First They Came for the Muslims

And then they stopped, because we said ENOUGH. You come for the Muslims you come for all of us and we will not stand silently by and just let you:

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has promised to launch a series of investigations of Muslim Americans beginning in February. “I’ve made it clear that I’ll focus the committee on counterterrorism and hold hearings on a wide range of issues, including radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism,” he told Newsday. King has repeatedly said that he only wants to single out “Islamic terrorism” in his hearings on domestic security, and has even claimed that there are “too many mosques in this country.”

This man should not be in public office, he belongs in a museum on pre-World War 2 fearmongering in the leadup to the holocaust.  I say that as a Jew who lost a section of his family to the nazis.  How do you think it started?  Launching investigations into the target community, attacking their patriotism, their honor.  Establishing them as a dangerous other.

This is of course utter bullshit, but what else do we expect coming from a Republican like King?

As of 2006, some 212 Muslim-American soldiers had been awarded Combat Action Ribbons for their service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seven had been killed

Remember the attempted Times Square bombing?  I do.  Foiled by a Muslim.

Why does a man slinging bullshit at the entire Muslim community have any responsibilities regarding our security?  Instead of a phobic hate filled lunatic, a sane, intelligent and experienced person ought to be the chairperson of the Homeland Security Committee.  You know, someone who will go after actual terrorists and not spend his time huddled in a corner asking law enforcement to rough up some Muslims for him.  Is that really too much to ask?  While I’m at it – asking for sensible things – why isn’t a prominent politician on the air right now pointing out that Rep King is a nutjob, unqualified for his position, and utterly full of shit?

Anti-Burka-Crusaders and Anti-Choicers: Common Threads

As the Anti-Burka tide rises in Europe (hahaha, Anti-Islamic politics?  What religious minority will those wacky Europeans go after next?), I was struck by problems in the law’s reasoning, as well as similarities with the anti-choice anti-abortion nuts here at home.

The law is ostensibly about protecting dignity and equality:

“Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place,” the French government said when it sent the measure to parliament in May.

Much like anti-abortion folks are all about protecting women and their weak little women brains from themselves, this carries an element of that sexism firmly entrenched in the law.  Even if a woman makes the choice freely, there is something wrong about it, and she needs to be forcibly freed from her choice by legal means.

Look, I’m personally not a fan of the Burka.  I also don’t go around aborting fetuses (well, every weekend anyway).  You don’t see me crusading against a woman’s control of her own damn body now do you?  Take a lesson from that Europe.  Hell, if you hate Muslims THAT much just pass a toothless resolution and be honest about your bigotry.  You handled your anti-semitism phase so well, the world is just dying to see how you manage this little hate-fest.

The New Taliban

What’s keeping me up at night?  Via Majikthise, an article in Rolling Stone by the incredibly brave Nir Rosen.  I couldn’t stop reading it.

At one point, I got the distinct impression our leaders are acting like irresponsible doctors prescribing anti-biotics, sending more and more troops.  Amid the same signs of hope for negotiation Rosen picks out, he finds pretty solid evidence we are seeing the development of superbugs:

The guarantees of safety that once protected civilians have been replaced by a new generation removed from traditional society — one for whom jihad is the only law.

In spite of assurances about women being allowed to attend school and work, we see pictures of theocracy in action:

As we wait for the Doctor to arrive, Shafiq has other problems to deal with. His nephew has been arrested by a Taliban patrol after being spotted walking with a girl. After Shafiq secures his release, other Talib fighters call to complain that they heard music coming from his house the night before. Exasperated, Shafiq protests that it was only Al-Jazeera. He doesn’t mention the Iranian pop singer.

The outlook is pretty grim (emphasis mine):

Simply put, it is too late for Bush’s “quiet surge” — or even for Barack Obama’s plan for a more robust reinforcement — to work in Afghanistan. More soldiers on the ground will only lead to more contact with the enemy, and more air support for troops will only lead to more civilian casualties that will alienate even more Afghans. Sooner or later, the American government will be forced to the negotiating table, just as the Soviets were before them.

…

What’s more, the direct U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is now likely to spill over into Pakistan. It may be tempting to attack the safe havens of the Taliban and Al Qaeda across the border, but that will only produce a worst-case scenario for the United States. Attacks by the U.S. would attract the support of hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia. It would also break up Pakistan, leading to a civil war, the collapse of its military and the possible unleashing of its nuclear arsenal.”

…But the Taliban have their own faith, and so far, they are winning.

This is the reality of Afghanistan as it stands today.  A new Taliban, divided, is taking the country back.  We need people with intelligence and good judgement leading this country to take advantage of that:

The internal split provides an opening — if U.S. intelligence is smart enough to exploit it.

