It sounds very beautiful and appealing

Jul 26th, 2012 12:33 pm | By

More on top-down authority versus everyone else.

On obedience. Last week Sister Pat Farrell said what she thinks obedience is.

But the word obedience comes from the Latin root meaning to hear, to listen. And so as I have come to understand that vow, what it means to me is that we listen to what God is calling us to in the signs of our times.

This week the bishop said what he thinks of that.

My reaction is that it sounds very beautiful and appealing, and no one can argue that we have to be obedient to God and that we have to follow conscience. But on the other hand, it flies in the face of 2,000 years of the notion of religious life, that obedience means obedience to lawful superiors within the community, and it certainly means the obedience of faith to what the church believes and teaches.

Again, Catholicism understands Christianity to be a revealed religion, in which truths of faith, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, are authentically taught. So St. Paul talks about the obedience of faith. So it’s not just about a kind of vague sense of obedience, but it really comes to a very specific obedience in some cases, particularly for religious women or religious men.

It’s what it is. It’s not what we’ve grown used to, in the non-theocratic parts of the world, which is adults thinking about ethics and problems and competing goods; it’s obedience and “truths of faith” and no questions.

Then there’s ordination. Women can be theologians, and that’s great, but priests, no. Why? Because penis.

But when it comes to the priesthood, and I don’t know that on a program like this we’re able to explore the theology of it, because it is a theological one; it’s not political. It’s not sociological. It’s theological. About what the sacraments are and what it means for a man to stand at the altar and act in the very person of Christ as a priest.

I mean, St. Paul talks about Christ being the groom and the church being his bride. That symbolism, theologically, is very much a part of our understanding of the Mass and the priesthood. And that’s, I think, also why Christians who maintain their faith in a priesthood – namely, the Catholics and the Orthodox – do not have a female priest.

Penis. A groom has to have a penis. The church is the bride, and the priest is supposed to fuck her. That doesn’t sound quite right, somehow – yet it’s what the bishop said.

The church doesn’t say that the ordination of women is not possible because somehow women are unfit to carry out the functions of the priest, but because on the level of sacramental signs, it’s not the choice that our Lord made when it comes to those who act in his very person, as the church’s bridegroom.

But the Lord didn’t choose Americans, either. Or Germans, or Brazilians, or Mexicans…But there are German and Brazilian and Catholic priests. The choice their Lord made doesn’t much resemble most priests today.

And you can say, well, that sounds like a lot of poetry or you know, how do we know that’s true? But, again, if you’re a Catholic, this is part of our sacraments and our practice for two millennia, and it’s not just an arbitrary decision of male oppression over women.

The conclusion doesn’t follow.

Is change possible? The world changes, we change, can religious rules change?

I think certainly the world in which we live today is vastly different than the ancient world or the medieval world, or even the world of a century ago. And so there’s always an evolution in society. But what are your first principles? What are your basic beliefs? What do you believe is something that’s revealed by God in scripture and tradition and taught authoritatively through the ages?

Those kind of things do not change. Their understanding can evolve. There can be aspects of it that evolve and change, but not the fundamental things.

The fundamental things that they claim to know because they’re revealed by God in scripture and tradition and taught authoritatively through the ages. Dogma. Dogma can’t change. Thank you for a pleasant conversation.

 

 

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


The church’s authentic interpretation

Jul 26th, 2012 11:41 am | By

The authentic interpretation that tells them they’re allowed to protect child-raping priests at the expense of the children they rape.

On Saturday night Tracey Pirona hugged her husband as she has done many times before, and reassured him: “We’ll get through this.” On Sunday morning she found the letter she had feared for years, and rang police.

John Pirona, 45, of Belmont North, a victim of one of the Hunter’s most notorious paedophile priests, has not been seen or heard from since then. “The longer this goes on the worse I feel about what the outcome’s going to be,” Mrs Pirona said.

Mr Pirona’s letter, with the final words “Too much pain”, leaves no doubt the pain is the sexual abuse he suffered at a Catholic high school and the ugly secrets the church knew, but did nothing to stop.

…

Mr Pirona, a NSW Fire Brigades officer, was sexually assaulted by the priest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in 1979. He was 13. In a statement to police in 2008 he described the school as brutal, where he feared being bashed if people knew he had been abused.

“Every day to me was just survival,” Mr Pirona said. A court case confirmed he was sexually assaulted several years after the school principal, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and the late Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Leo Clarke, knew the priest sexually assaulted young boys.

In other words the bishop and the principal just left the students hanging there like so many carcasses, for the priest to select at his leisure.

Yet the priesthood continues to think it has the authority to tell nuns what to do.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


A Call to Arms for Decent Men

Jul 26th, 2012 10:12 am | By

by Ernest W. Adams

This piece was originally written as part of the Designer’s Notebook series on the game developers’ web site Gamasutra. However, they declined to publish it in its current form, and I refused to rewrite it. My thanks for permission to reprint it here. Please feel free to share or republish it with attribution. Contains strong language. 

Normally I write for everybody, but this month’s column is a call to arms, addressed to the reasonable, decent, but much too silent majority of male gamers and developers.

Guys, we have a problem. We are letting way too many boys get into adulthood without actually becoming men. We’re seeing more and more adult males around who are not men. They’re as old as men, but they have the mentality of nine-year-old boys. They’re causing a lot of trouble, both in general and for the game industry specifically. We need to deal with this.

Why us? Because it’s our job to see to it that a boy becomes a man, and we are failing.

When we were little boys we all went through a stage when we said we hated girls. Girls had “cooties.” They were silly and frilly and everything that a boy isn’t supposed to be. We got into this stage at about age seven, and we left it again at maybe 10 or 11.

Then puberty hit and, if we were straight, we actively wanted the company of girls. We wanted to “go with” them, date them, and eventually we wanted to fall in love and live with one, maybe for the rest of our lives. That’s the way heterosexual boys are supposed to mature, unless they become monks.

My point is, you’re supposed to leave that phase of hating girls behind. Straight or gay, you’re supposed to grow the hell up.

What might be temporarily tolerable in a boy when he’s nine is pretty damned ugly when he’s fifteen and it’s downright psychopathic when he’s twenty. Instead of maturing into a man’s role and a man’s responsibilities, a lot of boys are stuck at the phase of hating girls and women. The boys continue to treat them like diseased subhumans right through adolescence and into adulthood.

Men are more powerful than women: financially, politically, and physically. What distinguishes a real man from a boy is that a man takes responsibility for his actions and does not abuse this power. If you don’t treat women with courtesy and respect – if you’re still stuck in that “I hate girls” phase – then no matter what age you are, you are a boy and not entitled to the privileges of adulthood.

