This is the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve website — it looks exactly like the kind of organization I would support, a community effort to protect a local wildlife area. They lobby, they educate, they offer opportunities to hike and experience nature.
One problem: it’s in Florida. That seems to mean the organization is infected with stupidity and cowardice.
As part of their educational mission, they were going to have a speaker come in next last Febrary, Dr Lorena Madrigal of the University of South Florida. She studies genetics and human evolution, and was going to speak on 12 February, Darwin Day. To the Pinellas County bureaucrats, this is a problem.
“Biology without evolution is not biology,” she suggested, which obviously explains, at least in the mind of William Davis, the Pinellas County director of environmental services, why the professor’s speech would be problematic.
“Her topic was about evolution,” Davis said. Well, yeaaaaaah! “I flinched on that.”
“I canceled her out after discussing it with my supervisors,” he said. “We are not the platform for debate on creationism versus evolution.”
Right. Talking about evolution might annoy the creationists, so the county’s response is to shut down and silence efforts to educate and inform by an environmental institution which relies on evolutionary biology to perform its mission. This is a perfect example of how creationists work to keep people ignorant, and create an environment free of legitimate information about a subject that contradicts their absurd literalist beliefs.
Sigh…
Pinellas county. Home sweet home.
Villains come in all shapes and sizes. Amongst the worst are those poltroons who permit villainy out of fear, inertia or inaction, for they are the enablers.
I know how you feel, Jared.
Maybe a Chattaburger would cheer you up? (If you’re on the south side.)
Ooh! Expelled!!
PZ — I think you have your timeframe out of whack. Madrigal isn’t scheduled for next Feb., according to the article. Rather, she was scheduled for this past Feb. The article states:
“However, a week before she was to speak, Madrigal was given the bum’s rush by Pinellas County officials, who canceled her appearance.”
We (Florida Citizens for Science) were told that some folks only recently found out about this and worked hard to get some public exposure, eventually landing this article. Notice that the event was in Feb. and it is now May. It had been swept under the rug for a few months. Imagine that!
How much of Florida’s problem is demographic, specifically, generational? Do they have a higher concentration of people who are from those older generations which are more socially conservative? (I’m sure there are other reasons besides age, but for now I’m interested in this aspect.)
In the next few decades, if Boomers and Gen X and the Millennials move to Florida to retire, will these later generations (who are overall less socially conservative and better educated than the Silent and GI generations) even out the (apparent) reactionary, anti-intellectual tendency among seniors in that state? They need more James Randi’s; maybe they’ll get them.
I just sent this email to them:
To the board of directors of Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve:
I recently read of your decision to revoke the invitation of Dr Lorena Madrigal to speak at your event on the subject of biology. The decision to disinvite her because of a perceived conflict between evolution and creationism is, at best, disappointing. The FACT of the matter is, evolution is a scientific fact, and Dr. Madrigal was invited to speak about science. The decision of Mr. William Davis was cowardly and gives more ammunition to creationists to continue their attacks on science, furthering America’s deterioration in the world community. I sincerely hope you forward my letter to Mr. Davis, because he should at the very least apologize to Dr. Madrigal, and at best resign from his position in favor of someone who doesn’t need to bow to perceived controversy.
Anyone else? info@friendsofbrookercreekpreserve.org
And yet, of course, it’s the fundies who are persecuted and silenced. The fact that they have a chokehold on the public discourse notwithstanding…
Dopey bastards.
And this is what it’s come to: After working at it for years, the OTHER dopey bastards, the creationist crowd, have created in this man’s mind the illusion that there’s a dangerous controversy.
Either that or Davis is himself an anti-science fundie, and wants to do everything he can to see that evolution isn’t taught in any domain over which he has control.
(Either way, he comes across as a bit of a coward.)
Here we are watching the news every night, thinking the fundamentalist Islamics are a grave danger to the world, and we fail to notice how much danger we face right here at home from the fundamentalist Christians.
So it’s just fear that the cre_ti_nists might be annoyed? This is a scandal of incredible proportions.
#6: I could only hope. Really though it seems like year after year you guys send us the anti-intellectuals of your states to keep the quota up. We also get a constant influx of foreign hispanic persons, who are generally catholic and generally ‘blue collar,’ at least in my area (Not including work, obviously NASA is loaded with brilliant minds of all ethnicities). Most seem to be apathetic to the debate at best.
Mostly though it’s just an all around “conservative” state, and by that I mean “right-wing-whack-a-mole,” since I believe in conserving the constitution yet don’t get along with that group at all. It’s the children and grandchildren of wingnuts, and while I have no doubt the zeitgeist will shift with the younger generation, it isn’t happening very quickly. And the status quo is doing its best to indoctrinate the next gen before they have their own opinion on the matter.
Whilst this decision is disappointing I don’t think you can blame the organisers. They are, if I understand correctly, all about preserving local wildlife and wildlife sites. Pissing off a large, ignorant, chunk of the local demographic who might otherwse support their goals just isn’t their fight and they shouldn’t have to be the ones to suffer loss to fight it.
Sad as it seems this was, due to the current anti-evo climate, probably a good call on their part looking at their aims.
This is both despicable and also just a bit funny. That the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve would be so concerned about the possibility for discussion is ludicrous. But still more absurd is the probably reasonable conclusion Hut allowing someone to speak on evolution might cost them the monetary arid political support they need to preserve Brooker Creek.
Science is controversial, so we can’t discuss real science in our schools. Sigh. We’d be the laughing stock of the world if they weren’t so frightened of us.
Sorry to crash this thread but has anyone here read Stein’s latest nonsense. Read his interview at Christianity Today
http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/benstein.html
The short version – he’s a fucking lunatic.
I lived in Florida for a year. A huge swath of the state is as backward as any redneck, good-old-boy Mississippi/Alabama/Georgia county you could imagine. They’re not going to die out any time soon. They’re not going to see the light anytime soon. They are as ignorant and back-woods as it gets.
Over-time, much of the problem will go away. Just like it has in many other states. But it’s a process of gradual illumination and Florida was a deep, dark cave.
Now, the cities, are much better. I’ll grant you that. But the rural areas…
Amongst the worst are those poltroons who permit villainy out of fear, inertia or inaction, for they are the enablers.
Another brave Internet warrior. Words are easy. And, seriously, villainy? Idiocy, perhaps, but villainy? What are you, twelve years old? Just got back from a Comic-Con?
#15 Holy f*cking sh*t:
“Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution.”
-Ben Stein
Hey, on a slightly unrelated note, if you want to help me engage in a fun debate with an ID creationist, go here:
http://thenma.org/blogs/index.php/meyer/2008/05/06/ben_stein_s_dangerous_idea
I’m a bit confused — it sounded like the Friends of Brooker Creek was an independent group, but then a government official cancels one of their speakers? How does that work?
Time to register a religion that actually does follow that thing called “Darwinism”, then you can scream “religious bigotry” when members are prevented from speaking about their views.
Moses, it’s a shame we don’t have time. I just read “Under a Green Sky” and it seems we’ll be S.O.L. a lot sooner than the tards will die out.
#21: the creos would just swing a double standard club without batting an eye. One of the few things that can happen faster than the speed of thought is the lack of thought altogether.
Stein has typecast himself for all time. As a extremist, Xian cultist lunatic.
Oddly enough, many scientists are Jewish. They are overrepresented among Nobel prize winners. A lot of science is done in Israel as a matter of economic development and sheer survival.