“The U.S. should try to weaken the Taliban,” a former Taliban commander tells me. “They should make groups, divide and conquer. If someone wants to use the division between Haqqani and Omar, they can.”

Its a very slim silver lining hiding underneath an enormous storm cloud.

CA: Liberty Counsel and Marriage for Christians Only

The Liberty Counsel has issued a brave and bold call for marriage to be limited to opposite sex couples (via Pandagon):

The desperation of the wingnuts to stop the launch of legal same-sex marriage in California next week is now laughable at this point.

Today Liberty Counsel is filing a petition requesting the California Court of Appeal to stay the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

…This case is far from over. We will not give up. The people will have the final say on marriage.

In the interests of preserving the sanctity of marriage, believers in the one true religion have taken the extra step of adding in a measure to the ballot to limit all marriages to Christian Marriages.

Right Reverend Matthew Staver was blunt in his assessment of the “Heathen” problem:

“We’ve been polite long enough.  I think we’ve established, with majority support in California I might add, that we can base the rights of all on the religion of the majority.  The next logical step is to stop pretending that Jewish, Muslim, or even (have mercy) Hindu marriages are not sanctified by our lord Jesus Christ.  The fact is nonbelievers are committing a sin even more deadly than sodomy by rejecting God’s only son, and the one path towards salvation.  Frankly I’m not even sure they should be allowed to adopt.”

Matt was confident his efforts would pay off, and with echoes of Virginia in 2006, those about to lose their marriage rights seemed to concur:

“The Tanakh clearly states sodomy was punished by He on Most High.  If we have to avoid marriage to keep gay people from getting married, meh” said Ben (declined to give last name).  “The Koran forbids homosexuality.  That is the most important thing.” said (asked not to be named).

Is California poised to unite Church and State in holy matrimony?  The Liberty Counsel is down on one knee…

The Bible: Why Believe?

Commentor mdking has inspired me to ask a question:

People putting the God cart before the Morality horse are nuts. Period. Maybe it’s not medication nuts, but the mental wiring is all wrong.

Lot had sex with his daughters after the Sodom and Gomorrah ordeal. So, was God’s picker adjusted to drunken pervert in selecting Lot??

You can’t salvage an ethic from the Bible without being VERY selective.

What about people putting their holy book of choice before morality?  Scripture contains some very nasty takes on what it is to be moral.  Killing innocents to pay for the sins of their parents.  Killing people for loving outside of their faith.  Given this, why believe the Bible at all?  Why make excuses for the passages one rejects while clinging to the supposed truth value of the rest?  How can the faithful keep claiming it is a work of God when it contains errors that indicate a backwards view of morality and ethics? Defenders will state “the Bible was not meant to be taken literally”. I’ll buy that. But why ascribe to it a higher status than any other book of fables and morals? Why not use Aesop’s fables as a guide? If it is the infallible word of God, then why does it contain laws and rules that are immoral to follow? The cognitive dissonance this produces is one that plays a toxic role in the society we all have to live in.

Islam and Theocracy

The Daily Elephant believes Islam is a political idealogy (and hence open to more criticism):

Islam is not just a religion.  It is also a political movement.  Here is a statement from a popular Islamic website:

Secularism cannot be a solution for countries with a Muslim majority or even a sizeable minority, for it requires people to replace their God-given beliefs with an entirely different set of man-made beliefs. Separation of religion and state is not an option for Muslims because is requires us to abandon Allah’s decree for that of a man.

If Mosque and State cannot be separated than Islam is, by definition, a Political Entity.  It is comprised of both faith and political ideology.  While I make no arguments against Muslims believing in God, I make every protest against this belief in Theocracy.  No ideology has ever been more destructive than Theocracy.  It has never worked, and will never work.  Religion can bring people inner-peace, guidance, and self-respect.  But when it is placed in the hands of Kings or Congressmen, it turns into a weapon.

It is important to distinguish between the religion and the political movement.  You don’t have massive numbers of Muslims in this country clamoring for an Islamic state.  The rantings of some are not the beliefs of all.  By the same token, you have some Christianists calling for theocracy here at home (no mention of them in subtlepress’s post, although his view of Huckabee’s presence in the race as bogus hints at an equal approach).  They too, do not reflect the religion they base their theocratic tendencies in.  So while theocracy is undeniably destructive, and it is to be opposed with vigor, the theocratic railings of some Muslims does not a condemnation of Islam make.