  • If you want to have some private little club for males only – like keeping women out of your favorite shooter games – you’re not a man, you’re an insecure little boy. A grown-up man has no problem being in the company of women. He knows he’s a man.
  • If you freak out when a girl or a woman beats you in a game, you’re not a man, you’re a nine-year-old boy. A man doesn’t need to beat a woman to know he’s a man. A man is strong enough to take defeat in a fair game from anybody and move on.
  • If your masculinity depends on some imaginary superiority over women, then you don’t actually have any. Manliness comes from within, and not at the expense of others.
  • And if you threaten or abuse women, verbally or physically, you are not a man. You’re a particularly nasty specimen of boy.

When this puerile mentality is combined with the physical strength and sexual aggressiveness of an older boy or an adult male, it goes beyond bad manners. It’s threatening and anti-social, and if those boys are permitted to congregate together and support each other, it becomes actively dangerous. Yes, even online.

Of course, I don’t mean all boys are like this. Most of them get out of the cootie phase quickly and grow up just fine. But far too many don’t. If we don’t do something about these permanent nine-year-olds pretty soon, they’re going to start having boys of their own who will be just as bad if not worse, and life will not be worth living. Life is already not worth living on Xbox Live Chat.

In addition to the harm they do to women – our mothers, our sisters, our daughters – these full-grown juveniles harm us, too. A boy who refuses to grow up has lousy social skills, a short attention span, and a poor attitude to work. Furthermore, all men – that’s you and me, bro – get the blame for theirbad behavior. And we deserve it, because we’ve been sitting on our butts for too long. We let them be bullies online and get away with it.

Some of you might think it’s sexist that I’m dumping this problem on us men. It isn’t; it’s just pragmatic.Women can not solve this problem. A boy who hates girls and women simply isn’t going to pay attention to a woman’s opinion. The only people who can ensure that boys are taught, or if necessary forced, to grow up into men are other men.

Let’s be clear about something else. This is not a political issue. This is not a subject for debate, any more than whether your son is allowed to swear at his mother or molest his sister is a subject for debate. There is no “other point of view.” The real-world analogy is not to social issues but to violent crime. Muggers don’t get to have a point of view.

So how do we change things?

First, we need to serve as positive examples. With the very little boys, we need to guide them gently but firmly out of the cootie phase. To the impressionable teenagers, we must demonstrate how a man behaves and how he doesn’t. Be the change you want to see. Use your real name and your real picture online, to show that you are a man who stands behind his words. Of course, you can’t prove your name is real, but it doesn’t matter. If you consistently behave with integrity online, the message will get across.

Secondly, we men need to stand up for courtesy and decency online. We can’t just treat this as a problem for women (or blacks, or gays, or anybody else the juvenile bullies have in their sights). Tell them and their friends that their behavior is not acceptable, that real men don’t agree with them, that they are in the minority. Say these words into your headset: “I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were a man, not a whiny, insecure little boy.” Don’t argue or engage with them. Never answer their questions or remarks, just repeat your disgust and disapproval. Assume the absolute moral superiority to which you are entitled over a bully or a criminal.

Finally, we need to put a stop to this behavior. It’s time for us to force the permanent nine-year-olds to grow up or get out of our games and forums. It’s not enough just to mute them. We need to build the infrastructure that precludes this kind of behavior entirely – Club Penguin has already done it for children – or failing that, we have to make the bullies pay a price for their behavior.Appealing to their better nature won’t work; bullies have none. We do not request, we do not debate,we demand and we punish.

I have some specific suggestions, from the least to the most extreme.

  1. Mockery. In 1993 50 Ku Klux Klansmen marched through Austin, Texas. Five thousand anti-Klan protestors turned up to jeer at them. Best of all, several hundred lined the parade route and mooned the Klan in waves. The media ate it up, and the Klan looked ridiculous. The hurt that they wanted to cause was met not with anger but with derision. The juvenile delinquents are just like the Klan: anonymous in their high-tech bedsheets, and threatening, but in fact, a minority. Let’s use our superior numbers and metaphorically moon the boys who can’t behave. They’re social inadequates, immature losers. Let’s tell them so, loud and clear, in front of their friends.
  2. Shut them up. The right to speak in a public forum should be limited to those who don’t abuse it. James Portnow suggested this one in his Extra Credits video on harassment. Anyone who persistently abuses others gets automatically muted to all players. The only players who can hear them are those who choose to unmute them. Or another of James’ suggestions: New users don’t even get the right to talk. They have to earn it, and they keep it only so long as they behave themselves. This means a player can’t just create a new account to start spewing filth again if they’ve been auto-muted. Build these features into your games.
  3. Take away their means. If you’re the father of a boy who behaves like this online, make it abundantly clear to him that it is unmanly and unacceptable, then deny him the opportunity to do it further. We don’t let nine-year-olds misuse tools to hurt other people. Take away his cell phone, his console and his computer. He can learn to behave like a man, or he can turn in his homework in longhand like a child.
  4. Anonymity is a privilege, not a right. Anonymity is a double-edged sword. A limited number of people need it in certain circumstances: children, crime victims, whistleblowers, people discussing their medical conditions, political dissidents in repressive regimes. But those people normally don’t misuse their anonymity to abuse others; they’re protecting themselvesfrom abuse. I think the default setting in all online forums that are not intended for people at risk should require real names. After a user has demonstrated that they are a grown-up, thenoffer them the privilege of using a pseudonym. And take it away forever if they misuse it. I haven’t used a nickname for years except in one place where all the readers know who I am anyway. Has it made me more careful about what I say? You bet. Is that a good thing? Damn right it is.
  5. Impose punishments that are genuinely painful. This suggestion is extreme, but I feel it’s both viable and effective. To play subscription-based or pay-as-you-go (“free-to-play-but-not-really”) games, most players need to register a credit card with the game’s provider. Include a condition in the terms of service that entitles the provider to levy extra charges for bad behavior. Charge $5 for the first infraction and double it for each subsequent one. This isn’t all that unusual; if you smoke in a non-smoking hotel room, you are typically subject to a whopping extra charge for being a jerk.

Now I’m going to address some objections from the very juvenile delinquents I’ve been talking about – if any of them have read this far.