The ADL has already tossed their oar in the water and weren’t impressed.
This putz is county director of environmental services?
In most places that requires, if not much knowledge of science, at least a healthy respect for it. I’m guessing this jackass has a job because somebody with deep pockets wants to do something to the air, water and/or dirt in Pinellas County that would gag a maggot.
#15 “Did you do a lot of reading to prep for the role?
Stein: Some. I read one book cover to cover . . .” Wow, he went to a lot of trouble. I respect him now.
You missed out political correctness. There are a large number of contributers round here who give Islam an easy ride for that reason (unless it’s fear from your list, for which I’d have more sympathy).
Peter
“Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution.”
I suppose he doesn’t also go on to mention the fact that when you’re a scientist (or anybody else) who winds up working for a homicidal maniac, you tell them anything at all they want to hear, because the alternative is usually a bullet to the back of the head in the middle of the night…
And note to Ben Stein: “Middle-class peasant” is an oxymoron. You claim to be a professional writer and you are that sloppy? (Are there any right-wingers at all left who can actually write?!)
Thanks Mikey. I loved this little bit:
What more can anyone say? It’s like having one’s brains bashed in by a morphine coated brick.
You missed out political correctness.
“Political correctness”–that’s the expression people use when they want to bash liberals for the sake of liberal bashing and have neither facts nor logic to support themselves.
You mean, uh, the biologist was going to speak in favor of biology, which is virtually non-existent without its primary theory, evolution?
Good thing they stopped that. You never know what might happen if science were to inform conservation.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Molly #30
there’s of course only one fact that can support the bashing: that the liberals are not even-handed in the application of their principles.
You think you are?
Peter
“I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler, and that was a very interesting book–one of these rare books I wish had been even longer.”
I found the latter part of the quote to be quite telling. Sounds to me like Stein doesn’t really care much for reading. I’d really like to see what he had written on his wrist during Win Ben Stein’s Money. He had to be cheating.
Molly #30
there’s of course only one fact that can support the bashing: that the liberals are not even-handed in the application of their principles.
You think you are?
Peter
Re #27 You missed out political correctness. – Peter
Possibly because the term is just an all-purpose rightist sneer, often deployed by bigots who regard objections to their bigotry as persecution.
There are a large number of contributers round here who give Islam an easy ride for that reason
You need to learn to distinguish between giving a belief system an easy ride, and defending its adherents from bigots. Islam is a false, absurd, and in many ways highly unpleasant and dangerous belief system, even worse in some ways than the other Abrahamic religions; but the majority of Muslims, like the majority of the followers of those other religions, behave much better than the beliefs they profess to hold would lead one to expect.
Re #27 You missed out political correctness. – Peter
Possibly because the term is just an all-purpose rightist sneer, often deployed by bigots who regard objections to their bigotry as persecution.
There are a large number of contributers round here who give Islam an easy ride for that reason
You need to learn to distinguish between giving a belief system an easy ride, and defending its adherents from bigots. Islam is a false, absurd, and in many ways highly unpleasant and dangerous belief system, even worse in some ways than the other Abrahamic religions; but the majority of Muslims, like the majority of the followers of those other religions, behave much better than the beliefs they profess to hold would lead one to expect.
Peter@27:
Political correctness in Pinellas County apparently means the suppression of science.
That’s why I said “Islam” and not “Muslims”.
But one can’t help noticing that the fine distinction is not drawn round here in the case of Christianity/Christians.
Peter
In states where they don’t have a clear majority, fundies/creationists/ID’ers claim to want to “teach the controversy”. Of course, in areas like the deep South, where they run the show, it’s another story altogether.
This is why I see fundamentalism as a form of addiction. The symptoms are precisely the same, the most prominent one being denial.
Hey, give Pinellas County a break: they’re already menaced by the dark hordes of mighty wizards amassing directly to the north in Pasco County, as well as the anonymous minions of Lord Xenu targeting Clearwater on their southern flank.
OK Peter, let’s see your evidence for there being “a large number of contributors round here who give Islam an easy ride”. Time to put up or shut up. Oh, and make sure you have sufficient evidence that there indeed are “a large number”. Given the number of contributors here, that must mean double figures at the very least.
Pretty sure Prof. Madrigal was not going to mention creationism in her EVOLUTION lecture…so what f-ing debate is Davis talking about?
CL
http://www.coulterlewkowitz.com/
“I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler, and that was a very interesting book–one of these rare books I wish had been even longer.”
I found the latter part of the quote to be quite telling. Sounds to me like Stein doesn’t really care much for reading. I’d really like to see what he had written on his wrist during Win Ben Stein’s Money. He had to be cheating.
Not really, although it sounds a bit clumsy in English.
You know what Ben Stein needs, next he starts going on about how evil scientists are?
You know what Ben Stein needs, next he starts going on about how evil scientists are?
There’s plenty of Islam-bashing here when something crops up that merits bashing (you know, like those “honor-killing” stories, those “jail the English teacher for allowing her kids to name a teddy ‘Mohammed'” stories, those “I married an 8 year old” stories), but for the simple reason that here in the USA there are many stories about certain Christians – sometimes very high-profile Christains, like Presidents and Presidential candidates – trying to do things such as:
they tend to take up more space here on the blog. There aren’t many creationist Muslims trying to push “academic freedom” bills through state legislatures or to get elected to local school boards.
The allegedly delusional aspects of Christianity also get more space here than do the equivalent aspects of Islam, for a similar reason: fundamentalist Christianity is up in the face of western atheists to a far greater degree.
That’s how it appear to me, anyway, and I hope that clarifies things a little, or at least provides some food for thought. Perhaps Peter’s talking about something completely different, though, such as the universal support al-Qaeda receives from anyone who didn’t vote for George Bush.
As others have noted, I find the irony that they want to “teach the controversy” but only if said controversy allows adding ID, not if it allows discussion of actual evolution.
This was my response as well. What does he mean about a “debate on evolution vs creationism”?
This is no debate, it is a lecture on ecology by a biologist.
We comment on the society we’re immersed in; we would do the same to Islam if we lived in a Muslim country. I don’t think it’s hard to grasp. Iran does not spend much time discussing Britney Spears, but here in America we do.
Dennis = shorter Me
:-D
Somewhat OT, but here goes:
KPFT Pacifica Radio in Houston presents:
Part 1 in the exploration of the nexus between elite Ivy League inbred upper-classes, and the toothless pinkBoy knee-jockey trailer-trash godsucking cousin-fucking dinosaur-riding creationist underclasses.
Movie Review: Ben Stein’s EXPELLED: No Intelligence Required
or download from:
innerSide Radio
Podcast
Pat Condell, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Non Prophets Radio, Thunderfoot, Ben Stein, Pat Robertson, and Bill Deny: the Creation Science Guy
30 minutes
-s
Haha, yeah I’ve just been worn out from dealing with the same arguments over and over, and I can see them coming a mile away. I don’t have your patience to explain a lot.
Nick Gotts #42
You know as well as I do that the easy ride is mostly by default: Islam just doesn’t come in for anything like the same flak as Christianity: it’s almost never mentioned.
I know people are going to say that’s because it’s not the predominant religion, but in Europe with the decline of the established churches, it’s slowly becoming, if not the only, at least a big show in town. I don’t mind admitting, that fills me with foreboding: Is there any predominantly Muslim country where non-Muslims don’t suffer prejudice compared to Muslims?
