I just had a lively few minutes of being spammed by Be Scofield on Twitter. He’s written another article, and wants people to read it. Telling me it was about Atheism+ and interfaith didn’t do the trick, so then he told me he’d mentioned me in it so I might want to read it. Transparent, but effective – ohhhhhhhhhh all right, I’ll go see how you’ve dissed me this time. Fortunately it took only a few seconds to read, and I just said meh (in effect). Disappointing, so he tried telling PZ that he needed to stop doing what he was doing for the good of the whatever. Then he said he wasn’t telling us what to do. Good fun. I looked at his feed; he spammed the article to lots of people – Jessica Ahlquist for one. What’s Jessica done to deserve that?! Nothing.
Back to serious biz. Turkey has put yet another valuable person on trial for “insulting Islam.” How? Climbing to the top of a minaret and shouting “Islam sucks!!” through the loudspeaker? No. Tweeting.
World-famous Turkish pianist Fazil Say has appeared in court in Istanbul charged with inciting hatred and insulting the values of Muslims.
He is being prosecuted over tweets he wrote mocking radical Muslims, in a case which has rekindled concern about religious influence in the country.
But Turkey is supposed to be “moderate” Islamism. Surely “moderate” Islamism doesn’t want to say that radical Muslims are identical to Islam. Surely it doesn’t want to say that mocking radical Muslims is insulting Islam, just like that – does it? Well apparently it does, but has it thought it through?
Prosecutors brought the charges against Mr Say in June. He faces a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison although correspondents say any sentence is likely to be suspended.
The indictment against him cites some of his tweets from April, including one where he says: “I am not sure if you have also realised it, but if there’s a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, a thief or a fool, it’s always an Islamist.”
Dozens of the pianist’s supporters gathered outside the courthouse with banners, one of which called on the ruling Islamist-based AK Party to “leave the artists alone”.
Mr Say has played with the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and others, and has served as a cultural ambassador for the EU.
Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister in charge of relations with the EU, suggested the case against him should be dismissed, saying the court should regard his tweets as being within “his right to babble”.
However, Mr Bagis also criticised the pianist for “insulting people’s faith and values”.
That’s stupid. Bad values are bad, and should be insulted.
None of this has anything to do with the substance of the article that I wrote. It’s strange that you’d take the time to write about my article but then not actually illustrate what you disagree with. The fact that you focus on silly twitter comments and not the arguments raised says a lot. In terms of spreading the word about the article – yes, I’m guilty of sending it out to folks 🙂 I post all of my articles to FB groups, tweet them to people, send them to listservs, email them to friends…etc. Guilty as charged.
I’d love to hear a substantive argument about what you disagree with in my article so we can focus on the real issues at hand. You can tweet it to me. I won’t think you are spamming 🙂
Be Scofield #1
If you want people to read your article you might consider giving a link to it.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/be-scofield/why-atheism-plus-should-lead-to-interfaith-dialogue_b_1975193.html
Be, really. Your opinion piece was devoid of content. You name-checked a few atheists, got a lot of things wrong about them, then waved a big red flag saying, “Look at me!” over and over. What substance could Ophelia possibly write about regarding your piece if there wasn’t any there to begin with?
I read the article. Shorter Be Scofield: “I don’t understand the goals of Atheism+, possibly willfully. But I am a scold.”
Yawn.
It’s always the good ones, the lively ones. The artists. Writers, playwrights, musicians, into the earth with them. Or into the cells, anyway…
I get to thinking we should set up some sorta Lysistrata-type thing. Except, appropriately, with art. As in, what, you don’t want artists tweeting?
Fine, then. No art for asshole Islamists, then, nor for anyone who tries to shush their critics. No music, no pictures, no nothing. Silence, empty bookcases and blank walls. Just like you always wanted.
… except, let’s face it, they might not even miss it. As they do so continually insist they only want to read the one book anyway.
And half the time it’s not even in a language they actually, y’know, read… Not, granted, perhaps the kind of people this is necessarily going to get to, so much.
Still, maybe worth a shot. You want a monoculture of ancient, unchanging ideas? Fine, then. No fiction. No books for you. No music, no films. Nothing imagined after the sixth century, at least. As how could we be sure the prophet would have liked it? He couldn’t have said so. Nothing in the hadith, here, about it. Best we not risk polluting your pristine, empty mind with it, I guess.
(/Oh. And hey. Scofield, dude. Whoever the hell you think you are, this isn’t about you either.)
Okay, I’ve read the article. I don’t think Be has spent much time thinking about the name of Atheism+. He notices the social justice aspects but is trying to shrug off the “atheism” part of “Atheism+.” What I see is a rather lame attempt to detach the + from the Atheism.
We can see how much social justice means to the religious in the Vatican’s threats to American nuns for paying too much attention to social justice and not enough to homophobia and forced-births. That’s just one example of how churches react to social justice.
@Be,
I followed your link, but only made it as far as:
That’s a really…err, interesting characterisation of the short history of A+.
First of all “the aggressive rhetoric usually reserved for religion”? This is the trick theists so often try to pull. Refusal to give the deference they think is due to their barmy ideas is not, in and of itself, aggressive. The vast majority of Atheist/New Atheist writing, speaking and activism challenges the religious world view through reasoned argument and debate. It would be a stretch even to call it impolite.