  • “What’s the big deal? It’s harmless banter. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the game.” To start with, it’s our game, not yours, and we get to decide what’s acceptable behavior. You meet our standards or you get out. Apart from that, nothing that is done with intent to cause hurt is harmless. The online abuse I have seen goes way beyond banter. Threats are not harmless, they are criminal acts.
  • “But this is part of gamer culture! It’s always been like this!” No, it is not. I’ve been gaming for over 40 years, and it has not always been like this. Yours is a nasty little subculture that arrived with anonymous online gaming, and we’re going to wipe it out.
  • “This is just political correctness.” Invoking “political correctness” is nothing but code for “I wanna be an asshole and get away with it.” I’ll give you a politically-incorrect response, if you like: fuck that. It’s time to man up. You don’t get to be an asshole and get away with it.
  • “You’re just being a White Knight and trying to suck up to women.” I don’t need to suck up to women, thanks; unlike you, I don’t have a problem with them, because I’m a grown man.
  • “Women are always getting special privileges.” Freedom from bullying is a right, not a privilege, and anyway, that’s bullshit. Males are the dominant sex in almost every single activity on the planet. The only areas that we do not rule are dirty, underpaid jobs like nursing and teaching. Do you want to swap? I didn’t think so.
  • “It’s hypocrisy. How come they get women-only clubs and we don’t get men-only clubs?” Because they’re set up for different reasons, that’s why. Male-only spaces are about excluding women from power, and making little boys whose balls evidently haven’t dropped feel special. Female-only spaces are about creating a place where they are safe from vermin.
  • “But there’s misandry too!” Oh, and that entitles you to be a running sore on the ass of the game community? Two wrongs don’t make a right.. I’ll worry about misandry when large numbers of male players are being hounded out of games with abuse and threats of violence. If a few women are bigoted against men, you only have to look in the mirror to find out why.
  • “Free speech!” The oldest and worst excuse for being a jerk there is. First, you have no right to free speech in privately-owned spaces. Zero. Our house, our rules. Second, with freedom comes the responsibility not to abuse it. People who won’t use their freedoms responsibly get them taken away. And if you don’t clean up your act, that will be you.

OK, back to the real men for a few final words.

This is not about “protecting women.” It’s about cleaning out the sewers that our games have become. This will not be easy and it will not be fun. Standing up to these little jerks will require the same courage from us that women like Anita Sarkeesian have already shown. We will become objects of hatred, ridicule, and contempt. Our manhood will be questioned. But if we remember who we are and stand strong together, we can beat them. In any case we won’t be threatened with sexual violence the way women are. We have it easier than they do.

It’s time to stand up. If you’re a writer, blogger, or forum moderator, please write your own piece spreading the message, or at least link to this one. I also encourage you to visit Gamers Against Bigotry (http://gamersagainstbigotry.org), sign the pledge, are share it.

Use your heavy man’s hand in the online spaces where you go – and especially the ones you control – to demand courtesy and punish abuse. Don’t just mute them. Report them, block them, ban them, use every weapon you have. (They may try to report us in return. That won’t work. If you always behave with integrity, it will be clear who’s in the right.)

Let’s stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the women we love, and work with, and game with, and say, “We’re with you. And we’re going to win.”

 

The author is a game design consultant, writer, and “freelance professor.” His professional web site is at www.designersnotebook.com.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , , , , ,


It will be dialogue, but not dialogue

Jul 26th, 2012 9:41 am | By

Yesterday it was the Vatican’s turn to explain the Deep Rifts between the priests and the sisters. Terry Gross talked to the bishop of Toledo (Ohio, not Spain), Leonard Blair, who is the one who assessed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and found them very very wanting.

Along with Archbishop Peter Sartain and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, he will be working with the nuns of the LCRW to make sure the group is aligned with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Working with” – ha. It won’t be working with, it will be telling. He says so himself. That’s the whole point. It’s not negotiable, it’s not discussable, it’s not open, it’s not a process – it’s just telling. Blair tries to pretend that it is a “discussion” but then he also very firmly says that it’s not a discussion, it’s orders. In other words he tries to square the circle, or just have it both ways and hope no one notices.

If by dialogue, they mean that the doctrines of the church are negotiable, and that the bishops represent one position and the LCWR represents another position and somehow we find a middle ground about basic church teaching on faith and morals, then no, I don’t think that’s the dialogue the Holy See would envision. But if it’s a dialogue about how to have the LCWR really educate and help the sisters appreciate and accept church teaching and to implement it in their discussions, and try to heal some of the questions or concerns they have about these issues, that would be the dialogue.

Classic, isn’t it? If it’s a dialogue about priests telling women what to do, then that would be the dialogue. If by dialogue they mean that they get to be treated as equals with equal capabilities to think and equal access to the sources of the church’s “teachings” (whatever the hell those sources might be), then hell no, of course that’s not the dialogue the Holy See would allow for one second.

I think that the fundamental faith of the Catholic Church is that there are objective truths and there are teachings of the faith that really do come from revelation and that are interpreted authentically through the teaching office of the church, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and that are expected to be believed with the obedience of faith.

And those are things that are not negotiable. You can have dialogue about understanding these things, but it is faith seeking understanding. It’s not new understandings that then change the faith. And I think that’s what really gets to the heart of all that we find in this assessment, that they are promoting, unilaterally, new understandings, a new kind of theology that is not in accordance with the faith of the church.

Yes, that’s the heart of it all right. It’s a clusterfuck at the heart of the whole thing. What is that revelation? What is its source? Is it the bible? No, because you don’t find all this nonsense that the church is forcing on the nuns spelled out in the bible. So what is it then? It’s interpretation “authentically through the teaching office of the church” – but what is the source of that authenticity? What makes their “teaching office” better than any other teaching office?

Nothing. Not a damn thing. It’s just their say so, that’s all. It’s a house of cards, but the bishop defends it and imposes it as if it were not. It’s a classic example of authoritarianism that gets away with it because it’s dressed up in piety.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Therefore, the objectification of women is now fine

Jul 25th, 2012 4:59 pm | By

More from Enlightened Sexism.

Because women are now “equal” and the battle is over and won, we are now free to embrace things we used to see as sexist, including hypergirliness. In fact, this is supposed to be a relief. Thank God girls and women can turn their backs on stick-in-the-mud, curdled feminism and now act dumb in string bikinis to attract guys….According to enlightened sexism, women today have a choice between feminism and antifeminism, and they just naturally and happily choose the latter because, well, antifeminism has become cool, even hip. Rejecting feminism and buying into enlightened sexism allows young women in particular to be “one of the guys.” [p 12]

So enlightened sexism also includes in-your-face sexism, in which the attitudes about women that infuriated feminists in the 1960s and ’70s are pushed to new, even more degrading levels, except that it’s all done with a wink…

As the British feminist scholar Angela McRobbie has brilliantly argued, it is essential that feminism be repudiated as something young women should shun as old-fashioned, withered, humorless, repulsive. To do this, the media must explicitly acknowledge feminism, point to it, and “take it into account” in order to argue that it is no longer needed, a “spent force.” … Therefore, the objectification of women is now fine; why, it’s actually a joke on the guys. It’s silly to be sexist; therefore, it’s funny to be sexist…Indeed, as the feminist scholar Rosalind Gill puts it, “The extremeness of the sexism is evidence that there’s no sexism!” If there is no more sexism, then there is no longer a need for sexual politics, and sexual politics can be mocked and attacked. [p 13]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand welcome to our world!

 

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Dale McGowan speaks out

Jul 25th, 2012 11:41 am | By

Amy has the second in the series. Read the whole thing.

Excerpt.