Liberals are refusing to face up to this, and are in the words above are “enablers”. If cowering behind the word “bigotry” is not political correctness, the other words which occur to me are far worse.
Peter
You know as well as I do that the easy ride is mostly by default: Islam just doesn’t come in for anything like the same flak as Christianity: it’s almost never mentioned.
Peter, you made a very specific allegation, which you have failed to support, because you can’t. You are a liar as well as a bigot. And I am not “cowering” behind anything. I use my full name here, coupled with describing Islam as “a false, absurd, and in many ways highly unpleasant and dangerous belief system, even worse in some ways than the other Abrahamic religions”.
Correlation does not equal causation.
Is there any predominantly Christian country where non-Christians don’t suffer prejudice compared to Christians? Like atheists in America or Muslims in Europe?
Where’s Carl Hiaasen when you need him?
I think Scientists were the people in Kampuchea telling Pol Pot that it was a good idea to kill all the scientists.
Overton window 101, Ben Stein and Pinellas county :
Ben Stein : deliver rethoric which is seen as extreme, unthinkable, unacceptable
eg : “Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution.”
(NB : each time, the limit moves…)
The practical effect of this can only be more “pinellas county florida”, public servants who despite the fact that they might consider Ben Stein’s rethoric as extreme, lose trust in science : “we don’t want to be involved in the polemic” they’ll claim.
To many Ben Stein seems like a clown, but that is precisely his function, to strech the window as far to the religious conservative right as possible that anything short of banning science, emprisoning atheists, and nuking the middle east seems acceptable…
As long as he gets away with it, why should he stop ?
At this point, it’s unnecessary to bash Islamic retards. This is not Europe. I live in TX and we have a huge population of Muslims. They know to keep their eyes averted and mouths shut. No motions for foot basins in public schools are put forward from Austin to Boston. Muslims who advertise in garb are lucky if they can get from their cars to the front door of 7/11 without being yee-hawed, beaten or shot for fun.
At this point, it’s not necessary to worry about Muslims, the rednecks are doing fine keeping them in their place, in total fear of Christian kooks, which is the a proper worldview. No Muslim ever beat the shit out of me and threw me in jail for smoking a joint.
As for their temper tantrums, I’ve raised children, they occasionally stomp the ground and tell you they hate you and wish you were dead.
OOOOO
I’m scared.
Kick me, beat me, make me say L. Ron Hubbard.
Not sure where you’re from, but this ain’t no Amsterdam around here.
Peter, Peter, Peter… when the Muslims in this country want to force sharia codes on non-Muslims, we’ll be the first ones in line to give them a drubbing.
The idea that atheism/agnosticism is a Trojan Horse to allow ravening Wahhabist hordes to take over this country is perhaps the most absurd plank in the Christian Dominionist platform
And so is Stein.
I will call him… Mini-Me!!!
I live in Paris, and you? In East Bumfuck, Texas?
Heck, the local Thai place even took their satay appetizer off the menu. You KNOW it’s not Amsterdam when there’s no satay on every corner.
I think you hit Shift and a cursor key and accidentally deleted a line or something.
It comes from the inability to understand that there are more than two sides in this world. (From Manichaeism.)
Exactly. Because atheism isn’t a lack in belief of a god[s] it’s just a lack in belief in theirs. So we get lumped in with all the others.
Rather that should read “it’s just a denial of theirs”.
They can’t grasp the lack of belief thing either.
@19: Ric
Thy will be done.
I like your arguments and discussion. You have a lot of patience. I will try to keep up.
JC
Pinellas is the most urbanized county in the state. It is by far the most “liberal” of any county in the tampa bay area, if anywhere in FL can be called liberal.
Yet this goes on. I know, I lived there. That’s why when some of you were skeptical about the “witchcraft” allegations toward that teacher in Pasco county, I fully believed it.
Head out of Pinellas into Hillsborough, and you take a deep plunge into god-besotted homophobia and xenophobia.
Head out of Pinellas into Pasco, and you’ll wish you were heading into Hillsborough instead. It’s THAT bad in FL.
Peter #53,
1. please stop circulating this myth that islam is invading Europe. I know it is popular on Fox News and in some saloons in mid Kansas but it is simply not true. At the most it has increased when immigration from islamic nations (especially maghreb in France, turkey in Germany, Pakistan in UK) was strong, but this is now very limited, and it is now also clear that 2nd and 3rd generations are subject to the same rates of decrease in religiosity as with Christians. All in all, muslims represent not more than 2 or 3% of the population of the European Union.
If there is one “religion” that is increasing much more rapidly than all the others, it’s that of “non belief”.
2. I’ve lived many years in Malaysia and Morrocco and never felt any prejudice for not being a muslim. Maybe you have more experience with living in Muslim countries that you would like to share with us…
If there is one “religion” that is increasing much more rapidly than all the others, it’s that of “non belief”.
Ah,there we have it: an atheist finally admits that “non-belief” is a religion. Soon to be quote(mine)d at Uncommon descent. Nanny nanny boo boo.
Poe! Poe! Poe!
If there is one “religion” that is increasing much more rapidly than all the others, it’s that of “non belief”.
Ah,there we have it: an atheist finally admits that “non-belief” is a religion. Soon to be quote(mine)d at Uncommon descent. Nanny nanny boo boo.
Poe! Poe! Poe!
Yes, because we all watch the English-only Al Jazeera TV all day. Well that and the occasional “Death to America” party.
“please stop circulating this myth that islam is invading Europe. I know it is popular on Fox News and in some saloons in mid Kansas but it is simply not true.”
Pat Buchanan, “America’s Racist Uncle” (TM) is one of the biggest proponents of this drivel. I think that it is fueled as much by fantasies of “decadent” Europe having to throw itself on the mercy of God-fearin’ ‘Merkins as it by anti-Muslim hatred. Hell, just the mention of France sends these trogs into a frenzy.
This goes WAY beyond the “ID is a science” “No it isn’t” dogfights, and signifies that we are (however slowly and imperceptibly) losing ground to the barbarians.
When it gets to the stage that the simple act of an expert imparting their knowledge is deemed to be too controversial to be allowed, it’s time to sit up and realise that the propoganda war being waged by the creationists is working. Hyperbolic as it may sound, the destruction of enlightened civilisation has begun.
These people – whether they know what they are doing or not – are dragging us back to the Dark Ages, and unless we are content for this slide to continue, their influence must be stamped out utterly and as soon as possible. We need to get the civilised majority of the population – and that, I would like to think, includes politicians – to realise that while creationism proponents have every right to be as crazy as they want, that their craziness is not something remotely deserving of respect, attention, or sympathy, and is in fact inimical to our way of life. Their beliefs should be viewed through the same lens that we view historians who deny the Holocaust, or people who think apartheid was a good idea. Sure – they can maintain a cretinous and backward opinion if they want to, but have to understand that it is cretinous and backward, and that they are no longer going to be given any respect for it, and will be viewed as an enemy of reason and of civilisation for maintaining it.
Oops, forgot to close the brackets.
xyz? Who let Larry Fafarman out of the dungeon?
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
-George Orwell
negentropyeater #62 para 2:
is it really so, is there is no problem with apostasy, proselytising for other religions, maintaining a blog like this in those countries, let alone what they call blasphemy,?
