Free speech vs… the state

I’ve talked about how religion steps on free speech to serve its own ends in society, but that’s not an entirely fair charge. It is not only religion that does this. As I mentioned a couple weeks back, sometimes a non-religious agency will do the same thing. It seems to be the nature of those in power to try and shut out any dissenting voices. The societies that are the most stable are those where honest disagreement is allowed, and that the excesses of the governing party can be exposed to the public. This serves the dual simultaneous purpose of forcing the leaders to be less corrupt, and of informing the populace so that corrupt leaders can be democratically removed.

Any time free speech is abrogated, you can pretty much guarantee that there’s some shady shit going down behind the scenes. It is for this reason that I am afraid of China:

A Surrey-based reporter says China’s Ministry of State Security is threatening his family, life and livelihood for his critical coverage of the Chinese government… some of [Tao Wang’s] reports have been critical of the Chinese government and its practices. NTDTV is one of the few networks with dissenting views that broadcasts in the Communist nation. He said the threatening phone calls began a month ago and have become increasingly harsh, escalating to the point of death threats.

Mr. Tao reports for the Falun Gong station NTDTV. For those of you who don’t know, Falun Gong is a pseudo-religious group in China that has been the subject of a targeted government crackdown. The Chinese government has identified practitioners as cult members whose activities undermine the social and economic progress of China. The idea of punishing someone for their beliefs should be immediately chilling to those of us in the secular movement, as it is precisely the same activity taken by theocratic fascist regimes against those who do not believe. Religious heterodoxy is a crime in China, which completely invalidates any claims it might make to being a progressive secular state.

So while I am not a fan of religion, I stand by my commitments that any country that wishes to model long-term secular values has to guarantee freedom of thought and expression to all people. We can neither favour nor be prejudiced against people based on their belief.

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Free speech vs… Islam

There’s much hooting and hollering happening in the United States right now about whether or not it should be considered a “Christian country.” The facts are, of course, arrayed in multitude that it is absolutely not founded on Christianity. Facts are, however, of limited use when you’re talking to the religious. There may be some confusion among the less faith-headed over why there is such opposition to the idea of a Christian country. After all, Christianity is a religion of peace, right? Religious values built this country, didn’t it? Why would anyone resist the idea of a religion-based country?

Somali militants who have seized a radio and TV station say it will now broadcast only Islamic messages. Hassan Dahir Aweys, who leads the Hizbul Islam group, said he wanted the broadcasts to serve Islam.

Muslim scholars and moderates maintain vehemently that Islam is a religion of peace too. Those who use violence in the name of Islam are said to be “not really following” the religion. The whole thing about religious belief is that there is no “true version” of it. History has shown us that fractions inevitably occur within a group that is, at least titularly, following the same doctrine. Within Christianity there’s a wide swath from Unitarian or Anglican churches, wherein most of the specific religious rules are ignored in favour of a fuzzy kind of belief, to the Westboro Baptist Church, which is ultra-conservative and strict. Neither one of these is the “right” version of Christianity – members of both churches consider themselves True Christians.

This is the same phenomenon happening in Somalia. Fuzzy moderate Muslims in Canada probably don’t recognize their beliefs reflected in the actions of these paramilitary thugs who would torture and beat journalists in the name of Islam. However, the thugs themselves probably don’t recognize any True Muslims who would tolerate blasphemy against Allah or Muhammad, or go to schools with people of other faiths. Both groups can mine the Qu’ran to find justification for their respective beliefs. It is clearly not to the benefit of the people in these societies:

Radio stations provide a vital source of information for residents of Mogadishu who, because of the ongoing violence, need to be constantly updated on which areas are unsafe. But in the face of ongoing attacks, it is virtually impossible for them to carry out their work.

It is for this reason that secular humanists like myself are immediately wary of anyone who wants special recognition for religion – any religion – enshrined by law. History has shown again and again that when religion gains worldly power, it takes away civil freedoms by degrees, all in the name of the betterment of society (by which it means the church). This ‘better society’, instead of being based on observable, agreed-upon, verifiable evidence (such as vaccination campaigns, public health care, welfare programs, pension programs, etc.) is based on fundamentally unprovable promises of effects that can only be seen after death. I might not like paying taxes, but I can see the benefits of social programs now, requiring no faith on my part.

Luckily, there appears to be some pushback against these actions:

Somali journalists have walked out of a radio station recently seized by Islamists in the capital, Mogadishu. The staff at GBC said they refused to take orders from Hizbul Islam militants… The journalists from GBC, which was popular for its broadcasts of international football matches, said they had been ordered to refer to the government as “apostate”. “We defied because we do not want to lose our impartiality,” one of the reporters said, asking not to be named for security reasons.