For the past year I’ve been shaking my head in sick disbelief at the abuse many women in the freethought movement are getting, but I’ve stayed silent. I’m not talking about the discussion of gender and privilege itself, which (to my surprise) still needs to happen in some depth, but at the insane, hateful attacks, including literal threats of rape and murder, that are raining down on the Skepchicks and others taking part in that important discussion.

Silently shaking my head does nothing. The women under this kind of attack can’t hear my head rattling, so they can only assume I don’t care, when I actually care deeply. I think it’s the difficulty of putting this massive, deranged genie back in the bottle that keeps so many of us quiet. But that’s a poor excuse that only keeps the victims feeling isolated and besieged.

Fortunately I don’t have to deal with the whole genie to do something useful. I don’t have to go back to the elevator and work my way forward, defending and countering and challenging and apologizing and repairing my way down to the present. I can start right here and now by saying out loud that violence and threats of violence – physical, verbal, emotional – are completely out of bounds, no matter what the topic, no matter what your opinion. They don’t speak for me, not one tiny bit, and they don’t belong anywhere near the rational community we imagine ourselves to be. Once we establish that, we can begin to pull the lessons of the late 20th century forward – none of this is new ground, after all – and have this important discussion.

Finally, we HAVE to begin calling people on their anonymity. If it’s protecting someone from harm or exposure, fine. If it only gives them the freedom to harm others, we have to go after it as a huge part of the problem. As long as our community lives and connects primarily online, the problems of the medium are going to continue getting in the way of sane, civil, productive discourse.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


So now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes

Jul 25th, 2012 11:12 am | By

At the recommendation of more than one commenter here, I’m reading Susan J Douglas’s Enlightened Sexism. It explains a lot, and matches a lot.

The core idea is summed up on page 7:

…the media’s fantasies of power are also the product of another force that has gained considerable momentum since the early and mid-1990s: enlightened sexism. Enlightened sexism is a response, deliberate or not, to the perceieved threat of a new gender regime. It insists that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism – indeed, full equality has allegedly been achieved – so now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women.

Long exhalation. Ohhhhhhh, so that’s what it is.

That would explain what I’m always fretfully wondering – why, when we learned that sexism was bad decades ago, are apparently reasonable people talking this shit? Why isn’t sexism taboo the way racism is taboo? Why do people who would never call someone a nigger in anger call women bitches, whores, cunts without hesitation?

If Douglas is right it’s because they think oh hai, feminism is over because women have all the things, so no problem calling them every degrading name that comes to mind, iz edgy and funny and cool to do that.

Strange thing to think, isn’t it, even if the premise were true, which of course it isn’t close to being. Now you have full equality, so we the rest of us can freely insult you, because that’s what equality is. Eh?

Ashley has a useful summary.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


That’s not thunder, that’s a rattle

Jul 25th, 2012 9:13 am | By

Wow. I’ve been ignoring Thunderf00t, because it’s all so obvious, and dumb, but brazen lying is one item too many. I saw a lot of hits via a post he did yesterday sneering and maligning Surly Amy, and I was curious enough to break the “ignore” policy. He calls her a girl. Is this the new hip post-feminism ironic sexism, or just plain sexism?

I don’t know, but anyway, the boy simply tells a big lie at the end of the post, where he links to Rebecca’s post on being burqa-wearing Nazis.

Great Amy, so on one hand you are reduced to tears because someone uses the name of the site you blog for, and on the other you have no problem with that same blog suggesting that someones reasoned argument is invalid because you (skepchick) claim they think you are nazis.  Wow a great double whammy there of professionally playing the victim and wholesale well poisoning.  That’s right, professional victim Rebecca ‘rape threat’ Watson leading the Skepchicks effort to ‘set an example of kind, productive, proactive behavior in hopes that more people will follow my lead than the those who want to mock and belittle.’ by suggesting that those who disagree with her think they are Totalitarian Nazi.  Damn not seen anyone so zealously eager to embrace victim-hood since dawahfilms.

Rebecca includes screenshots of Paula Kirby comparing us – Skepchicks, Pharyngula and B&W – to Nazis and the Stasi in the post. It’s right there. In the post. It’s not a mere “claim” – not even if you bold it.

That boy does not tell the truth.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


Alexander Cockburn 1941-2012

Jul 24th, 2012 5:36 pm | By

James Fallows (as he points out himself, a blandly centrist journalist of a type that Cockburn despised) on Cockburn:

As Michael Tomasky points out in this appreciation, Alex Cockburn essentially pioneered the modern persona for which Christopher Hitchens became much better known: the fancily Oxford-educated leftie Brit litterateur/journalist who would say all the outrageous things his bland Yank counterparts lacked the wit, courage, erudition, or épater-spirit to utter on their own. As both Tomasky and James Wolcott make clear, Cockburn was far more committed and purposeful in his outrageousness. His own brutal obituary about Hitchens both explains and exemplifies the differences. Short version: Cockburn said that Hitchens always knew just how far he could go; Cockburn knew, and kept on going. His “Press Clips” column in the Village Voice genuinely revolutionized the way people talked and thought about the mainstream press.

Michael Tomasky:

It’s worth recalling that he was the first. Modern America’s first exposure to that literary, highly lapidary, polysyllabically festooned, and sometimes grotesquely overstated and unfair brand of polemicism that we now know so well. He blazed the trail that Hitchens and others followed. He was also America’s first modern press critic. A.J. Liebling, I would argue, did something a little different. The idea of weekly items critiquing the ideological presumptions of this particular Times article or that particular Washington Post column was invented by Alex.

It feels very end-of-an-era-like.

 

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


American Atheists stands by all its members, supporters, and allies

Jul 24th, 2012 2:49 pm | By

The minute I read Amy’s suggestion that it would help a lot if leaders of the movment spoke out against the threats and hate-mongering against women – the minute I read it, I say, I thought of Dave Silverman. Mr Atheist Pants is Mr Visible. It would be great if Dave stepped up, I thought. But that’s all I did. I’m passive that way.

But Amy did ask, and Dave did step up.

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss.

As a Humanist, I see these threats as base and detestable. They have no redeeming value and will raise no awareness, solve no problems, and hurt those who should be friends. As a long term activist, I see hatred and threats of violence directed at our sisters-in-arms to be reprehensible, serving no purpose other than to hurt and intimidate valuable allies. As a white man, I know that so much of this hate comes from people who look like me — but they’re nothing like me where it counts. As the leader of a national atheist organization, I have implemented harassment policies to minimize such irrational, hateful, and counterproductive behavior wherever my authority allows. We have a war to win, and we won’t win until we can look forward, without watching our own backs. American Atheists stands by all its members, supporters, and allies, and we will not tolerate hate directed at any of us. Period.

~David Silverman

Suck on that, haters.