Morocco:
http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2005/s1522716.htm
Malaysia:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/64EAAEC5-6347-4698-8579-11A710E2AB44.htm
No doubt you were not interested in exercising these fundamental human rights while you were there, but you people trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist is what baffles me.
I’m not going to call anyone a liar or a bigot like the charming Nick Gotts, but I think some explaining has to be done here.
Peter
Not only is it bad enough that Fafarman is posting here, but twice… identical comments.
It’s almost too much to endure.
“Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews.”
Mind boggling. Maybe Stein should’ve read something like this instead of “From Darwin to Hitler”. Or maybe if he had just the slightest bit of knowledge about history.
We are a doughty band of brothers.
Yes, why not? It seems an appropriate description for this wretchedness. Someone meditated on this decision and sided with the forces of ignorance.
Yes. I am all those things.
Really? I must have missed them. PZ usually turns out a few screeds every month that highlights some Islamic lunacy or other.
Speaking as a Briton, I would say they are at best a big show in some local neighbourhoods. But hardly the town. Suggestions that we are succumbing to the pernicious forces of Islam are not only premature, but unwise.
I think peter is trying to say that when religion takes control, freedoms are stifled. I think he is saying we should do our best to limit Christianity from government, and be happy that unbelief is growing so fast in America and Europe.
You know as well as I do that the easy ride is mostly by default: Islam just doesn’t come in for anything like the same flak as Christianity: it’s almost never mentioned.
Judaism, too.
In the case of Islam, a lot of americans are afraid to speak out against it, for fear of further perpetuating the “americans are on a crusade” meme that was successfully started by President Bush and has been fuelled by the not-so-subtle giggling from the christian right wing. I used to have a few christian right wing acquaintances who didn’t realize I’m an anarchist/nihilist and used to forward me gleeful images of arabs getting shot in the head by sniper fire, captioned over with nice things like “Allah didn’t help” and similar filth. So, let’s be honest: there are a lot of christians who are laughing in private that Islam (as they perceive it) is getting a smack-down. They’re just subtle about it. Many of us (myself included) are hesitant to keep pointing and laughing at islam because we don’t want to run the risk of being mistaken for the christards. (By the way I am no longer on those Email distribution lists because I cheerfully asked if “Anyone have any good videos of christians being fed to lions?”)
Judaism gets huge slack because it’s extremely difficult to point the finger of mirth at them without having the accusation of anti-semitism flung back. Judaism also gets huge slack because it’s able to shift seamlessly between being “a culture” and “a political movement” — so if you point and giggle at (for example) jewish dietary law, you can be accused of cultural insensitivity – as if that somehow defuses the observation that they don’t eat ham because the great sky fairy doesn’t like the pigs he invented. Etc.
The buddhists get a lot of slack because their belief system is such a wonky bag of bollocks it’s very hard to come to grips with. Add to that, the extremely denatured version that was filtered over to the US in the 60’s by Alan Watts and Daisetz Suzuki: they left a lot of the reincarnated saint manifestation bulldada out and swept the red-handed violence of the nichiren and tibetan branches under the carpet. And then you’ve got that cheerful old sainthood-selling mountebank the daily lama – he’s very hard to criticize, in spite of the fact that he’s a despotic theocrat who claims to be (basically) a god. A god so poor he sold Stephen Segal a sainthood, for f*ck’s sake… Yeah – but it’s hard to point and laugh at him when presidents, popes, and world leaders gather around to hear his Deepak Chopra-esque pronouncements.
Anyhow – christians are an easy target because they are so vocal and stupid and haven’t got a “cultural” leg to lean back on (which is why it’s crucial for us to deny them their repeated attempts to claim the United States as a “christian nation”) and their political movements haven’t been so effective since the christians expended all their political capital by over-doing things during the wars of religion and brought the enlightenment down upon themselves.
So, for the record:
ALL religions are stupid.
ALL followers of religions must partake to a greater or lesser degree of the stupid and therefore are, to a greater or lesser degree, stupid themselves.
How’s that?
xyz? Who let Larry Fafarman out of the dungeon?
You did see the reference to Poe, didn’t you?
Poe! Poe! Poe!
you people trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist is what baffles me. Peter
Repeating lies doesn’t make them true Peter. As Lee says in #80: “PZ usually turns out a few screeds every month that highlights some Islamic lunacy or other.” If your lie about “many commentators here giving Islam an easy ride” were true, you would have no difficulty finding positive examples from the comments on those posts. How about this for a bargain: you stop lying, and I’ll stop calling you a liar?
It’s very simple. I don’t run into Islamic folks waving their Koran (or a different manifestation of the book) in my face everyday. I am however bombarded by Christians telling me what a bad person I am, defiling good science in my state education system, discriminating against non believers and homosexuals, waving signs on the corner, a church on every single street and inserting a prayer into their email signatures every single day of my existence. This does not make me think that Muslims are any less wacky than Christians, it just means I have to deal with the Christians on a way more frequent schedule than I do with Muslims. That is probably the case for the vast majority of those who comment on this blog.
I know that seems to keep sailing over your head, but “them’s the facts”.
Peter, Peter.
I live in the Far East(Well, used to), and the problems I see usually come from poverty, perceived injustice and lack of education.
There are liberal Muslims who keep dogs, eat pork, drink and dance, as long as they have the necessary education to free themselves from dogmatic faith, they are not so different from us.
But when you get to an area where there are lots of uneducated people it is quite like redneck country actually (We are poor because of da Jews. Science is out to destroy the Koran, it’s a Jewish plot blah blah blah). See some similarities here?
But how can we change this when we pay the Wahhabists every time we fill a gas tank and the Institution of Creation research work hand in hand with Muslim “scientist” to propagate ignorance in these countries?
Peter, stop dancing around all over the place! One moment Europe was awash with marauding Rifs, conjuring images of fierce Sipahis pot-shotting white womenfolk with their trusty jezails, the next we’re in a far Muslim nation, wringing our hands over the prejudices of the filthy Mohammedans. Make up your mind, what you are arguing about? Is it Islam in Europe, or Islam in the Islamic World?
The notion of a Britain (or Europe) sliding into the clutches of Mohammedans is, on closer examination, laughable. It assumes that Islam can gain widespread adherence outside its cultural enclave, that it can seize the media and leverage significant political power. Such a thing is possible, but only if you assume a Bizarro-world scenario in which a culture abjectly and cravenly surrenders in the face of an alien and uncongenial philosophy. Only cringing Daily Mail readers believe this, and they are a gang of strident gobshytes with a penchant for black shirts and boot leather.
The mouth-frothing apocalypses of bigots take no account of the rudery of the British, who have largely forsaken the Christian god in favour of Hello! magazine, Deal Or No Deal and the Nokia cellphone, and have no intention of replacing him with such an antipathetic entity as Allah. He has little appeal to the chav-in-the-street, and precious little to offer a nation fond of bacon and booze and football (a sport at which his adherents do not excel).
We are in any case an unpleasant race, more barbarous than the Mohammedans. They will get little purchase on us.
Shorter peter: You haven’t solved all the problems of the rest of the world, so why are you complaining about the ones close to yourselves?
Also, as one’a them mythical Europeans, to get a little anecdote in here, the Muslims I’ve known here have tended to be pretty nice people, and far less interested in telling me about their religion than quite a few Christians I’ve known.
It has not occurred to Peter that his Mythic Europe, the one that rejected Christianity, might have rejected ALL religion, and is not as easy a mark for malicious priests as he assumes.