I also find contention with another point subtlepress makes implicitly, namely, that religions are not open to dissection and critique.  I think they are.  Turning a critical eye on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism is a good idea, and I believe entirely proper even without the trappings of overt political involvement.

Afghanistan: Blasphemy and Human Rights

I’m sorry, there is no kind way to say this.  A country that supports blasphemy as a crime, in particular a crime punishable by death, is ass backwards in the stone age.  I saw this via Ann, but had been following it via slashdot.  A student has been sentenced to be murdered for reading about women’s rights (and sharing what he found):

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

In solidarity, I will say this to the violent cowards running Afghanistan:  Your interpretation of Islam is wrong.  You would be committing murder:

The UN, human rights groups, journalists’ organisations and Western diplomats have urged Mr Karzai’s government to intervene and free him. But the Afghan Senate passed a motion yesterday confirming the death sentence.

The world will look down on your country.

The MP who proposed the ruling condemning Mr Kambaksh was Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, a key ally of Mr Karzai. The Senate also attacked the international community for putting pressure on the Afghan government and urged Mr Karzai not to be influenced by outside un-Islamic views.

Those outside views have indeed exerted pressure, not just on Mr Karzai, but on the whole Senate (The Independent):

In a dramatic volte-face, the Afghan Senate has withdrawn its confirmation of a death sentence on Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student convicted of blasphemy for downloading a report on women’s rights from the internet.

The move follows widespread international protests and appeals to the President, Hamid Karzai, after the case was highlighted by The Independent and more than 38,000 readers signed our petition to secure justice for Mr Kambaksh. In Britain, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and the shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, backed the campaign, and there have been demonstrations in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

This is an encouraging first step, but the ruling remains in place:

Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “This is hugely welcome and I hope it will not be long before this appalling judgment is reversed. The international community must continue to make it clear that Afghanistan cannot cast aside basic principles of justice and human rights.”

HOW YOU CAN SAVE PERVEZ

More than 38,000 readers of The Independent have now joined the campaign to save Sayed Pervez Kambaksh – and yesterday’s breakthrough shows the impact this petition has had. But the student’s fate is by no means decided.

So add your voice to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to put all possible pressure on the Afghan government to spare his life. Sign our e-petition at www.independent.co.uk/petition

Pervez should not face a single punishment for blasphemy.  It is not a crime, and there is nothing to be gained by pretending it is one.  However there is much to be lost.

Israel, Palestine: The Illegitmacy of Violence

What do you think of, when you think of Israel?  Jerusalem?

Its a heavy question, for a Jew.  I think of many things, visions and words from my youth.  And a rich history that feels nearer than that of any other people on Earth.   I say this as a man who identifies as ethnically Jewish.  I left my religion behind long ago, slowly and deliberately.  But I still watch events in the Middle East with intense interest and disgust.  Those are my relatives butchering each other over land they think God promised them.  And I cannot stand the blindness with which the world views Israel/Palestine.  An eye is nailed shut to the violence on one side or the other, without regard for the facts.   So I try to keep both my eyes open, and I see blood stained hands each claiming the same gold standard: justification.  As if murderous actions are ever justified.

Given the intensity of the feeling over there, it is bound to become expressed in artistic form.  Hence yet another piece of art comparing the Israelis to nazis, and the Palestinians to the Jews.  But it isn’t the same.  Israel’s actions are deadly wrong, but they are not building giant camps and systematically killing all of the Palestinians.  It just isn’t happening.  And to claim it is sounds shrill and desperate.

But that desperation itself is understandable.  After all, Israel’s actions towards the Palestinians mirror with frightening accuracy the German’s actions that preceded the concentration camps:  The ghettos.  Jews were herded into ghettos first, kept in poverty and eventually moved onto the camps for efficient extermination.

However there are key differences that must be addressed.

That poverty of the Palestinians is a joint effort between Israel and the surrounding nations.  Israel wants to punish the Palestinians for the violence they have engaged in (and is fearful of money sent their way coming back in the form of rockets).  Neighbors want Israel destabilized, and would gladly suffer the Palestinian people poverty and see generations of desperate people keep their hated nemesis mired in internal conflict.  Don’t even get me started on my own country’s support for violence in the region  (Short story: Oy Vey).

The Palestinians plight lacks to abject desire to kill so obviously present with the Germans.  Palestinian men are not marched onto the street and shot.  Palestinian infants are not smashed against walls until their blood has stained the walls black.

The Palestinians kill innocents.  Children.  People who have no business being shot or blown up.  Dead.

I look at the Palestinian’s plight, and I want to root for them.  I want to express solidarity.  They are a people being oppressed by a government.  But how can I support a violent movement?  A movement that considers blood an acceptable price for land?  So I end up supporting neither side, and watching both sides commit murder with contempt.