Amy says there will be more to come. Fasten your seatbelts, haters.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Thousands of British girls are the victims of wounding with intent

Jul 24th, 2012 2:28 pm | By

Nick Cohen notes that it’s progress when violence against women and girls is treated as such.

Odd though it may seem to older readers, the Crown Prosecution Service now regards itself as a liberal organ of the state. This week it is making a great play of its success in deterring violence against women. Its lawyers brought 91,000 domestic violence prosecutions last year and secured 67,000 convictions. As I have mentioned in this space before, many criminologists believe that the willingness, not just of prosecutors and the police but of wider society, to take violence against women and children seriously explains the welcome fall in homicide rate.

Well it would, wouldn’t it. If fewer women are killed then the homicide rate will fall, unless killers decide to kill more men to make up the numbers, which seems unlikely. Plus taking violence against women and children seriously has the added advantage of taking violence against women and children seriously. It’s quite a good idea to take violence against all kinds of people seriously, just in case no kinds of people actually deserve to be the object of violence.

But anyway, despite this one bright spot, all is not well.

But officialdom’s concern for abused women is strictly colour coded.  The CPS will defend women’s rights, but only the rights of white women. Girls with black or brown skins can go hang — or, rather go have their genitalia cut to pieces.

FGM, in other words. It’s not being seen as another form of violence against girls.

Britain made female genital mutilation a criminal offence in the 1980s. Later we said it was illegal for parents to take their children abroad for the ‘procedure’. Yet although thousands of British girls are the victims of wounding with intent, the CPS has not instigated one prosecution, let alone secured a conviction.

…

To his credit, I suppose, Scotland Yard’s specialist in child abuse cases Commander Simon Foy found the courage to speak in public. Unfortunately, his words were a disgrace. ‘I am not necessarily sure that the availability of a stronger sense of prosecution will change’ the incidence of FGM ‘for the better,’ he said.  Is there any other law that Commander Foy and his superiors think it pointless to enforce? Do senior officers say that prosecuting burglars or rapists or murderers makes no difference? Or is it only in the case of the mutilation of girls from other cultures that the cops abandon their belief in the deterrent power of punishment?

Imitating the French by having medical staff check girls, would infringe the girls’ rights, Foy continued, as he used the language of human rights to justify his failure to uphold the rights of women and girls. In this instance, and in this instance only, the police not only believe that putting alleged criminals on trial is pointless, they add that investigating an alleged crime is a criminal act.

So much for taking violence against women and girls seriously.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


I vs. hymen – guest post by Evan Darraji

Jul 24th, 2012 10:50 am | By

By Evan Darraji, Iraq

 

Scientific definition of Hymen: The thin membrane located inside the woman’s vagina, a few centimeters in depth, tearing after penetration either by sex or otherwise.

Is the Hymen a natural evolutionary requirement (according to Darwin) and not a moral requirement? Some animals also have hymens, such as the platypus, elephants, whales, llamas, sea cows, moles, chimpanzees, rats and lemurs.

Social definition of the hymen: a measure of honour on the basis of the girl’s chastity and virginity – no sex before marriage in Arab, Indian and some African countries!

Scientific definition of me as a woman: A live human being who has all the characteristics of other living things, such as breathing, needing nutrition, growing, reproducing, and who is characterized by thinking and production and development through thought and action.

Social definition of a woman: A human-being the oriental society puts under the category of ‘Woman’ – and I’m proud to be female but according to their concepts it means I am the weaker sex who is always ranked second after the Man under The Order of God, the tribe and the support and approval of laws is based on this.

I am a producer who has duties towards self, family and community more than Rights. Because I’m the plowed one, and odd if I reject sex with my husband, and ordered in the house of obedience, and dominated, and share a husband with two, three, or four others in accordance with the Quran. And I am to be withheld, transformed into a mummy by covering my neck in a hijab, hit and abandoned and punished and imprisoned or stoned to death, governed and controlled by the male parent (the Lord of the Family, no matter how old or young he is), cannot go out and get married, I am issued with a passport or identity card, cannot travel except with his consent; who is married even before reaching puberty. I cannot always win my freedom because the authorization for divorce is given by my husband only; am a governess, an obedient servant who has the largest share of hell and the torments of God to come later!

Since the birth of baby girl among the Muslims is a disgrace to be concealed, because she is not born male, she represents a shortfall, an- inferiority … a potential tool of delinquency.  And to her shame is every attempt to commit a sexual act with a man before marriage. She is a tool for rape, sin and incest, and even theft because men can steal her modesty with a leer.

In short, sin is diagnosed. They create sexual desire, this desire which is itself sinful for men. And it constitutes a permanent threat to the girl and Islamic ethics. It is a potential tool for crime, for slaughter by the father or brothers to wash their blemished honor. So the honor of Muslim men is washed with the blood of girls.” [i]

I am a human being who works, supports, assumes, produces, begets children, raises them, is persecuted and has the majority of her rights violated religiously and legally. And if I do something against these codes will be subjected to what is called an honour killing – stoned to death or imprisoned.

I am the human being sold as flesh and bought in many forms in the name of marriage!

I am not seen as a human being but as just a few centimeters between her thighs. Turn the world upside down and shake the thrones if blood doesn’t flow on the wedding night (first marriage)! Make sure of my virginity, my honour, my reputation, purity and chastity while I clamp my hand to my cheek waiting for the man tearing my virginity, while I forget my right to live a natural life like other creatures, including man, my right to feelings and to keep myself from pain and disease.

Thus I will be honored by my family and my tribe,  preserve my religiousness and maintain the values of my community.

I’m under the man just because he does not have a hymen.

We can’t on this basis ensure he keeps the honor of his family, his religion and the values of his society.

Women’s bodies spin like a shadow around men – humiliated, guilty, concerned, threatened, dirty, unclean, the source of a narrowness and sin. These tools are the forbidden that are coveted, hidden and displayed, trapped and coerced. The feminine body is a hidden sex object, reprehensible and defective, like instruments which are essential for sex but which they are ashamed to use. [ii]

Recently some governments and authorities reinforced the tribal practices which are regressive, suppress freedom and lead to patriarchal violence against women, including permitting the examination of a girl to legally establish her virginity before marriage to assure the man and his family the goods they’ve bought are brand new!

In real terms, just because a girl is a virgin girl it does not necessarily mean nobody has touched her. Nowadays she can do what she wants because the membrane can be restored with minor surgery, or even a fake hymen used – an industrial membrane made inChinawhich costs less than three dollars!

This way she can deceive a husband and his family and by cunning assume the mantle of chaste virgin!

Is this really what you want, to be fooled by few fake drops of blood, to fool yourself for some kind of peace of mind? What is the difference in reality between a fake hymen and one that is torn and unrepaired?

If the honor and chastity, reputation and preservation of the values and habits of society are determined by the state of a hymen how can we make sure that a man keeps to the codes if he does not have a hymen to prove it? This allows him free reign of his natural behaviour, freedom to enjoy his rights at the expense of women. But while she is the object of male desire she is also the forbidden – and this is the great double-standard.