Trefayne, I’m having a bit of a problem with your statements about seniors. Wasn’t aware that there was an age constriction on stupidity. And if you’re waiting for the old fundies to die out, you’re losing track of the young-‘uns-for-god(s) movement. There are millions out there of all religions and they’re a lot more militant than the old ones. And while you can’t dismiss any of them, that has me a lot more worried.
Peter #77,
actually, it’s even worse than you think, I’m gay, I used to live there with my boyfriend, himself a malay muslim, I had a very open public life, we both never felt any prejudice. Honestly, I felt safer in Kuala Lumpur than when I had the displeasure of spending a summer month in Fort Worth Texas.
I wouldn’t say that there aren’t religious problems, because that would be absurd, but believe me, if you would have lived there, you would come to realise that the situation is not as bad as what the western media systematically reports.
Also, the inability to change faith or to marry between different faith don’t represent a particular prejudice against non muslim. I agree that it is a completely nonsensical medieval system, but please keep in mind that muslims are as much penalised by this as non muslims.
Peter, I don’t want to use a public forum to contact you, but you haven’t called me. Please don’t be ashamed. I felt the same way too, once. It’s okay, please don’t hate yourself, don’t make your fear your master. You were a different man when we touched each other, have the strength to be that man again. I know you are not a bigot, I KNOW you’re not, you couldn’t have been with me if you were.
Please, meet me after Church and we’ll talk. Don’t let hate win.
Muffin
From the article and the website it looks to me like the Friends of Booker Creek Preserve are separate from the county government, and it also appears that the Friends invited this “controversial” speaker and the county government shot it down. So I don’t know that it’s fair to yell at the Friends for this. It seems like it’s the county government that needs a kick in the pants.
*rubs hands together sinisterly* Our plan for world domination proceeds on schedule! Muahahaha!
After all, she might perform some WIZARDRY!
Har har.
“The state is not the proper venue for arguments, so we’ll disallow the discussion of any controversial subject in an area which falls under our jurisdiction.”
So I guess that means they’ll be shutting down every church in the county then too.
Yay Marcus!!
Good to see someone else understands the historical causes of the Enlightenment lay in the centuries of religious bloodshed that proceeded it.
GraceM (at #90),
“Wasn’t aware that there was an age constriction on stupidity.”
There isn’t.
But there is a tendency for people from today’s oldest generations to be more socially conservative than the younger generations. Consider the stats on attitudes toward LBGT folks. And this difference, from what I remember, doesn’t seem to be because of advanced years but rather because of the era in which they were raised.
I also suspect (but don’t know for certain) that only with the Boomers did rates of college attendance, well, boom. Higher education has not merely an intellectual influence on students, but a liberalizing influence through exposure to kinds of people they’ve never met before.
I am venturing a guess that these experiences and exposures (or lack thereof) also affect views about science.
“…you’re losing track of the young-‘uns-for-god(s) movement.”
But how many of them are organized voting blocs that scare the bejezuz into county and state officials? Who are the constituents that the Christian-supremacist politicians use as foot-soldiers to generate flak for their agenda? Older people tend to vote in larger proportions than younger people. (However, this election year it seems that the youngsters are finally taking up some slack.) So I’m wondering if the noise is coming from the former.
As a resident, this is truly embarrassing.
Interrobang: His statement is even more wrong-headed than that because its not true. Scientists didn’t tell Hitler to kill the Jews, Hitler had wanted to kill the Jews since his mother died under the care of a Jewish surgeon and he was rejected from art school by a majority Jewish admissions board. His grudge was a personal one, and all he did was project his inner justifications (my problems are the Jews’ fault) onto the wider canvas of politics (Germany’s problems are the Jews’ fault).
Scientists didn’t tell Stalin to kill the kulaks; Stalin was the second son of a poor Georgian farming family. He was sent to a monastery when little more than an infant because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him. He hated kulaks because they were rich, and he wasn’t rich. He hated them from when he was a child, hated agriculture itself for stealing his chance for a happy childhood, hated Russians for abusing and oppressing Georgia and hated Georgians for being weak enough to allow it. His man-made famine was HIS idea, not scientists; by the time he pursued it he’d killed every good scientist in Russia anyway. Beyond this, it was just as much a result of his own private grudges as it was the Bolshevik’s incorrect interpretation of a flawed economic theory, communism.
Scientists didn’t tell Mao Tse Tung anything except “please, oh please don’t rape and kill me!”. Mao hated scientists! He hated engineers! He hated anyone who had every read a western book or played a western musical instrument! That was what his Great Cultural Revolution was! For the first decade after the communist victory in China, all the Party did WAS “reeducate” and murder every scientist and engineer they could get their hands on. That’s why China today is so desperate about advanced degrees and development; they’re trying to play catch up for decades of backwardness.
So this equating of science or scientists with the worst regimes of the 20th century is more than poor logic, its a lie. As in every century, the biggest monsters have been the most ignorant ones.
Julian writes:
As in every century, the biggest monsters have been the most ignorant ones.
Yup. I probably don’t score points for our side when I point out that if real scientists were trying to commit atrocities, most of the people complaining wouldn’t be here to do so. Real scientists get it done.
As the atom bomb so successfully attests, Marcus.
Do we REALLY need to point out the facts surrounding the development – and deployment – of the only Atomic Bombs used in “anger” to date?
JC
Nick Gotts –
the liar is back :
you knew you were putting me up to a tedious trawl through past threads to find the target you set, and that it would take time, so you got in quickly with your “liar and bigot”.
But then a very clear case drops into my lap from negentropyeater #62 : the complete silence on this one from all the babblers above shows they know I’m right there, and their posts add to my score.
Are we up to ten yet?
Before I go further, who’s the umpire on this, and what’s in it for me? An apology?
Peter
I have no idea whats going on here. Peter, are you back to argue for more church-state separation, because Muslim countries have shown us what would happen if Christianity controlled our government? I think that was your argument earlier, no?
I am the umpire, and you are all my tiny bitches.
I am your bitch, and you are my tiny umpires.
Can I tell the difference between 58 and 62 or am I just a troll?
re: Stalin and the kulaks
To be fair, it really didn’t start with Stalin. Below is Lenin’s Hanging Order, given on Aug 11 1918:
What the fsck does satay have to do with whether you, peter, are a liar and a bigot? Are you trying to add idiot to the list?
someone’s hijacked my name to make posts 106-108 : about as low as you can get. No more arguments?
Can I claim moral victory?
Peter
“Can I claim moral victory?”
No. I’m going to have to say that you can’t even claim literacy. Comment #62 is by Pablo, discussing satay and Amsterdam.
Definitely a liar for Jebus.
#110 – whoops, sorry, post 68 and my response at 77 were meant in my post 104
Peter
Mark Maron is on AAR, talking with Chris Hedges… he just read an e-mail from a cretard. Wonder if Hedges is gonna get stoopit about the atheists.
Peter:
You haven’t addressed even half the arguments posted since you posed your question this morning.
For highly idiosycratic values of “moral” and of “victory”, yes – yes, you may.
Honestly, at this point I’m no longer quite sure what you’re getting at. Let me try to recap:
So. Where do we go from here?
The rest of the Stein interview is pretty awful, but this is just bizarre:
Can he possibly really see himself this way? This man is so deeply mired in self-delusion that he may never find his way out.