In the meantime, I find hope in watching a new movement that appears to be gaining strength:  The movement for a single Secular Democratic State in Israel Palestine.  Ghada Karmi has a rundown here, and there is an indymedia story here.  My suggestion is they name themselves something hilarious.  One of the highest points of our shared culture is comedy, and the land of milk and honey needs to take itself a wee bit less seriously.

We are Not a Chosen People

We are not God’s chosen.  I know, I know, you are thinking, “who is this ass to say such things”?

Relax pooky.  I’m 100% Jew.  Well, ethnically anyway.  I’ve long since left the Torah behind, but not without fond memories.  And I think, going over the memories, I see some oddness I ought to dispel.  After all, we passed this “chosen people” crap onto other religions (although we might have stolen it from the Egyptians).  In any case, we are in the chain of stupid, so I figured I’d help put one of these myths to rest.

God did not descend from the heavens and decide “Thou there!  Thou people doth rock more than they neighbor (who thou must love, ironically).  Thou art so chosen!”.  Nope.  Never happened.

Why would it?  Why would God pick a few people on earth to have some elevated spiritual status over others?  People are people, and as long as you follow some path that flows along the river of universal love, you’re bound to arrive in a timely fashion.

So let’s get that out of the way.  Its not like there’s any evidence for it.  God didn’t leave a tape recording.  He doesn’t have a DVD with commentary by the director up on Amazon.  There’s just “Oh, the Bible says its so.”

How much longer can people continue to fall for that?

Look in your heart.  You are chosen.  Not because you were born to a particular tribe that worships some ancient but rebranded mountain deity.  You are chosen because you are human, because you think and feel and perceive.  Rather than being something that sets the “faithful” apart from the “wicked”, our chosen status is something that unites us with all of humanity.  The more we realize that in our everyday lives, the closer we come to the original meaning of pious, the one hinted at by wise Rabbi’s down through the centuries when they spoke of the primacy of loving-kindness.

The Bible Makes a Poor Premise

Adam Smith has a fascinating post, in which he tries his very best to prove atheism does not exist. Poor chap doesn’t quite make it:

Notice how I titled this thing “Why Atheism Does Not Exist,” and not “Why I Believe Atheism Does Not Exist.” I did this because it is not only what I believe, it is also because it is a fact.

The Bible does not acknowledge atheism in any form. The Bible says that all men know that there is a God. Where does it say this you ask? Well, I am glad you asked.

Only we didn’t. Right off the bat Adam is going for a circular argument. For example. The following quote is from a book I just made up. The book of portents and squirrels:

Lord Fluff spake unto the people, and said “heed ye my fluffly book, for it is my word. Amen”. And all the unbelievers who questioned the book, which thou dear reader arst reading, is the fluffy word of the squirrel king lord God, are wrong. “Because I said so”, added Lord Fluff, before scampering after a holy acorn.

Ladies and Gentlemen need I remind you of lord fluff?

My book of fluff proclaims it is the word of fluff. So does that make it true? In the same vein Mike argues himself dizzy in the comments section (edited the html replacing a ol with an ul so it didn’t have nonsensical numbering):

I responded to the problems with fearing God rather than loving God here.  But the real gem is that Mike keeps hobbling back to the Bible to prove that the Bible is true.  Its right here:

John 1 says that the Word is God. We know God through His Word not experience. We experience things in light of His Word. Human reason is fallible. God’s Word is not.

See, because part of the Bible says the Bible is true, it must all be true!  Genius!

Which brings us back to Adam’s attempt to attack atheism.  Like Mike, he is making severe use of circular reasoning, and also trying to get into the head of his opponents.  He’s suggesting atheists aren’t really atheist.  Mike suggests those praying to God without using his Bible for guidance are not actually reaching God.  And of course both base these claims on, what else, their Bible.

Offensiveness aside, its just a poor way to make an argument.  Your premise can’t require the validity and soundness of the entire argument to be true without utterly destroying that very validity and soundness.  A circular argument is not even valid.  Here’s a quick philosophy primer on arguments.  An argument is valid if each premise is logically connected in a way that ensures if every premise is correct, the conclusion must be true.  An argument is sound if it is valid, and all of the premises turn out to be true.  A circular argument isn’t even logic, even if it looks like it on the surface.

Politically and socially, it presents another problem.  Those who rely on circular logic are ill suited to argue about beliefs with those of us who employ reason when making arguments.  It makes productive communication nearly impossible.  Instead you find humor and logic struggling to break through an unyielding wall of “Because the Bible says so”.