Secondly, I’ve not followed A+ particularly closely, but it seems to me those atheists opposed to it have been far more “aggressive” than its proponents. They haven’t simply “raised critical questions” (BTW, what does that mean? Are these rhetorical questions which criticise, or vitally important questions which must be answered?). They have rained down quite disproportionate levels of abuse and opprobrium.
I’m sorry, but those two sentences are so misleading I could go no further. Does your portrayal of reality or clarity of language improve later in the piece?
Be – it wasn’t meant to be about the substance of your article. Surely that’s obvious. It was meant to be about what it was about: your rather shameless spamming to promote your own article, and your follow-up tactics to 1. push us to read it and 2. tell us what to do.
I don’t think there was very much substance, and I’m not interested in it enough to discuss it, and I also don’t feel like encouraging your ways of promoting it.
Turkey used to be a good deal less Islamist than it was. The news articles I’ve been reading suggest that secularism abd moderate Islam are on the decline there in favor of more hard-line variants, though said articles haven’t had much to say about why, and I haven’t had the opportunity to delve deeper myself.
Be Scofield:
Your prime example of interfaith dialogue is Sikivu Hutchinson.
Yet this interfaith dialogue is not between atheists and theists. It’s between secularists and theists. I’m sure you know that atheism≠secularism. How does an atheist organization work with a religious organization to advance social justice if many within the former group see religion as contributing to the very problems they’re supposed to be coming together to combat?
AsqJames:
Be Scofield does list a few of the questions he’s thinks are critical:
Of course, I think the answers have already been provided (the movement was already split, which has a lot to do with why A+ is necessary; attacking social justice issues is part of attacking religion, since belief in a higher power is often used as justification for oppression; if it’s social justice, it fits in A+), so I don’t believe the questions are all that critical.
Scofield can safely be filed next to Loftus in one’s “Irrelevance File.”
“Climbing to the top of a minaret and shouting “Islam sucks!!” through the loudspeaker?”
I nearly spat my coffee at that one! LOL!
Someone really should do that. Preferably a woman in the nude.
@Bo:
“I’m merely pointing out that the growing Atheism+ movement has much more in common with the liberal, progressive and prophetic religious traditions that it’d like to admit (perhaps now even more in common than with regular atheists).”
Bo, all this shows is that religion is not necessary for social justice, a realm which has been jealously monopolised by religion for far too long.
Be. Begone.
Keep going, Turkey. You’re half way to rolling back everything Atatürk did for you.
Hmm I’ve not read Sikivus book yet but it seems Be is contrasting her style dealing with religiosity in black communities and PZ, Jen and Ophelias approach. He sees differences that are relevant to his mind, obviously there will be differences as PZ, Jen and Ophelia etc are speaking from a privileged position and are not working in those communities directly! I assume as long as you are aware of the privilege and don’t presume to ‘speak for’ those communities then there is no problem. I don’t see Ophelia, Jen or PZ doing that. This article on this network is a good one on this subject and I’d say the white privileged atheists on this network are aware of the issues Diane raises –
http://freethoughtblogs.com/blackskeptics/2012/10/10/next-wave-atheist-leaders-and-white-privilege/
Be – Your article is cosy enough but goes beyond accommodationism to calling for active collaboration with religious organisations by atheists.
Atheism+’s destiny is not to help “moderate” religion continue and gain influence over those who would otherwise be free of it.
I know that when all you’ve got is religion everything looks like a nail, but “interfaith” is to religion what “inter-departmental” is to the self-employed…
Well that was fail. s/religion/atheism/ in that last sentence.
It gets everywhere…
To be fair, this tweet was false as well as insulting. There are plenty of louses, non-entities, lowlifes, thieves and fools who are Christianists. Or other religions. Or atheists. Or blogwhoring accomodationists, for that matter.
Yes, it says Ophelia thinks people getting prosecuted for religious speech on twitter is more important than your opinion on the A+ movement. That, IMO, is perfectly rational. Someone else’s potential prosecution for religious speech IS more important than your opinion on A+.
Your response (especially the ‘silly’ adjective) says that you think the fact that you don’t get A+ is more important to discuss than people getting prosecuted for their religious tweets. Which (IMO) is incredibly narcissistic on your part.
A very honest and brave article by a Muslim, well worth a read: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/09/21/comment/columns/holy-war/
And this, from that article:
Not much to add to that really.
Re #23/Shahid:
That man is on a tear.
A beautiful, beautiful tear.
AJ, there aren’t many believers who deserve to be called heroes, but he’s surely one, as Ignorant Amos pointed out on RD.net the other day. Another is little Malala; which reminds me-
http://www.avaaz.org/en/malalahopenew/?bSeZeab&v=18774
A petition to the Pakistani government to get them off their arses and ensure safe education for girls.
Not sure if this is a translation from Turkish, but the word “Islamist” might be interpreted more broadly than Fazil Say intended. Not that this ought to matter, since Twitter includes “the right to babble.” But it does sound more like insulting people than insulting a “religion.” Not that this ought to matter either, since he is apparently charged with blasphemy, not bigotry.
@Be:
You misunderstand. A+ is a branch of New Atheism. One of the goals of New Atheism is to help decouple both a person’s “identity” and the positive secular aspects of religion from the popular concept of “religion,” focusing instead on what really makes religion unique: its supernatural aspects. For the term “religion,” then, substitute “pseudoscience.” See what happens to your argument.