“Mark Maron is on AAR, talking with Chris Hedges… he just read an e-mail from a cretard. Wonder if Hedges is gonna get stoopit about the atheists.”
Yeah, he’s saying that Christian Fundamentalists and “New Atheists” are essentially the same and both are very dangerous, etc.
Kseniya #115 –
yes, that’s a constructive post, and there’s only one thing left out: the political correctness (and the expression does cover a real phenomenon) that leads to actual suppression of facts relating to Islam and Muslim countries. We have a very real case in post 68, because to talk of freedom of belief in Morocco and Malaysia is a travesty.
Peter
My personal favorite part of the Xianity today interview comes right before the scientists to Hitler/Stalin/Mao comment:
Yes, Ben, we know. But I just want to know what the profanity Xianity today had to edit out was. Fuck? Damn? Shit? I suppose it’s one of those mysteries that will have to remain unsolved…
#109
Yours, Lenin.
I am the walrus.
My money’s on “rat’s ass”. I can even hear him saying it.
It can be done, though. Remember PZ’s “back of the bus” post?
“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about us, we’ll stop telling the truth about them.”
— Adlai Stevenson
———————-
So, Peter. Let me repeat: Where do you live? East Bumfuck, Texas?
Before I go further, who’s the umpire on this, and what’s in it for me? An apology?
absolutely nothing.
what? did you think an internet forum was the place to seek validation?
one more thing you are mistaken about.
It’s a travesty to take negentropyeater’s comment about his own, personal experience as evidence of a PC conspiracy to suppress facts.
LOL
“No,no we don’t gnaw on our kitty”
You know as well as I do that the easy ride is mostly by
default[Peter’s assumption]fixed.
also, note that most of us are primarily concerned with the religious right’s impact on science in THIS country.
Still, you must have missed the many references to Harun Yayha on the Islamic idiocy front for example.
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=017254414699180528062%3Auyrcvn__yd0&q=harun+yahya+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fpharyngula%2F&sa=Search
Still, you must have missed…
…and I missed that Kseniya already bullet listed the same points, from which you seem to have erroneously concluded …
what?
victory?
While it’s not a BAD idea to send emails, I think it’s far more effective to write actual letters on paper and mail them to the parties involved. This William Davis fellow is obviously an ignoramus. The chairman of the board of the Friends of Brooker Creek is apparently a powerless figurehead.
Send letters to:
Allyn Childress
Chairman, Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve
3620 Fletch Haven Drive
Tarpon Springs FL 34688
William Davis
Director, Pinellas County Environmental Services
315 Court St.
Clearwater, FL 33756
If a “science” preserve is afraid to let a biological anthropologist speak about biology, any day of the year, because of the possibility of losing funding, well then, it probably doesn’t deserve funding any longer.
To many Ben Stein seems like a clown, but that is precisely his function, to strech the window as far to the religious conservative right as possible that anything short of banning science, emprisoning atheists, and nuking the middle east seems acceptable…
I have to agree. That seems the best explanation for Stein’s behavior, regardless of whether or not it fits Mathis.
How closely does the same thesis apply to the Disinformation Institute, I wonder?
How much is conflated with actual “true belief”?
How much of that “true belief” is really belief in Strauss, and not religious dogma?
aside from “leaks” like the Wedge Document, is there really any way to independently differentiate between “belief” and “frame-shifting”?
It starts to seem almost like an idiot-savant scheme.
genius, in that it can be well hidden inside of the obvious insanity of people like James Kennedy or the Phelpsians.
but then, let’s consider WHY someone would attempt to frame-shift the debate TOWARDS the realm of insanity to begin with.
what are the possible motivations?
It is also related to the phenomenon of white males who are resentful when they are called out for their casual bigotry and sexism. I consider it likely that anyone who says they are an opponent of political correctness is a scumbag who wishes to say hateful, impolite and hurtful things.
No it doesn’t. It leads to robust arguments over where the line lies between valid criticism of religious culture and loathesome racism.
We live in a culture in which everyone is an eggshell armed with a hammer. Which means that people take it poorly when they are pointed out as being a vile racist. They love to dish it out but cannot take it.
Excuse me if I choose to prefer the testimony of the Moroccan and Malaysian gay resident over yours.
Oh gee, it looks like Dr. L. Madrigal was….EXPELLED from Pinellas county and Brooker Creek preserve. Hmmm, think Mathis will make a movie about it?
negentropyeater: If there is one “religion” that is increasing much more rapidly than all the others, it’s that of “non belief”.
Don’t think we haven’t all noticed how you carefully omit any mention of the on-going European crisis in wizard-muggle relations.
Peter: There are a large number of contributers round here who give Islam an easy ride…
Brace yourself for a chorus of glee at the downfall of a notorious hypermuslim creationist, starting at http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/05/god_hates_creationists_part_ga.php …
heh. I just noticed that no less that 5 minutes ago myself, and was just about to post the link to the story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSL0992091620080509
mmm, that’s good irony.
*slurp*
I have been living in Florida for the past two years and unfortunately, I have encountered many people who are ignorant, close-minded, and generally afraid to open their minds to any new idea, lest it should shake any of their rigid beliefs. Throughout history, it has been this kind of thinking that has held back the progression of science, cultural diversity and tolerance, and civil rights.
Hey, ‘peter’:
fuck *your* god, and fuck Allah too.
Happy now?
I have a great idea.
Science strike!
Everyone who’s in any way involved with science, all the researchers, lab technicians, pharmacists, medical doctors, inventors, engineers, architects, everyone just picks up and goes off to hang out on the beach for a year.
And see what happens.
Then, when the damage is repaired, take all the priests, preachers, pastors, and proprietors of woo and send them to somewhere like Kansas for a year.
Then watch as … nothing much changes.
take all the priests, preachers, pastors, and proprietors of woo and send them to somewhere like Kansas for a year.
better yet, send them to live with these guys:
http://www.christianexodus.org/
…and my links at #79? Just to repeat:
Morocco:
http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2005/s1522716.htm
Malaysia:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/64EAAEC5-6347-4698-8579-11A710E2AB44.htm
This is truly breathtaking.
Peter
Peter, a belief in the great Islamic Trojan Horse in Europe is the product of hysteria and will never come to pass because Islam is unlikely to get traction outside its religious/cultural niche. The best it can hope for is some level of local influence, an epiphenomenon of the segregation of communities (something that does not bode well for Mohammedans’ ability to project national influence).
So, having established that the threat to Europe is a fever dream, we are left with what the Muslims get up to in their own countries. I don’t think you’d find many here who would disagree that Islam in its various forms encourages illiberality. The stuff you point to–imams making threats to converts or religious courts saying who can or can’t marry–confirms our views about the fundamental corruption and awfulness of religion.
Christianity is not immune to this sort of error. Miscgenation laws were only struck down in the US in 1967 as a consequence of the case Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, where the judge claimed a Christian basis for the law, saying: “Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
I make the comparison with miscgenation laws only to illustrate the fact that parts of the Islamic world appear to be running several decades behind the West (and in a few cases, even further). We look on in disgust and hope that things will improve. There IS cause for hope; countries such as Malaysia also have secular constitutions guaranteeing rights that are denied by the religious courts. Clearly, these nations need to go through their own liberal revolutions to undermine the power of religion and I suspect these will be every bit as painful, and maybe more so, as those in the United States.