Republicans: Eliminating Muslims

Its always startling when a nasty bout of hate breaks out close to home. There’s a lot of nastiness in Herndon, VA. I was living in Reston when this joyful little gathering took place. So again I was startled when I came across this item over at Feministe (Jill):

That’s a short metro ride away. The post itself is about the comments by Rudy’s Aide, suggesting we need to “get rid of” Muslims. Jill goes into a bit more depth:

Deady later clarified:

“When I say get rid of them, I wasn’t necessarily referring to genocide. What I was referring to is, stand up to them every time they stick up their heads and attack us. We can’t afford to say, `We’ll try diplomacy.’ They don’t respond to it. If you look into Islamic tradition, a treaty is only good for five years. We’re not dealing with a rational mindset here. We’re dealing with madmen.”

“I wasn’t necessarily referring to genocide?” That may be more telling than the original comment.

Indeed. I hadn’t caught the clarification. It is worse than the original comment, all the more so in that its unfolding in a responsibility vacuum on the part of Giuliani.

Via Jill, Ali continues:

I will leave it to each individual to determine whether the GOP’s “gaffes” are just that, or that they are part of a sustained campaign to not only lose as many American-Muslim votes as possible (you guys are succeeding!), but to further demonize Islam in order to perpetuate some kind of religious standoff consistent with Tim Lahaye’s vision.

I think we have two things going on here. The first is that the Republican field is rife with riffs on the original Southern Strategy. We see it with Huckabee’s winks and nods to hardline evangelical Christians and anti-immigrant rants, Ron Paul’s winks to the white supremacist set, and Rudy’s Islamophobe nods.

The second is a rising tide of eliminationist rhetoric on the right, targeting Women, Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Homosexuals, and of course, Liberals. Sometimes this speech is hidden, as in the references to “New York/Hollywood liberals” (Jews) or “San Francisco liberals” (Homosexuals). And sometimes it is right out in the open, as is the case with the Georgetown poster up above targeting Muslims. In each case, the right wing in the country is working its base into a violent frenzy. All of this virulent hate seeping into and around the mainstream is normalizing notions of inferiority and “otherness”, as well as the appropriateness of violent reactions.

We cannot stand silently by while this tide of hatred and violence rises.

UPDATE: Just a note, the poster is satirical (the actual poster, which you can see here, is arguably worse than the satire (which adheres nicely to Tom Tomorrow’s rule of right wing reality).)

Eliminationist Rudy Aide On the Rise of the Muslims

Greg Sargent puts it best:

This has already gotten some attention, but it deserves a lot more.

So what happened?  (Emphasis mine)

The Guardian of London is conducting video documentaries up in New Hampshire. And they did a segment on Rudy in which they got a very off-kilter quote about Muslims from a Rudy campaign official in the state. The Guardian identifies him as John Deady, the co-chair of state Veterans for Rudy.

Deady — and the key here is that he is a Rudy campaign official — says that Rudy should be our President because he has what it takes to tackle one of our “most difficult problems,” which he identifies as the “rise of the Muslims.” Deady adds that we need to “chase them back to their caves” or otherwise “get rid of them.”

At the moment, there is silence from the Giuliani campaign and the mass media.

Any chance the national press will see this as newsworthy?

The Rudy campaign didn’t immediately return a request for comment. You can watch the whole video from The Guardian here.

In addition to the media question, what I want to know is:  Will the Giuliani campaign condemn this, or will they let it quietly form a new southern strategy?

Faith and Religion vs Belief and Spirituality

Faith is not religion.  It is a way of knowing that intersects with religion in a vital way.  Religion makes use of faith, one might say.

I bring this up after reading an illuminating post by Amanda at Pandagon:

Goddamn, this is tiresome, just this headline:

Why “new atheists” are ignorant about God

That’s like a headline that says, “Why ‘new skeptics’ are ignorant about unicorns.”

It’s an interview with theologian John Haught about how new atheists haven’t earned the right to be atheists or something, because I dunno, they didn’t martyr themselves by swimming in religion before deciding it’s crap. Which, to my mind, is a sign of progress. I shouldn’t have to sink myself neck-deep in nonsense to have the right to call it nonsense. Do I have to study unicorn lore up and down before I get to say unicorns don’t exist?

From the Salon piece:

They talk about the most fundamentalist and extremist versions of faith, and they hold these up as though they’re the normative, central core of faith. And they miss so many things. They miss the moral core of Judaism and Christianity — the theme of social justice, which takes those who are marginalized and brings them to the center of society. They give us an extreme caricature of faith and religion.

