on political, scientific or religious issues is commonplace (f.e. periodical bans of youtube, or books that offend the religious).
Or as Niels Kadritzke puts it (Le Monde
diplomatique, German edition) in Eurozine on “Headscarves, generals,
and Turkish democracy”: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-02-01-kadritzke-en.html
“Laiklik is a term charged with the idea of a struggle, which does not mean a separation of state and religion, but state control over religion. This role is carried out in Kemalist Turkey by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi – DIB), a government institution to promote the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam. The DIB is geared to the ideal of a homogenous Turkish nation as defined by the “Turkish-Islamist Synthesis”, which after the 1980 military coup became the state ideology. The DIB also regulates the compulsory –purely Sunni– religious education in state schools. In the view of political scientist Sahin Alpay, it functions as a state instrument for imposing Sunni identity. Non-Sunni taxpayers, like Jewish and Christian Turks, finance their own discrimination. The Alevis, the largest Muslim minority, are not recognized as belonging to an independent denomination, while non-Muslims are considered as “foreigners” and barred from working in the public sector.
For this reason, Kemalist laicism is also a misnomer, because it shields one specific religion.”
>a small issue with your refernce Kemal Atatürk as “founder of the secular Turkish republic”.
Small indeed.
Kemal did a lot for pushing Turkey toward modernity and for secularism, there is no point in downplaying his achievements.
What he did was actually great when one realizes what formidable opposition he had to overcome.
The Caliphate (the position of nominal head of the Islamic faith, held by the Ottoman Sultans), was abolished in March 1924. The title of Pasha was abolished. The theological schools madrassas were closed, the Sharia law of Islam was replaced by a law code based on that of Switzerland. The Italian Penal Code and the German Commerce Code were also adopted.
The emancipation of women was was set in motion by a number of laws. In December 1934, women were given the vote for parliamentary members and were made eligible to hold parliamentary seats.
The veil for women was banned and women were encouraged to wear western dress and enter the work force.
Visual representation of human forms was banned during Ottoman times following the Islamic faith. Kemal opened new schools to teach art to boys and girls.
Don’t compare Turkey with France compare it with any other islamic countries ( present day, let alone 1923) and with fact the the Islamist Erdogan-Gul AKP-party nowdays in power in Turkey fights hard to roll back the Kemal-reforms
(2 days ago the Kemalist ban on the islamic veil in universites was lifted by Gul-Erdogan).
I’m aware of the reforms and achievements of Mustafa Kemal that you mentioned. Those were not my point. They are to be scrutinized by historians. Anyway do his reforms deserve him to have his face displayed in every Anatolian kindergarten?
My point was that the Turkish form of Laicism (today) is not what we understand by that word and thus Turkey de facto and de jure not a secular country. This is a fact that although it is a regional power, Nato-ally and a candidate for the EU nobody in “the West” really wanted to see. However this premise helps to put in perspective a lot of things: the headscarf-fuss, the murder on Hrant Dink, the expulsion of Orhan Parmuk and the desperate attempts to remilitarize politics by bombing the PKK bugaboo.
The proper alternative to Erdogans backwards islamist campaign is not Kemalism, (discredited as a form of chauvinistic etatism), but rather a new liberal and truly secular constitution, on the base of the European Declaration of Human rights. This could mean true religious (and in effect ideological) plurality, not ongoing state indoctrination and discrimination. (The Alevi, a discriminated muslim minority are suspected to be 20 to 25 percent of the population of Turkey)
About the “Turkey/France comparison”: I do not believe that “Islamic” countries are unable of becoming secular democracies. We should stop giving excuses to political forces that play the “Islamist exeptionalism” card, either in favour or against it.
If you have time, read the article by Niels Kadritzke on Eurozine that I mentioned in my first post.
western secularism
The Harvard University gym is now closed to men for six hours a week, on demand of the Harvard Islamic Society: To accommodate Muslim students, Harvard tries women-only gym hours.
http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/storage/paper87/news/2008/02/25/News/To.Accommodate.Muslim.Students.Harvard.Tries.WomenOnly.Gym.Hours-3232133.shtml
Regarding Religion and Respect
Wonderful article. Some of the commenters think that publication here may be a form of “preaching to the choir”, but they have a good point. It is important to engage the religious whenever they try to engage us (the non-believers) in any sort of “missionary work”, just tailoring the response to they type of conversion attempted. Whenver the Jehovah’s witnesses show up at my door, I politely respond that I do not believe, and am not interested. This usually sends them on their way, and no one is worse for it. If someone says that they will pray for me, I politely tell them not to waste their prayers on me.
When they try to engage me further, I have a standard disclaimer that I give them: “If you really want to discuss religious matters with me, I will do so (if I have the time), but you have to realize that I am going to respond to your arguments with counter-arguments that are going to challenge your fundamental beliefs, and which you may find highly offensive. If you can deal with this, then off we go.” This usually stops further discussion.
However, on one airplane trip, I sat next to a young LDS missionary who took the challenge. Needless to say, when we got off the plane he had a lot of things to think about that had never occurred to him before, while I just went on my way, confident in my lack of any need for any sort of spiritual guidance.
Sort of a proportional response, escalating according to the religious attack plan. I hope I don’t ever see a need to “go nuclear” about this, but people have probably been fighting one-another over religion since the first belief was communicated between two people, and it is not likely to stop any time soon. And now the environmental earth-worship religion is gaining strength, with the born-agains taking environmentalist ideas into their strategy, so I am certain that it will be a long time before religion is considered just a quaint affectation.