At the same time none of this invalidates what negentropyeater said. He was able to exist as a faithless gay in these countries and came to no harm, which gives us a somewhat more rounded picture than your one-dimensional portrayal of oppression.
I’m unsure what you, Peter, think we should do about these examples of illiberality in Islam. We can make disapproving noises, we can ask for diplomatic pressure to be applied. However, I suspect none of this would be enough for you. You clearly have not listened to the things we have actually said about Islam, as evidenced by your ludicrous statements about political correctness. I believe we’d have to slag Islam all the time, every time, to get your nod of approval. And then you’d still accuse us of being PC on some pretext or other.
I have no hope that we can win your love because I don’t believe you have any intention of giving it. You are here to distract us from the job of being rude about the dominant religion in our culture, the one that touches us each and every day. You are here to blather your own hysterical fears about bogeymen in distant lands, by intimating they are fifth columns in our communities. Twenty years ago you would have been slathering about Commies. Today it’s Islamists. In twenty years it will no doubt be the Chinese. Your rhetoric is of a pattern that is all too familiar to me.
Again, I have no idea what you would advocate the solution being. Maybe you would prefer we go to war against Islam?
Waging war on these countries and beating them into painful submission is not on our list of options. The last time someone did that to an Arab nation they took a largely secular Iraq and turned it into a paradise for religious nutters. Nor has the grand experiment in deTalibanisation in Afghanistan shown a lot of success, as the old ways have cheerfully crept back in.
So, to destroy Islam we are kind of left with the old, established tools of the secularist. We must poison Islamists with our liberal pop culture, our music videos, our TV shows and other illustrations of a more tolerant world. Traditionally, this ‘culture war’ approach has payed great dividends. Only mentalist fanatics cleave to the old ascetic ways when a brighter, more egalitarian future is offered. The rank and file melt away in favour of an easier life. This will be the way to defeat Islam, with culture.
However, we have to ensure that the culture war on the Mohammedans is not undermined by Christian-brand fundamentalists, our very own fifth column back at home who would willingly cast us back into the brave new world of the nineteenth century. So we will continue to slag the Christians, each and every day, to keep ourselves safe from them.
Peter,
you are going to need a crash course in reading comprehension :
in your post #55 you started by asking a valid question :
“Is there any predominantly Muslim country where non-Muslims don’t suffer prejudice compared to Muslims?”
To which I replied in my post #70
“I’ve lived many years in Malaysia and Morrocco and never felt any prejudice for not being a muslim. Maybe you have more experience with living in Muslim countries that you would like to share with us…”
Now of course, you could have chosen to read what I wrote but you didn’t and decided to link instead to these two stories (again in your post #141). Obviously you have absolutely no idea of what the situation in these two countries might be, but also, the difficulties that muslims have with apostasy or with interfaith marriages are not particularly good examples of prejudices that non-muslims suffer compared with muslims (your original question to which I was replying).
I have tried to make it clearer in my post #93 :
“I wouldn’t say that there aren’t religious problems, because that would be absurd, but believe me, if you would have lived there, you would come to realise that the situation is not as bad as what the western media systematically reports.
Also, the inability to change faith or to marry between different faith don’t represent a particular prejudice against non muslim. I agree that it is a completely nonsensical medieval system, but please keep in mind that muslims are as much penalised by this as non muslims.”
But instead, you wilfully ignore what I write and transform this into ;
“talk of freedom of belief in Morocco and Malaysia is a travesty.”
Where did I talk of freedom of belief ? I made no such general statements. If you would read what I write before you start your horses you would notice that unlike you, I carefully choose my words.
So I will stop here. You are profoundly dishonest. You refuse to read what you write and what others respond. You are most probably completely ignorant of the actual situation of these two countries, have probably never been there, nor read anything substantial about these cultures, but still consider yourself apt to engage into a debate with someone who has lived there for more than six years.
Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, negentropyeater :
there is much in your latest posts which is uncontroversial, although you both slip off into cant from time-to-time.
What remains, is, I must admit, point scoring – but I am called a liar up there, so you should in fairness grant me that.
negentropyeater, you sound a decent guy, and I have no personal animosity to you or your web-persona, but I’m afraid you are the best evidence in this thread for my point.
What you personally experienced in those countries (and, are you sure you didn’t keep your head down at times?) cannot in all logic negate my argument that there are no predominantly Muslim country where non-Muslims don’t suffer prejudice compared to Muslims.
Peter
Your opinion is noted.
Well, you are certainly dishonest enough to fling around accusations of PC, ignore previous Pharyngula commentary on Islam, take others’ words out of context, abandon inconvenient arguments once their holes have been revealed, set up straw men, and employ hysterical generalisations about foreign countries that, to me, smack less of a valid criticism of religion than outright racialism. Being called a liar is the least of your problems.
At best you are a muddled and conflicted person. You are an eggshell armed with a hammer in an environment where everyone else is equally armed. You must learn to protect your thin skin by moderating your rhetoric.
Nor does it negate the counter-argument that there are no predominantly Christian countries where non-Christians don’t suffer prejudice compared to Christians. In an era of ‘profiling’ and Guantanamo abuses we are hardly in a position to claim moral superiority.
It’s hardly PC to point out that stuff about removing the log from one’s own eye. You would get further if you got us to agree with specific ills of Islam rather than trying to paint the entire Islamic world as inimical. One of those approaches requires valid criticism of religion. The other is the bogus, tubthumping of bigots.
Morocco – interesting historical factoid:
The German invasion of France in 1940 also had consequences for the French colonies. Morocco had been a French protectorate since 1912, with Sultan Mohammed V at its head. The decree of the French Vichy government of 30 October 1940 forbidding Jews to hold public offices also applied to Morocco. Morocco had always had a fairly large Jewish community, traditionally protected by the sultan. So the sultan refused to carry out these (and later) measures with the words: “There are no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan subjects.”
source: http://www.iisg.nl/today/en/03-10.php
Peter,
In what sense can it not negate your argument ? I’m a non muslim, I lived in those predominantely muslim countries, didn’t suffer any prejudice (at all may I add, despite my being openly gay and living with a muslim gay boyfriend). Also, knew hundreds of people who were non muslim and were not being prejudiced upon, so how does this not negate your argument ?
Of course, there are also examples of people being prejudiced upon for being non muslim, people who really suffer from it, but so are there examples of muslims being prejudiced upon in our predominantely Christian nations, aren’t there ?
That is precisely the problem with the kind of generalisations that you are making, unless you get a close encounter with these cultures and can evaluate the extent to which these problems are endemic or not, and start asking yourself wether for example, as a non muslim one is being more prejudiced upon in Malaysia, than a muslim is in the USA.
I strongly advise you, before you make such general statements, to buy a plane ticket and visit these countries and see for yourself.
Plus both Malaysia and Morrocco are wonderful countries to visit, great people, breathtaking sceneries, fascinating cultures, and delicious food. Nothing to loose.
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/38133-mccain-s-spiritual-guide-wants-america-to-destroy-islam
Which of course is far from your initial assertion that Islam gets a free pass on this blog. A statement that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Trefayne #100
Point well taken. I agree, with some minor exceptions. One being the boomers. I’m surrounded by them seeing I’m one of them. Most of the ones I know are educated, which didn’t seem to have expanded their horizons. Almost without exception they’re alligned on the right, particularly religious right. I wonder what the heck happened. We were the ‘free’ generation, free love, free speech, free to believe what we wanted to believe; rebelled against injustice, the state dictating what we should think, do, believe, our parents, the ‘establishment.’ We were going to change the world for the better. And now we seem to be so super conservative that we can’t see the world for what it really is.