John Haught misses a central point and makes a rather embarrassing misstep for a theologian.  Faith is by definition belief sans proof.  As soon as you let proof into the equation, it transforms into belief.  Perhaps even justified belief, depending on the epistemic standard applied.  So in that sense the aggressive critique of faith is that it is very prone to abuse.  If you allow yourself to trust completely in something, that trust itself may be misplaced, but it may also be a vehicle for power.  The Catholic Church’s abuse scandal has illustrated this as clearly as the acts of terrorism the “new atheists” write about.  So faith is simply faith, and the moral core of the religions he brings up misses the sharpest point of the critique of the new atheists.

Religion, while it makes use of faith, does not necessarily require faith.  While the more fundamentalist groups might (Pandagon):

Fundamentalists are disgusted with liberal churches, who they see as a bunch of pussies who have given up what’s really important about religion (power) in a bid to continue existing. Which strikes the fundamentalists as no different than running up the white flag.  What’s the point of religion, if not to have an unquestionable, unproveable authority to invoke to force your will on everyone else? The great offense of the new atheists in focusing on fundamentalists is that they’re saying, in essence, the fundies have a point. The heavy fist of the great patriarchal god of the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims ceases to make sense if you’re not willing to put it to use for political purposes.

Outside of that narrow world view of the fundamentalists, can you really see a Pastor, Rabbi or Imam turning someone away because they have substituted belief for faith?  The reason belief without faith is troubling even to more liberal organized religion is that it ends up cutting down the number of beliefs which survive the transition.  Some things, such as the particular events in the Bible, are not provable (no matter how much people of faith strain to do so).
Which brings us to religion vs spirituality and the eastern religions:

Now, I think there’s a reasonable criticism to be aimed at the “new atheists” for a failure of imagination. It’s possible, for instance, that some Eastern religions have been compatible with modern society in a way that the big monotheistic three have not. It doesn’t hurt that some of these traditions are basically atheistic or at least have a different view of gods and power.

At some point for those who transition from organized religion to spirituality, there is a shift in how one views one relationship with God.  You’ve rejected any sort of scripture or holy book.  You’ve been sadly exposed to books like Mere Christianity and The Case for Christ by college evangelicals, and found the arguments presented completely lacking.  The arguments of atheism, on the other hand, are very compelling, down to a sharp emotional level.

I am going to break with my usual silence on personal beliefs and delve a bit into my own.  Because I think it might provide a useful glimpse of belief without faith, some fun with philosophy, and an idea of how spiritual beliefs can be both compatible with secular society and encouraging of independent thought.

After determining I no longer believed in the Torah (or the additional books), I found I still had faith in God.  I also had a firm belief that one should be moral, and wasn’t frazzled by the idea of finding what morality was using reason rather than faith.  What started in high school bloomed in college as I was exposed to mysticism.  This idea that the point of religious practice was to approach God.  And that is my belief, that through meditation one can come to know one’s self, and the intrinsic relationship to the divine we all share.  Never having believed in original sin, this might have been easier for me than some.  But the essential idea is that humanity is divine in nature.  I mix that in with a some tempered observation, and would hazard a completely secular person would suspect people of being selfish (not good or bad inherently, just selfish).  All the same, all of this practice and reading led me to a rather intriguing meme.  I’ll introduce it by very briefly outlining the crux of a debate in the philosophy of mind.

Science is all about verification via repetition.  “Can you repeat my experiment, with the same variables, and get the same result?”.  In the philosophy of mind, two intelligent voices popped to the fore while I was in high school and college.  Daniel Dennet, and David Chalmers.  In Consciousness Explained (facetiously titled “Consciousness Explained Away” by some), Dennet argues that the personal experience of consciousness falls outside the realm of science.  It is never directly knowable by anyone other than the person experiencing it!  This is a compelling argument indeed, but I found myself gravitating more towards Chalmer’s take.  Essentially he argues (if I remember correctly) that consciousness is in the realm of science, and its experiences are repeatable.  In other words, if I do x y and z, and experience a, and you can do the precise same thing, then we have something of science at work.  This leads some, like the Dalai Lama, to consider Buddhist spirituality scientific in nature.  After all, meditation practice is about following prescribed steps to replicate desired results (even if those steps are as simple as turning off internal chatter and letting the mind relax).

From an epistemic viewpoint, none of this really gets us around the question of certainty.  I know I experience x, but do I ever know x is real?  To some extent one must allow for the validity of experience to avoid falling into solipsism (crafty philosophers may employ contextualism to achieve this).