But I don’t expect these gunmen to be particularly happy about it, or to say “well that’s your right to do it.”

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Online anonymity battle continues

This is another one of those issues I haven’t made up my mind about. Last week I mentioned an effort to create an IP-masking technology for use in Iran (and presumably other countries that don’t allow their citizens free speech). In a country where blasphemy is a crime and people are imprisoned for political opposition, there is a need to protect people who have unpopular ideas from state punishment. However, on the other side of the argument, I’m a firm believer in people standing behind their ideas rather than making anonymous assaults on others and then retreating into cyberspace. Imagine how quickly hate speech would disappear if people knew who was making it.

That appears to be the same problem that Blizzard is grappling with:

But despite the large population, MMORPG players, more so than members of almost any online community, expect their identities to remain hidden, largely due to the social stigma attached to playing such games — but also for fear of real-world retribution for World of Warcraft -realm actions.

The actions the article refers to concern the fate of one Micah Whipple, a moderator on an online forum who, in support of company policy, dropped his anonymity online. Immediately personal details about him, including his home address and phone number, were mined from social networking sites and other open-source documents and posted online. This is illustrative of the vehemence with which the online community wishes to preserve its members’ individual freedoms.

While I can appreciate the intent of the company to reduce forum trolling:

I think my inclination tends to fall on the side of anonymity. While we do have free speech protections in this part of the world, that protects us from legal action and reprisal only. What it doesn’t protect is the identity of a teen who is reaching out to the LGBT community for guidance on how to come out to his parents. It doesn’t protect an atheist living in a Christian-dominated city, for whom an admission of non-belief would affect her job and community standing. It certainly doesn’t protect someone whose political opinions run contrary to those of their neighbours.

It may still be necessary to protect online anonymity, at least for now. Some technoprophets are predicting that anonymity will become a quaint affectation of yesteryear, like a woman identifying herself as Mrs. (Husband’s full name). What the Blizzard experiment has revealed is that while that time may in fact come, it’s not here yet.

Shitcock.

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“I believe that…”: when to ignore someone (pt. 2)

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about a couple of catch-phrases that immediately raise flags in my mind and allow me to ignore the rest of the argument. A line of reasoning that is based on any logical fallacy reminds me of one of my favourite Bible passages (yes, I have favourite Bible passages):

(Matthew 7:26-27) And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Of course, in the above passage, Matthew is talking about anyone who doesn’t follow the teachings of Jesus, but the parable is still useful in describing what happens to arguments that are built upon faulty premises. I recall a conversation with my father about the value of theology. His position was that it was a valid field of inquiry, based on logic and reasoning. I told him that when it is based on an assumption that is illogical and lacks evidence – assuming the truth of that which it wishes to prove – it is a masturbatory exercise only.

Such is any argument that starts with the phrase “I believe…”

I find this strategy pops up again and again when talking about religion, but also when talking about pseudoscience, alt-med nuttery, and basically any time you find someone on the left in a debate about anything. When put into a corner, the wheedling cry comes up as the preface to a long series of assertions. Of course, you can’t attack those assertions, because it’s what that person believes. They don’t need proof!

I am reminded of a “debate” I saw between the Australian skeptic atheist who goes by the online alias Thunderf00t and Creationist Bobo-doll Ray Comfort (for those of you who don’t know, this is a Bobo doll). Comfort is a master of typical creationist tactics. First, he unleashes a barrage of terrible arguments that have been refuted a thousand times before (the refutations of which he’s also heard a thousand times before). When the patient skeptic opposite him tries to take one of them on, Comfort backpedals into arguments from incredulity (based on an intentional misunderstanding of science, particularly biology – “do you really think that humans could evolve from frogs?”), which eventually turns into a reducto ad mysteria, where he asks for the answer to a question that nobody has solved:

When the skeptic opponent answers honestly that we, as a species, have not yet discovered the answer to how life started, or what existed before the Big Bang, Comfort then asserts smugly “well I know the answer.” The answer, by the way, is always Jesus.

The problem with a statement like that, aside from its complete and utter vacuousness, is that it’s false. Ray Comfort doesn’t know how the universe began. He has a belief that is based on a particular interpretation of a particular version of history from a particular tribe in a particular region of the world. To know something means to have evidence of that thing’s truth. Ray Comfort doesn’t have any evidence of anything, just his half-baked belief system (I say half-baked because he clearly doesn’t even understand the scriptures he quotes from).

I recall another conversation with my father (he comes up a lot in topics like these, as he has studied theology) wherein I was trying to explain to him that simply believing something does not grant it some kind of legitimacy, and that it was necessary to test beliefs with the scientific method. People are capable of believing a great many things, many of which are untrue. His response was that science isn’t the only way to know something.