This duality is one of the fundamental pillars upon which the collective consciousness rests.

 

When I’m talking about the Arab consciousness in general I do not mean all Arab intellectuals, journalists, writers, artists and researchers. But these represent only a small minority against the vast majority still suffering under the yoke of this tradition. That is what I mean the collective consciousness.

Thus the Arab awareness in its present form has one face missing – that of the critic who believes in evolution … If asked about religion and faith can only answer with the faith of the righteous and if asked about science knows only the science that is Divine. Scientific knowledge is abrogated, reason is handed down. And if asked about ethics or justice will only praise their own justice and morality.

“So why continue with Arab culture? Where is the historical development? Where is the transition from the old, how will new thinking avoid old mistakes? [iii]

Some of you may be angry because I link these problems with Islam but they are two sides of the same coin. They are ideas which support each other to form a dogma forcing us to live by the culture of people from history despite changing conditions and the need to change ideas. Instead man’s ideas being used in the service of mankind his life is adapted to suit them.

Such a culture worships individuals, reduces history to a single moment, and the individual at the head of the culture becomes a tyrant whose tyranny cannot be maintained only through violence.

 

Honor is not between the thighs of women, or between the thighs of men. Honour begins with words and is never ending in all man does to represent his honour – in his work, his purity, his devotion to his country, his dedication to his family.


[i] Strip Off the Hijab; Shahdort Javan

[ii] ibid

[iii]  The Arab Mind, the Need for Openness and Tolerance; Asim Idrissi

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


What Amy said

Jul 23rd, 2012 4:39 pm | By

Amy talks about the haters and the hatred.

Yesterday included the “Would it be immoral to rape a Skepchick?” item. This morning it was a tweet (from “franc hoggle” of course) urging her to set herself on fire.

Just an average day for us. And this has been going on ever since Rebecca said, “…hey guys don’t do that.” For me, it has been getting worse over the past few months. I guess I became a direct target after Rebecca decided to stay home from TAM. I was more in the spotlight so the threats became more about me.

Been there. Am still there. Every day my stats show tens or even hundreds of hits from the hoggle gang, collecting stuff to translate into whatever shit they’re talking about me now. (No don’t tell me; I don’t want to know. I’ve never gone to that little outpost of hell and never will.) Every day I get a bunch from Thunderf00t’s video. Every day I get a bunch from a whole list of ranters.

I firmly believe we need some more leaders in this movement to make a stand and speak out publicly to enforce the message that behavior that encourages violence against women and minorities, be it rape threats or supposed jokes about rape, death or violence should not be tolerated in a rational, humanistic, secular society. We need leaders to stand with us, not sit quietly by, while we are ridiculed and threatened.

That would be good, now you mention it. We get lots of bloggers doing that, but leaders in this movement, not so much. They probably are a lot less aware of it, because not bloggers…But it would be nice if they stood with us.

In answer to a question Amy said more about what TAM was like for her (thus making nonsense of the taunt that she fell apart over a T shirt sneer sneer).

A lot of the online threats and harassment are anonymous, yes. But at TAM I dealt with a lot of real people who, while they never touched me, they did things like make fake  Surly-Ramics necklaces with words on them that mocked things I said online and there were actual people live blogging from the event saying things like I was part of an ‘axis’ that was trying to destroy the event and people celebrating T-shirts that served to make me feel like an outcast and people singing songs that said we ‘should pull the sticks out of our ass’ etc. So sometimes, yes, I have to deal with actual people IRL. None of those in real life trolls at TAM got within 10ft of me though (that I am aware of) and it’s not often that I encounter those types of people as I do my best not to be around that group.

More people expressed shock that the people in charge of TAM allowed this to go on.

One commenter in particular hit the mark.

The things that really dig at me are the people who have been allies or should be allies that no longer are because their widdow feewings were hurt. People like Emery Emery who when the elevator incident occurred backed Rebecca but has somewhere since switched over to misrepresenting Rebecca and the FTBlogger’s position and then writing them off. Organizations like JREF who don’t feel the need to lay out a clear anti-harassment policy yet feel the need to blame anyone who suggests they should have one as hurting the attendance to their fundraiser (which is what TAM really is). People like Paula Kirby who seems to be operating under the delusion that if she can’t see something that it doesn’t exist and feels the need to shut up those who point out where she might be wrong (and her herd of lick-spittle sycophants that seem to be overly represented by philosophy students for some reason).

This is the world we live in at the moment.

Update: I posted before reading all the comments. Pamela Gay commented.

For me, it’s not a matter of getting used to it, but getting numb to it. It’s like a bad odor your nose stops noticing due to overload of chemical receptors.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


Skeptically looking down

Jul 23rd, 2012 12:44 pm | By

Leeds Skeptics in the Pub replaced Steven Moxon’s planned talk titled  “Why aren’t there more woman in the boardroom?” with an open debate on “How should Skeptics Deal with controversy?” Tom Williamson of Skeptic Canary reports.

After that, the debate moved onto the question of “are there any subjects which just cannot be discussed in skepticism?”. My answer was a strong and unequivocal “no”. Skepticism by its very nature is based on questioning. If someone puts up a barrier saying “you cannot question this” I find that to be an affront to skepticism. Also, I find that some people confuse the idea of questioning something with a desire to challenge and reject it. For example, if you asked the question “does 1 + 1 REALLY equal 2?”, that doesn’t immediately make you a maths denialist. So, if you asked a very controversial question like “are women REALLY equal to men?” that does not mean you are automatically a misogynist. I think we need to bear this in mind when asking tough questions, and skeptics should not feel like there are any questions that cannot be asked.

There are problems with his proposed very controversial question though.

One, it’s meaningless. Literally meaningless; it’s colorless green sheep. Skepticism surely has to come into play in the formulation of the questions themselves. It’s no use asking questions that are so shapeless it’s impossible to know what an answer would even be.

Is the question improved if we make it “Are women in fact inferior to men?”? Not much. It’s a little clearer, but it’s still impossible to know how to answer.

Given that, it actually seems surprisingly unskeptical to ask such a question. Making questions precise and focused is part of the toolkit of skepticism. A mind with a habit of skepticism notices when questions are too vague to be meaningful.

Two, the real question isn’t whether people are equal, it’s whether people should be treated as equals. If you ask that question however – “should women REALLY be treated as equals to men?” – then it seems odd to say “that does not mean you are automatically a misogynist.” Dude, it kind of does. If you’re trying to resist treating a set of people as equals, and dressing it up as skepticism, that kind of is a hostile act directed at that set of people. That’s why the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up.

It’s a particularly bad idea for “skeptics” to make a fetish of “questioning” this when most (or is it all?) of the people doing the questioning will not be the ones found unequal. It makes them look both fatuous and self-serving. They might as well ask “Are people like us REALLY superior to all other kinds of people?”