So where does this leave me?  Barring an epistemic problem of significant proportions, my experiences in meditation align correctly with a belief system that suggests the existence of the divine.  The full nature of this divine principle is different than the conception of God I grew up with, but it feels deeply familiar to the way I always thought God should be.  And the only bit of faith I hold onto is the one that puts practicality ahead of absolute certainty.  I have faith that what we experience is real.  But that is a philosophical step nearly everyone on Earth takes instinctively, and so for all practical purposes I believe without faith.

What does this mean for how I interact with society, and how I view reality?  It means I am always open to new interpretations and evidence.  My beliefs are not set in stone.  They grow out of my experience and my ability to reason.  Perhaps meditation is all the cruel trick of neurology, and consciousness is nature’s greatest joke on itself.  Perhaps meditation is like a high level programming language, and the actual work of our meat machine is fundamentally different from the experiences it wraps itself in.  Then again, perhaps meditation does connect us to an essential truth in our nature and our relationship with each other.  I’m open minded, even if a bit hopeful for a particular conclusion.

So I am not inclined to blindly trust authority (Sara, Orcinus):

We’ve all come up against these people, and have been totally confounded with their “my leader can do no wrong” attitude. They believe outrageous lies, and forgive all manner of sins. Democratic strategists keep trying to run campaigns that will reach these people on the basis of evidence and fact — and are perplexed to find their attempts at education totally rebuffed. George Bush may have lied us into a war, wrecked our economy, saddled our great-grandchildren with debt, savaged the poor, and alienated the entire world; but he is Our Leader, and we will always take his word over anyone else’s. We do not accept you as a legitimate authority. We don’t care what you have to say, because you have no standing at all in our little world.

I watch, I listen, I think, and I reason.  If faith does find its way into my life I always sleep with one rational eye open.  Belief is to won by evidence, and the trust that is faith is to be handed out only in the most cautious and alert manner.

Which brings us back to Haught:

By the way, my point about how the atheists that Haught admires lived in a world where there were social pressures against atheism that have faded to a large extent makes this quote really creepy:

Yes, they did. And they thought it would take tremendous courage to be an atheist. Sartre himself said atheism is an extremely cruel affair. He was implying that most people wouldn’t be able to look it squarely in the face. And my own belief is they themselves didn’t either.

The longing for a time when atheism was scary is no joke. Haught’s trying to convince himself that atheists in the past were maybe a little more mealy-mouthed because they “knew” deep down in their colons that god is very pissy at the atheists, but I’d say that the more visceral understandings that people in the past had of church power and the way it could destroy—and their thorough understanding of the past penalties of death and torture for heresy—probably had a lot to do with it. It’s true that if you think long and hard about what would happen to heretics if the churches weren’t kept in check by secular society, it would put a little fear into your heart. I wouldn’t conflate that with fear of god, but more the fear of those who don’t like having their beliefs questioned. I bet if Haught wanted to find himself some modern atheists that express the proper levels of fear, he’d have some luck rooting around a theocratic nation like Iran.

That same fear and violence was turned against mystics.  Look at the Sufi matyrs, and how mysticism often hides within the auspices of larger religions.  St Teresa of Avila is an excellent example, who coated her experiences in the language of her host religion.  If she had lived today, would she have done so?

Today, that level of fear is drastically sharper when aimed at atheists, at least in the US.  One need only look at the criticism of the Golden Compass for reference.  We share a common goal:  moving beyond the stranglehold of fundamentalism on society.

In addition to the tension between reason and atheism vs faith and religion, there is another player.  Belief and Spirituality.  And this is where a lot of people are beginning to find themselves.  There are many people who still identify with their religion, and may even attend services, but who feel more inclined to limit the role of faith in their lives, while simultaneously expanding the role of belief.  And I think this is a profoundly hopeful thing.

I’d say religion is far more nihilistic than atheism. Atheists believe that humans are enough, that our lives are worth something by themselves and that we have the power and freedom to invest value in ourselves and others. Religious people think humans are fundamentally small and weak and have no ability to invest in themselves and others without making up a Sky Fairy to pass out those judgments. It’s clear that the latter view—that humans are inconsequential without a make believe third party to render value onto us—is by far the more nihilistic.

A mystic believes that humans are all connected and priceless.  That it is our birthright and our nature to recognize our own divinity.  Notice I say recognize.  Because one of the many things all mystical traditions share is the realization that we are already divine.  We have just to realize it.

Christian Violence: You Have No Savior

Some good old fashioned Christian on Jew violence broke out recently.  Jamelle has the scoop:

In fact, for O’Reilly and his crew of flunkies, Christians – being the largest religious group in this country – should control the public discourse entirely.  And of course when someone doesn’t kowtow to Christians, it must mean that they hate them.