I was too stunned to respond. What I should have said is that while science might not be the only way to know something, it was definitely the only way to find out if it was true or not. Theology (the subject we were debating) is built upon the premise that a deity exists, and then uses (and misuses) the rules of formal logic to work out “proofs” of its position. The problem with this kind of internally-valid “reasoning” is that there is no basis for establishing whether the premises are true. For example:

1. X exists
2. If X exists, it has properties of A, B, …, Z
3. Therefore, X has properties of A, B, …, Z

The problem with this argument is that we have no reason to trust the truth of Statement 1. Statement 2 might be entirely reasonable. It may necessarily follow that if God exists then He has the properties of omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence (it emphatically doesn’t, and the prospects are mutually exclusive, but whatever let’s just pretend), but that is not proof that such a being exists in the first place. It is not sufficient to assume the existence of that which you are trying to prove, however convenient it may be. You have to find a way to demonstrate it through observation – this is the scientific method.

Getting back to the original topic of this discussion, when someone says “I believe that Y is true”, or in Ray Comfort’s case when he simply asserts that he “knows” that Y is true, based on the assumption of the truth of X, they haven’t given the listener any useful information. All they’ve done is state a personal prejudice. Without the ability to point at some body of evidence and say “I draw my conclusion of Y from this collection of facts”, it’s about as useful as saying “Neapolitan ice cream is better than pistachio.” My usual response to such statements is to say “that’s nice that you believe that. So what?”

Needless to say, I don’t have a lot of second dates 😛

Obama draws fire over ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ (what a stupid name)

I am re-posting this, a post that I wrote about a month ago and posted on Canadian Atheist. Because I am rather proud of it, I’m cross-posting it here for posterity.

I’ve read some depressingly stupid responses to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque“. One came from leading skeptic and atheist Sam Harris:

But the margin between what is legal and what is desirable, or even decent, leaves room for many projects that well-intentioned people might still find offensive. If you can raise the requisite $100 million, you might also build a shrine to Satan on this spot, complete with the names of all the non-believing victims of 9/11 destined to suffer for eternity in Hell.

Nice, Sam. Very nice.

Also flogging the “desirable and decent” horse is Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid:

Spokesman Jim Manley said in a statement that the senator respected that “the First Amendment protects freedom of religion”, but still thought the mosque, planned for a site about two blocks away from the former World Trade Center, should be built in a different location.

Way to stand up for Democratic principles, Harry.

And yet, surrounded by the raging storm of stupid, President Barack Obama has stood up and said that the construction should be allowed to go ahead:

At a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan on Friday, Mr Obama vigorously defended the developers’ right to put the mosque there “in accordance with local laws and ordinances”. Muslims “have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country”, the president said.

As far as his personal feelings on the “desirable and decent” pseudo-argument, President Obama declined to comment, which is his right. His statement, however, reasserted the principles of freedom of religion, tolerance and secular authority that the United States was built on.

That’s really not going to help his poll numbers:

Some 18% said the president was a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009, according to the Pew Research survey of 3,003 Americans. Among Republicans, that number was 34%. Just a third of those quizzed correctly identified Mr Obama as Christian.

Republican critics have accused the President of being out of step with mainstream Americans. If “mainstream Americans” are this stupid and have memories this short (Rev. Wright? Remember that guy?), I’d prefer to be out of step with them. “Mainstream Americans” are in dire need of a civics lesson. So, to help our knowledge-impoverished neighbours to the south (including Sam Harris, apparently), I’ll remind you of three important facts.

1. The “Ground Zero Mosque” is not at Ground Zero

The proposed Cordoba Centre is being built 4 blocks away from the site of the World Trade Centre remains. It is being built in an abandoned coat factory. Opponents of the building have not provided a proposal for how far away it is okay to built a mosque, nor have they provided some rationale for why such a distance is more acceptable than 4 blocks.

2. The “Ground Zero Mosque” is not a mosque

The Cordoba Centre is being built as a Muslim community centre. It does contain a prayer room (which should surprise exactly nobody, since prayer is a part of Muslim life), but it also contains a basketball court, a gym, a book store, and a culinary school. There is a giant Jewish community centre of the same type sitting at the corner of Bloor st. and St. George in Toronto. I’ve been in there, and I’m pretty sure everybody knew I wasn’t Jewish. It’s a community centre, not a synagogue. The proposed Cordoba Centre is exactly the same thing.

3. There’s already a “Ground Zero” mosque

Apparently there’s some confusion about what was there first – the Muslims or the terror. There’s been a mosque (Masjid Manhattan) 2 blocks from the World Trade Centre site since before there was a World Trade Centre. Muslims have been part of the population of Manhattan since far before these critics knew what Islam was.