As I’m writing this, I’m rapidly shifting to your point of view – we ARE a major voting block, at least the boomers in the US are. I’m in Canada and the right keeps marching on here as well. The urge to say god help us, is almost overwhelming if it wasn’t so stupid.
Islam sucks, as does Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, those wacky offshoots of Buddhism that masquerade as religion and, indeed, does all form of mysticism, spiritualism and new-age astrological bullshine. Particularly where this mystic fuckwittery is used as a pretext for political or social control.
There, does that settle it?
Peter,
I think others have answered you very well, but let me explain exactly why I called you a liar and a bigot. First, let me note that I did not do so until #56 above – I had noted earlier that complaints about “political correctness” are often made by bigots, but I did not immediately judge you to be such. Once it was clear that you would not retract the slur that many commentators here give Islam an easy ride through political correctness despite your failure to substantiate it, and that you have paranoid fantasies about a monolithic Islam taking over Europe, I felt these charges were justified. You have done nothing to change my mind. A distinguishing mark of the bigot is that they cannot believe that those outside their hate-group do not share their feelings – hence your initial sneer that the “easy ride” you wrongly claimed Islam gets here must be due either to “political correctness” or fear. No-one has disagreed with you that Islam is an oppressive belief system, none of us wants to live under an Islamist government, but this is clearly not enough for you – you want us to share your fear and hatred.
Lee Brimmicombe-Wood#146 –
do you do self-parody? You keep lapsing into a knee-jerk leninspart mode, which I never imagined existed outside of the pages of private eye: spluttering about racism and bigotry as soon as you come across anything you don’t agree with.
Where did I say the slightest thing which can be interpreted as racist? You’re the one furthering racism, by rendering this expression a meaningless term of abuse.
Anyway, you are obviously the second case for the defence on this thread: I congratulate you, because I know you’ll be proud.
The good news for you is that it’s never too late to get away from reflexes and back to the habits of thought. The way you are now, I have visions of you going around at the first stoning under the Shari’a in Europe shouting racist, bigot at anyone who protests about it.
negentropyeater #148
Thanks for the tip. Yes, I have been to both countries, but so long ago that I wouldn’t claim any special knowledge. No doubt the vast majority of the people there are, as in any country, very decent, but I stand by my point that human rights relating to religion are seriously compromised.
I must admit, I’ve learnt I’d never have imagined something from your experience as a gay there. But, do they have a Christopher Street Day in these countries?
On political correctness as a real phenomenon:
“Too many academics have been sedated by an oppressive environment of political correctness and risk aversion” Simon Davies, London School of Economics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6202877.stm
Peter
Nick Gotts #153
There’s scarcely a thread in this blog where there aren’t all sort of negative things said about christians/christianity. None of these comments has ever attracted the charge of “bigotry”. The slightest thing about Islam brings it down on your head like a ton of bricks.
Is that three to me on this thread?
BigDumbChimp #150 changed my “easy ride” to “free pass”. I leave it to the fair-mindedness of you guys as to whether this is four to me.
Peter
Dave Spart writes:
Peter’s eggshell splinters again.
And there he goes, frothing his fantasy nonsense about the Mohammedan trojan horse again when he’s already been spanked for it.
Poor eggshelled Peter. He loves to dish it out, but cannot take it. He wonders why he is called out as a liar. And then he cheerfully portrays a man who has explicitly stated his contempt for Islam as someone who would act as an enabler for Shari’a law. What a dishonest man Peter is.
Whatever became of Phil Ratner?
The slightest thing about Islam brings it down on your head like a ton of bricks. Peter@155
Another bare-faced lie from Peter. It is refuted several times in this very thread.
Incidentally, I have never denied that there are real examples of “political correctness”. I do assert that charges of political correctness are frequently made by bigots objecting to criticism of their bigotry – like Peter.
BigDumbChimp #150 changed my “easy ride” to “free pass”. I leave it to the fair-mindedness of you guys as to whether this is four to me.
you’re completely delusional.
have fun with that.
Nick Gotts
My charge was rhetorically sweeping and could be read as applying to everyone in this blog. I acknowledge that would be unfair, and that there are many sincere commentators here. But there is also an element that is all too ready to parrot cant.
That your own posts in this thread (made ex-post and pro-forma to neutralise my point) don’t attract the bigot charge from you is scarcely surprising.
We’ve already seen that the slur of racism was made without the slightest basis. And what is the basis for “bigot”?: that I was honest enough to say Islam frightens me or that I’m afraid of it becoming a major force in Europe?
That the cant-word “bigot” is deliciously vague suits your purposes only too well.
Which brings me back to the original point: reactions like yours are bound to lead to a bias on this blog.
And you don’t deal with my point that the most rabid attacks on Christianity/Christians have never brought the jibe “bigot” or “racist”.
Peter
Peter,
I’ve already told you what the basis for calling you a bigot is: your ludicrous fantasies about a monolithic Islam taking over Europe, and your insistence that those who don’t share your paranoia are either being politically correct, or are afraid. As I said, it is highly diagnostic of bigots that they cannot credit that their own feelings are not shared by others outside their hate-group. I’m not responsible for what other people have said; I don’t know whether you are a racist or not, nor do I much care – one form of bigotry is quite enough to make me dislike you.
That your own posts in this thread (made ex-post and pro-forma to neutralise my point) don’t attract the bigot charge from you is scarcely surprising.
With regard to this thread, several people have denounced Islam as a belief system, no-one has complained about this. The only complaints have been about your ludicrous paranoid fantasies, for which I would advise medical help. In addition, you have already been advised to go and look at the several posts from the last month that have dealt with Islamic absurdities and unpleasantness. So far as I recall, some of these have included objections to anti-Muslim bigotry, but not to attacks on Islam as a religion.
“you don’t deal with my point that the most rabid attacks on Christianity/Christians have never brought the jibe “bigot” or “racist”.”
First, I don’t know whether what you say is true. I have only been commenting here for a few weeks, and I don’t read all comments. I have certainly seen complaints about some of PZ’s posts about Christians which seemed to many in bad taste – notably one today entitled “How Sad”. Go and read it, if you haven’t.
Second, almost all posters here are living in historically Christian countries, where there is relatively little chance of Christians as Christians suffering as a result of anti-Christian bigotry, while there is a very considerable chance of Muslims as Muslims suffering as a result of anti-Muslim bigotry such as yours. Furthermore, the great majority of Muslims in these countries belong to ethnic minorities, so racism can cloak itself as fear of or opposition to Islam. As atheists, the majority of posters here are against Islam, but most of these are keen that their opposition to Islam should not be mistaken for racism, or used as a cover for racism by others. This is what you regard as “political correctness”.
Hello everyone. Re: the original subject, The Tampa Tribune incorrectly stated that Dr. Madrigal’s program was a “Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve event”. Although we post information about programs and events at Brooker Creek Preserve on our website and in our newsletter, we did not have anything to do with either the initiation or cancellation of this particular program.
Our organization’s mission is “to provide public support for the Preserve through fund raising, volunteer programs, and education to ensure that the Preserve remains a natural wilderness for future generations.”
We hope that any of you who live in or visit the area will take time to wander the trails through the Preserve and enjoy some of the very best that Florida has to offer.