What skeptics can do of course is have a discussion about meta-ethics. But that’s a different discussion. Just asking themselves which underlings don’t get to be treated as equals isn’t that discussion.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Is rape a good punishment for being so annoying?

Jul 23rd, 2012 10:18 am | By

There’s a forum called Rationalia. Already the warning lights start to blink – the forum seems to be a genre that attracts a lot of, hmm how to put it, a lot of mind-blind, entitled nastiness, aka sexism. A forum that calls itself Rationalia – that doesn’t bode well.

And so it came about. You have to register to read the particular item in question, so I’ll link to PZ’s report on it instead, in case like me you don’t want to register just to see some sexist crap in its native habitat.

Would it be immoral to rape a Skepchick?

Post by Pappa » Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:46 am

Not for sexual gratification or power or anything like that, just because they’re so annoying.

I’m really torn on this one. :dunno:

There were some angry comments at PZ’s (how astonishing, how wicked, how deepriftsian). “Pappa” replied.

by Pappa » Mon Jul 23, 2012 6:51 am

OK, sorry but this’ll have to be brief. I start a new job today so I don’t have much time.

1. PZ, why don’t you ever shut the fuck up and think before you engage your fingers? If you weren’t already a member here I’d call you an idiot, but you are and I don’t want to break the rules.

2. PZ, where to we purport to be rational? We’re two of Dawkins’ bastard children, hanging out here because it’s more fun and way less anal than most of the other places we could go. Besides, have you read some other irrational crap you’ve posted occasionally? You’re an intelligent and thoughtful guy, almost always worth reading. But sometimes you jump on some random banwagon without much rational thought at all.

3. PZ’s followers. You’re a bunch of retarded arse-lickers (not all of you, just the retarded ones who aren’t also members here). Seriously, are you not able to understand concepts like irony, hyperbole and irreverent humour?

So that’s how that went.

Stephanie has commentary. 

Update:

“Pappa” has commented again.

One

I suppose you’ve all heard the expression,”You’ve every right to be offended” before. It’s true, you do. You also have every right to rant about it online if that’s what floats your boat, but really many of you need to get some perspective and stop seeing the world in such black and white ways. If any one of you have ever laughed at a sick joke of any kind, then you’re hypocrites. If you really care about rape, stop posting shouty replies on some blog and go out and do something about it in the real world. Responding to blog posts and getting all worked up in the process is about as effective as praying.

I don’t know what’s wrong with the supposed “community” that spans a load of atheist/sceptic/rationalist sites, but you don’t half waste an absurd amount of time arguing amongst yourselves and getting really angry and self-righteous in the process. I like PZ and follow his blog from time to time, but even PZ seems to engage his fingers quite a lot without much rational thought… and I’ve seen Dawkins do the same quite a few times too. That’s pretty lame considering most of these people involved proclaim themselves to be rational minded people.

Before you turn that round to suggest I’m a hypocrite, “Rationalia” has never claimed to be a hub of reason and rationalism, as anyone who’s spent any time there can verify. It’s a hangout for (mostly) atheists/rationalist/sceptics who used to spend their free time in the Off Topic section of RDF, plus a load of fresh blood who just like the relaxed atmosphere.

Two

There are a huge amount of assumptions being made about me here. I am not misogynistic, sexist or woman-hating in any way. I support equality in all its forms and have done for my whole adult life. I have posted uncountable times online about my support for equality of sex, race and sexuality. Just a few days before the Skepchick thread I started I posted a “Stop Rape” poster on FB, I am vocally supportive of gay rights and gay marriage both online and off. At no point did I say I think Skepchicks should be raped, or that I wanted that to happen. I posted a ridiculous parody thread asking a “moral” question because I’ve been so sick of the ridiculous irrationally conducted “debate” ever since Elevatorgate I felt it should be ridiculed.

Something you all need to understand is that while I am 100% supportive of matters of equality, I also absolutely support the right of free speech, even when it is extremely distasteful.

I didn’t post that thread naively. On Rationalia in the past we’ve had long, heated discussions on the topic of offensive humour, stemming from unpleasant jokes made about disabled children, jokes that appeared right after Michael Jackson died, jokes about Madeline McCann, etc.. Some of which I found very distasteful, others I did not. I happen to have an irreverent sense of humour, and believe it or not but there are lots of other people who also have irreverent senses of humour who are fully capable of understanding the seriousness of the topics involved, people who are morally upstanding and who’s thoughts and actions are good. Honestly, I’m one of those people. I understand that many people are unable to see the funny side of humour that entails rape, death, baby eating, etc., but that doesn’t mean that anyone who does is ethically and morally corrupt. Plus, one thread of sarcastic ridicule is not all of who I am. Anyone who took the time to find out, rather than condemning me blindly on some blog would quickly realise.

Three

I am genuinely sorry that some people who have been affected by rape have been caused some further hurt by reading my thread. But I can’t renounce my joke for the simple reason that if rape jokes are verboten then by the same logic, so must dead baby jokes be so. Real people have had to live through the torment of a baby dying and must unfortunately also deal with the hurt of sometimes hearing or seeing dead baby jokes. People who have had children vanish without trace must unfortunately also deal with the hurt of sometimes hearing or seeing Madeline McCann jokes. People whose family have been murdered must unfortunately also deal with the hurt of sometimes hearing or seeing jokes about mass shootings or terrorism.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


Women are told to sit in back

Jul 22nd, 2012 3:28 pm | By

Theocrats at it again – in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) this time.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of  stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines  from their aisles. It’s only the latest example of the Hasidic community trying  to enforce their strict religious laws for everyone who lives near their New  York enclave.

“No Shorts, No Barefoot, No Sleeveless, No Low Cut Neckline Allowed in the  Store,” declare the English/Spanish signs that appear in stores throughout the  Hasidic section of the hipster haven. The retailers do not just serve Jews — they include stores for hardware, clothes and electronics.

…

“We’re not concerned about the way women dress in Manhattan — but we are  concerned with bringing 42nd Street to this neighborhood,” said Mark Halpern,  who is Orthodox and lives in Williamsburg.

Some called the policy un-American.

“It’s further evidence of this era’s move toward Balkanization in the United  States,” said Marci Hamilton, a First Amendment scholar at Cardozo School of  Law. “It’s no longer sufficient that they have shared norms among themselves,  they are increasingly trying to impose their norms on the rest of the  culture.”

Theocracy, in fact.

The dress code appears to be the latest effort by the Hasidic community to  separate itself from the greater population.

There’s an Orthodox ambulance service and a private police force called the  Shomrim.

On the B110, a privately operated public bus line that runs through Orthodox  Williamsburg and Borough Park, women are told to sit in back, also in accordance with Orthodox customs.