Now that we know how intellectually bankrupt the arguments against being allowed to construct a mosque in that “holy site” are, let’s look at this risible “desirable and decent” argument of Sam Harris. Sam, you’re an atheist, right? A pretty vocal one, if I remember correctly. You know who might not find your beliefs, or your out-spoken defence and promotion of them, “desirable and decent”? Millions of Christian Americans. That’s right Sam, by your own argument, you should be keeping your damn mouth shut.

I’m not sure how much I want to explore the stupidity of the conservative critics:

“It’s unwise to build a mosque at the site where 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of a terrorist attack,” Senator John Cornyn of Texas said on Sunday on Fox News.

This is about as sterotypical as Islamophobia gets. Senator Corwyn is asking us to complete the following logic assignment:

A. Terrorists blew up the World Trade Centre
B. ???
C. Muslims pray at mosques.

Therefore, we shouldn’t have mosques near the World Trade Centre

The solution to that little logic problem up there, incidentally is B: All Muslims are terrorists. I doubt anybody reading this needs me to explain why the proposition is not only offensive, but incorrect.

The main crux of Sam’s piece is that Islam is not merely just another peaceful religion with a few deluded followers – that it, more than Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism or Sikhism (or any number of other -isms) promotes violence and the subjugation of women. I’m not sure I disagree with Sam on this one. In its current incarnation, Islam worldwide is a consistent force for evil (see Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, the Maldives, for evidence of this). I wonder if Sam knows that there is a surefire method to blunt a religion’s influence – secularize it. If Muslims feel cut off from secular America (if you, for example, protest when they try to build a community centre), they will band together under the banner of their religion. This means that the moderate elements are going to feel strong solidarity with the radical elements. No Sam, the answer is to make them feel welcome as possible, and start sending your kids to play basketball and cook with Muslim kids.  It’s harder to draw barriers around yourself when there are people who don’t share your religious beliefs eating at your table or slam-dunking for your team.

Finally, there’s a major flaw in the argument that I haven’t really heard discussed. Even if the mosque was at ground zero. Even if the mosque was a mosque. Even if there was no other mosque there, this thing would still be a good idea. One of the reasons the United States is reviled by the Muslim world is that it is built on the idea that all people are free to believe what they want. In Muslim countries, it is illegal to convert from Islam. Some even require you by law to be a Muslim. They enforce laws that are based on Muslim scripture that supersede secular law. The idea of a place where Muslims aren’t special, where Allah is not even recognized in passing, is offensive to these dictatorial assholes. Putting up a Muslim centre at the site of a terrorist attack sponsored by the Muslim world is essentially a big “fuck you” to those same assholes. It says essentially that not only are we not going to allow your attacks to change our way of life, we’re going to go out of our way to promote those same ideas you find repulsive, and we’re going to use your religion to do it.

This “controversy” is nothing but appeals to what is least-informed and most bigoted in our society, and has no place being defended by thinking people. I’m disappointed in you, Sam.

TL/DR: Sam Harris is kind of a dick, the “Ground Zero Mosque” is neither of those things, and even if it was we should build it anyway.

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Movie Friday: Hardcore Pornography!

Since their first album Mass Romantic dropped almost 10 years ago, I have been a fan of The New Pornographers. They’re an amazing and unique-sounding band that uses unusual combinations of instrumentation and composition to create a musical motif that is not easily classified. Their use of several songwriters and lead singers is something that I’ve co-opted into my own band, which fans seem to enjoy a lot.

(Incidentally, pause it at 3:12 – those of you in Vancouver will probably recognize where this video was shot)

There’s a second reason why I thought I would highlight this particular band today (besides the fact that they’re amazing). Just like the Bare Naked Ladies had to deal with back in the 90s, some puritanical morons in the United States have canceled a performance by the band because of their spikiness over the name:

A Christian college in Grand Rapids, Mich., has cancelled a scheduled concert by Canadian indie band The New Pornographers because of the band’s name. The Vancouver-based band’s website announced the cancellation Wednesday. Calvin College rescinded an invitation to the band to play on Oct. 15 after weeks of discussion, the college said in a statement. The statement said the college found it difficult to explain the band’s name.

Yes, God forbid (pun intended) that anyone mistake the venerable name of Calvin College with anything so revolting as pornography. No, they’d much rather be associated with:

  • Rampant anti-Semitism;
  • Original sin (a disgusting doctrine which preaches that a mythical ancestor ate an apple, and as a result you are doomed to an eternity of torture);
  • Censorship of musical expression (shock! surprise!)
  • Southern Baptist churches (hi Fred!)
  • And of course, Puritanism

Just so long as nobody thinks they’re cool with pictures of nekkid ladies. I felt today’s video was particularly appropriate.

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