O’Reilly has been stirring this up for a while now, and it seems to have taken hold, as tribalist Christians are outraged whenever anyone says something other than Merry Christmas:

Ten people – eight men and two women – were arrested after the melee and charged with a slew of misdemeanors, including assault, menacing and inciting a riot.

What did these Christians do?

The three friends who suffered multiple bruises and cuts allegedly at the hands of Jirovec and his group have no doubts the attack was religiously motivated.

“They said, ‘You dirty Jews, you killed Jesus on Chanukah, you should all die,’” said Maria Parsheva, 23, a Baruch College student.

Pfffft.  Bah!  We killed your savior around Passover.  Get it right you goofy goys.

On the train, they said Jirovec, Babajko and their friends loudly yelled “Merry Christmas” – and became infuriated when Krischanovich responded, “Happy Chanukah.”

“[One woman said,] ‘You can’t say that, we are Catholic,’” said Krischanovich, a Hunter College student who is not Jewish. “That’s when two guys stood up and showed us their Jesus tattoos,” she said. “They started yelling at us and telling us we have no savior.”

They demanded the Jewish students validate their Christian ritual, and when they did not they reacted with violence.

I really like Jamelle’s use of the phrase Tribal Christians.  It is the perfect descriptor for a group of people who have clenched themselves around public faith as a matter of shared identity.

There is a bright side to this story though, the good Samaritan mentioned – Hassan Askari, a Muslim student – has gotten praise from around the city.  To quote one of the victims:

“That a random Muslim kid helped some Jewish kids, that’s what’s positive about New York.”

That is a bright side.  Because there is another shared identity that runs deep within the three Abrahamitic religions.  That of standing bravely in the face of persecution.  Now that is a shared identity I can identify with, and one we can all aspire to embody.

The Christian Mistake and the Golden Compass

I cannot get over the outcry against The Golden Compass.  Who cares if the movie promotes atheism.  Or if it critiques the Catholic Church.  Religion, all religion, ought to be wide open to criticism.  It is startling the realize how much this is not true in the current state of affairs.  It is by no means just Christianity.  I considered the Muhammad bear to largely be a smoke screen, but a quote from the article bothered me:

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he was appalled by the news. “This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense. There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith.”

And so what if there was?  Why can’t we insult and critique and push up against organized religion of any flavor?  Why are we so damned afraid of taking on the problems with religion?  It is clear why so many religious figures are terrified of open critique and rationality popping by for a visit.  It is always refreshing to see the exceptions, those who are secure enough in their beliefs to invite the critical and the skeptical in for tea.  But for the cowering censors I have no sympathy.

So it is with the Golden Compass.  There is censorship of Pullman’s works, and as podblack observes:

It is interesting to note that criticism of the Christian message in the Narnia series didn’t end up with atheists or other religions decrying the release of the films, the regular reprinting of the books, or even the earlier-released TV series (which I liked better than the film, by the way)

Why is atheism drawing such heat?  Why not books and movies that promote any religion other than Catholicism?  Why are movies promote Christianity fine, but those that promote atheism are not?  The hypocrisy doesn’t end there:

is it perhaps because these are distinctly children’s books?

I’d hope not, since pushing religion on children is a time honored tradition across every faith.  Heck, its even making inroads at your local public school.

In any case this is generating some serious opposition from Christian Groups (Huffington Post):

In early October, the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights launched a boycott of the film, calling it “selling atheism to kids” at Christmastime in stealth fashion.

For them the movie is a critique of their most dearly held beliefs, and they just want it all to go away:

But Miesel isn’t a believer in protests.

“That only gives it more publicity,” she said. “I merely suggest that if you look at what the material is about, you might find it advisable to stay home, go to another movie, or read a good book.”

And that’s the answer to a movie that challenges your faith:  Shut your eyes and ears and make believe.  At least people like Miesel have had plenty of practice.

Holding religion above critique, above alternatives, is contemptible.  To suggest authors of books and scripts need to avoid saying anything bad about religion is to call back to the days where blasphemy was a crime.  However history was meant to march forwards, not crawl backwards.  And atheism, reason, and freedom of expression are on the march.  Rather than boycott the film and hide under biblical covers, US Christians should embrace the challenge and use it to explore their own beliefs, and their relationship with organized religion.  Far more than a critique of religion, the His Dark Materials trilogy of Pullman is a critique of organized religion.  Specifically, of its tendency to quash independent and critical thought.  I wonder if any of his critics can see the irony of their objections.