The neighborhood embarked on a successful 2009 crusade to remove bike lanes  from a 14-block stretch of Bedford Avenue — fearful of the scantily clad gals  who would pedal through.

Talibanesque – for real this time.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


The sickness unto death

Jul 22nd, 2012 2:55 pm | By

More on the joys of Ramadan.

For most of Australia’s 496,000 Muslims, the start of Ramadan today is a holy  month of fasting by day and feasting by night. But for the estimated 22,000  Australian Muslims with diabetes, it can be a time of fluctuations in blood  sugar levels that can be dangerous, even deadly.

So they should just not do it.

But no one should do it – it’s not healthy for anyone. Fasting and bingeing is a really terrible way to eat. Predators in the wild have to do that because that’s how it is (and lots of them starve to death), but it’s not something to do as a religious offering.

”I’ve seen people die one or two minutes before the fast is ending,” said a visiting endocrinologist from Saudi Arabia, Dr Al Saeed. ”They developed hypoglycemia but refused to break their fast. They became unconscious and  died.”

The Koran specifically exempts those who are sick or suffer from a chronic condition such as  diabetes from fasting. Yet 43 per cent of people with type 1 diabetes and 79 per cent of patients with type 2 diabetes fasted through  Ramadan, reported the Diabetes Journal.

That is scary.

During Ramadan last year, Ms Hana broke her fast once when she started to feel  dizzy. Before fasting, she sought medical advice on how to manage her diabetes. But her parents, who live in Tripoli, Lebanon, insisted on fasting every year, even though it made their diabetes worse.

That’s scary, frustrating, infuriating, pathetic. Taking risks for a good reason is one thing; doing it for a crappy one is another.
 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Liberalism is all about sex and shopping

Jul 22nd, 2012 12:09 pm | By

Giles Fraser reiterates his antipathy to liberalism, but it’s a straw liberalism that he’s antipathetic to. In the reaction to his piece on circumcision he sees

an opportunity to clear the decks and say why I am not a liberal. No, I’m not a conservative either. I’m a communitarian. Blue labour, if you like. But certainly not a liberal. What I take to be the essence of liberalism is a belief that individual freedom and personal autonomy are the fundamental moral goods.

That’s wrong. Individual freedom and personal autonomy are important in liberalism, but they’re not the fundamental moral goods, and in fact they’re not really moral goods either. “Values” would probably be the better word.

Liberalism leaves plenty of room to treat compassion and generosity and kindness as the fundamental moral goods, but it treats individual rights as primary. Human rights do include freedoms of various kinds, but those freedoms don’t exclude concern for others as well as the self, and in fact a concept of rights entails that much better than communitarianism does.

Fraser seems to be unaware of any of this, and to be confusing liberalism with libertarianism. He gets simply vulgar as he goes on.

Choice is the only moral currency they acknowledge. And this is equally true of the neoliberals who want the freedom to make squillions out of the City, as it is of those who believe the freedom to choose is an act of defiance, socking it to the man, so to speak. One of the most insidious effects of Thatcherism is that it co-opted rebellion into its ranks without rebellion even noticing.

From the 80s onwards, popular culture morphed from an angry insistence on a fairer society (the Jam, the Specials etc) into a me-first relativism that is all about sex and shopping. Religion is an affront to liberalism because it dares suggest it’s not all about you. Here atheism lines up with liberalism (at least in their enlightenment varieties). And Christianity lines up with socialism.

That’s not liberalism. The guy is deeply confused. Liberalism doesn’t mean Me First and the hell with everyone else. It does mean you don’t get to treat me (or her or him or them) as a mere instrument for the greater good, which turns out to be the conservative men of the “community.” It means you don’t get to slice a bit off your baby’s penis in order to cement him into The Community.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


The Robbers Cave

Jul 22nd, 2012 10:47 am | By

Reposting a comment I just made (slightly altered to be more general) so that more people will see it. I wrote it in response to a comment based on the idea that there are insiders and outsiders among commenters. That’s an understandable idea – there are people who know the background of a lot of issues discussed here because they’ve been following them for awhile, and there are people who don’t. Sometimes the people who don’t make comments that miss the mark because of the lack of background. That can be frustrating, especially when the comments consist of angry scolding based on reading a post by, say, Thunderf00t and thus lacking all context. But dividing people into insiders and outsiders is a bad idea; hence the comment.

———–

I really don’t want to divide people into insiders and outsiders here. That’s junior high school stuff, you can’t sit at our lunch table stuff. I want new people – aka “outsiders” – to read and enjoy and join the discussion.

Now…some of that insider v outsider happens anyway, or as it were “naturally” – i.e. without anyone spelling out that that’s what we’re doing. But if that is what we’re doing…well we shouldn’t be.

On the other hand – there is a certain ethic that builds up over time. There are understood conventions, and so on. Casual jokey sexism isn’t popular here, for instance – and since it’s not a particularly benign thing in itself, I think it’s ok to object to it somewhat sharply. But I don’t want us pouncing on anyone who’s new here as if this were a club with a secret code. I really don’t. That’s just a barrier to new people. Plus…well, it ain’t nice.

That’s part of what critics dislike about blog culture, you know. It’s part of what the goons who rant about the mythic beast “FTB” have in mind. It’s that insider thing, that gangs up on outsiders. It’s groupthink; group dynamics; the Robbers Cave experiment; all that. We don’t want to do that. The goons aren’t wrong to frown on that.

On the other hand the goons themselves help to elicit it, by being so goonish, by trolling, by being so selective in whom they scold – so that’s part of why we get so defensive.

But let’s not.

Let’s try to assume people have good intentions unless they make it obvious that they don’t.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


Water? Just because it’s 120 Fahrenheit? Pfffffffff

Jul 21st, 2012 4:43 pm | By

Imagine being a foreign worker in Saudi Arabia. Now imagine being a foreign worker in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan.

Saudi authorities are warning non-Muslim expatriates against eating, drinking or smoking in public during Ramadan, the monthlong sunrise-to-sunset fast — or face expulsion.

The Interior Ministry of the oil-rich kingdom is calling on non-Muslims to “show consideration for feelings of Muslims” and “preserve the sacred Islamic rituals.”

Otherwise, a statement says, Saudi authorities will cancel violators’ work contracts and expel them.

The warning came on Friday, the first day of the Ramadan observance.

In addition to Saudi Arabia’s 19 million citizens, there are nearly 8 million Asian workers in the country, as well as hundreds of thousands of other foreign expatriates from around the globe, according to government figures.

You realize what that means – it means that in one of the hottest countries on earth, foreign workers are forbidden to drink water on the job between sunrise and sunset. (Clearly so are all Saudis, including those who would prefer not to be Muslim at all if only that were permitted.)

Mo said Allah said everybody has to risk dehydration and death during Ramadan, so no back talk or you’ll be on the next plane to Manila.

Via Taslima.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: