The resistance on the Mavi Marmara

I had hoped to move on to other topics today but several commenters have raised some questions that I will respond to today and tomorrow. One is why some of the people in the Mavi Marmara resisted when those in the other boats, such as the Rachel Corrie, did not and were taken captive without violence. Thus, it is implied, the people who tried to repel the boarders were responsible for the ugly turn of events.
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When an American is not really an American

A truly astonishing feature of the non-reaction by the US government to the killing of an American by Israeli forces on the aid flotilla is how willing some people are to abandon their fellow citizens if the alternative is criticizing Israel’s actions. The latest example is the Republican Senate head John Cornyn defending the killing of Furkan Dogan.

Recall the situation when two unarmed Americans were detained by North Korea for crossing the border into their country or the efforts currently underway to get the release of three unarmed Americans who were arrested by Iran for crossing their border. Can you imagine the US reaction if any one of those people had been killed by the governments in the process of capture, despite the fact that they had committed an illegal act in crossing the border without permission? Would it have mattered at all if the North Koreans or Iranians had said they had been killed while resisting capture?

John Cole explains why the US seems so unconcerned by the death of one of their own, especially someone who was killed in such a brutal fashion as with four bullets to the head and one to the chest, which suggests an execution-style killing. He says that we now have two classes of people: “real Americans” and “not really Americans”.

What people don’t realize is just how nuanced America has become about citizenship.

When we decide if someone is a real American, worthy of all aspects of citizenship and defense by the government, we look at the totality of the situation. We look at what kind of citizen you are, what you believed in, what you were doing at the time you were shot four times in the head at close range by a foreign army as they stormed a ship in international waters, and a variety of other factors.

Not only was [Dogan] not an American, but we should tinker with the Constitution so this never happens again. Now had his parents emigrated to a more American country when he was two, like, for example, Israel, then this story would be a lot different. But as it was, it is clear that he was not sufficiently American for our government to get upset about his death.

Second, you have to look at what Dogan believed in to establish his American credentials. He was against the Israeli blockade, and as we all know, there is nothing more un-American than opposing Israeli policy. Had he been doing something more real American, like delivering bibles to Iran or proselytizing in Yemen, then we could be outraged over his death. As it was, he had it coming.

Stephen Kinzer poses this question that starkly illustrates how isolated the US and Israel are in their view of the world:

Quick, name the rogue state in the Middle East. Hints: It has an active nuclear-weapons program but conducts it in secret; its security organs regularly kill perceived enemies of the state, both at home and abroad; its political process has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists who believe they are doing God’s will; its violent recklessness destabilizes the world’s most volatile region; and it seems as deaf to reason as it is impervious to pressure. Also: Its name begins with “I”.

How you answer this riddle depends in part on where you sit. From an American perspective, the obvious answer is Iran. Iran seems alone and friendless, a pariah in the world, and deservedly so given its long list of sins. In Washington’s view, Iran poses one of the major threats to global security.

Many people in the world, however, see Iran quite differently: as just another struggling country with valuable resources, no more or less threatening than any other, ruled by a regime that, while thuggish, wins grudging admiration for standing up to powerful bullies. They are angrier at Israel, which they see as violent, repressive and contemptuous of international law, but nonetheless endlessly coddled by the United States.

Kinzer says that there is so little to differentiate Israel from Iran that what is needed is for the US to treat both in identical fashion. Of course, that will never happen as long as the US government is subservient to Israeli interests. As Alexander Cockburn writes, the willingness of the American government and Congress and major media to sacrifice their own to appease Israel and its loyalists in the US has reached laughable levels.

As the TV networks here give unlimited airtime to its apologists, the message rolls out that Israel is permitted every illegal act in the lexicon of international law, from acts of violence against a civilian population (the people of Gaza, starved under permanent blockade) to piracy on the high seas and the lethal attacks by Israeli commandos on the relief flotilla. The guiding purpose in this tsunami of drivel is that the viewers should be brainwashed into thinking Israel somehow has the right and the duty to act at will as the mad-dog of the planet.

The public White House response to Israel’s international piracy was comical in its wimpishness. “The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy,” deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton demurely declared in Chicago.

A friend of mine gave a good parody of the servile posture of the US government and press: “I think,” he wrote to me, “that matters are close to the point where if Hillary Clinton and a group of senior American officials were meeting the Israeli leaders for negotiations, and Netanyahu expressed his displeasure at the American positions by pulling out a gun and shooting her dead, then having the entire American delegation beaten to death by his security guards, there would probably be a small item buried in the next days’ American newspapers that due to conflict with the Israelis, Obama had decided to nominate a new Secretary of State.”

Black humor, no doubt. But it does raise the question of exactly what Israel can do to the US and still not face any repercussions.

POST SCRIPT: Five minutes with A. C. Grayling

The BBC has a series where they have rapid-fire five-minute conversations with people about the topics they are associated with. I found this one with philosopher A. C. Grayling to be terrific and only partly because his attitude to life seems almost identical to mine.

He looks like exactly the kind of person I would love to talk with over a cup of coffee.

More eyewitness reports emerge of attack on Gaza aid flotilla

Now that some of the people kidnapped and detained by Israel after its raid on the aid flotilla are being released, they are speaking out and horrifying stories are being told. Of course, we know that what people say immediately after a traumatic event can often be unreliable which is why what is needed is an impartial investigation to get at the truth of the claims and counterclaims. But since the US and Israel have taken the absurd position that Israel should conduct the inquiry, we can forget about getting the truth from that source and have to depend on other sources.

The London Independent has tried to piece together the sequence of events and provides the most detailed report that I have seen so far. It is chilling.

But one thing is fast becoming clear – many of the dead were shot multiple times at point-blank range. One was a journalist taking photographs. “A man was shot… between the eyebrows, which indicates that it was not an attack that took place from self-defence,” Hassan Ghani, a passenger, said in an account posted on YouTube. “The soldier had time to set up the shot.” Mattias Gardell, a Swedish activist, told the TT news bureau: “The Israelis committed premeditated murder… Two people were killed by shots in the forehead, one was shot in the back of the head and one in the chest.”

A report from the London Guardian describes how the passengers were treated, in particular recounting a ghastly story that Israeli commandos pointed a gun at a one-year old child in order to coerce the ship’s captain.

An Algerian activist, who giving only a first name of Sabrina, accused Israeli commandos of taking a one-year-old child hostage.

“They point a gun to his head in front of his Turkish parents to force the captain of our ship to stop sailing,” she said.

An Algerian, Izzeddine Zahrour, said the Israeli authorities “deprived us of food, water and sleep, and we weren’t allowed to use the toilet”.

“It was an ugly kidnapping, and subsequently bad treatment in Israeli jail,” he said. “They handcuffed us, pushed us around and humiliated us.”

Other reporters on board the ships also describe what happened that disputes Israel’s version of events. Tellingly, all the journalists on board had their video confiscated by the Israelis. This BBC report describes the experience of a British citizen on the boat, and this Gulf News report provides more details

Max Blumenthal provides evidence that rather than the killings being the result of a bungled operation in which the Israelis were taken by surprise at the resistance they received, the Israeli Defense Forces detailed its violent strategy in advance as part of its domestic political agenda.

Statements by senior Israeli military commanders made in the Hebrew media days before the massacre revealed that the raid was planned over a week in advance by the Israeli military and was personally approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak. The elite Israeli commando unit known as Unit 13 was tasked with carrying out the mission and its role was known by the Israeli public well before the raid took place. Details of the plan show that the use of deadly force was authorized and calculated. The massacre of activists should not have been unexpected.

Why didn’t Israel’s leaders choose to deal with the flotilla in a more judicious fashion? Were they that stupid, or just crazy? From the details of the plan it appears that Netanyahu and his cohorts had envisioned Entebbe Part Deux, a daring anti-terror raid that would lift the sinking morale of the Israeli public while intimidating Iran and the Arab world. Though Israel may be more isolated than ever as a result of the massacre, the Netanyahu administration is reaping considerable political benefits at home.

We see once again that whenever the US or Israel gets caught doing something outrageous and morally indefensible, the discussion in the US immediately shifts to questions about legality (i.e., was the order to waterboard and otherwise torture prisoners legal? Is holding prisoners indefinitely without access to family or lawyers legal? And so on.) and attention is deflected away from the moral outrage. But this seems to work just one way. If international law can be used in their favor, it is seized upon. If it goes against, it is ignored. And when a country perceived as an ‘enemy’ of the US or Israel (say North Korea or Iran) does something, the illegality is simply taken for granted and moral outrage is heaped on the country.

Former US Ambassador Edward Peck, who was one of the people on board the ship attacked by Israel, talks about this phenomenon:

I just got off a radio interview. One of the things that distresses me is the extent to which Israel has been successful in, for example, getting Americans to ask questions as to why the passengers on that big Turkish ship attacked the Israeli soldiers.

I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, they were defending the ship against people who were attacking it. You’ve got it backwards. There are civilians, men and woman, on a Turkish-flagged vessel, in international waters. And here comes a group of heavily armed — forget the paintball story — heavily armed guys who are going to take over the ship by force and then take it to Israel, where the passengers don’t want to go. And so they pick up deck chairs and other things to fight off these heavily armed — and by the way, masked — commandos, and somehow they become the attackers. So, that depresses me a little bit.

Leaving aside the horrible bloodshed and all, it becomes a war of words. Americans are reading what comes out of Tel Aviv, which is carried in the American press… So, all of a sudden, the people on the Turkish ship are described as terrorist, Israel-hating, Hamas supporters, murderers and killers.

Peck also says that after being forcibly taken to Israel he was told he was going to be deported because he entered that country illegally! This is the Orwellian world that we enter when we accept Israel’s version of events and of what is legal and illegal. As Anthony Dimaggio says in his discussion of the legal issues, “Media outlets are more than happy to obfuscate international law in order to absolve Israel of criticism.” Former British ambassador Craig Murray also weighs in on the legal question.

Next: When is an American not really an American?

POST SCRIPT: Glenn Greenwald smacks down Eliot Spitzer

I have written before that Eliot Spitzer is one of those people whom I am sorry that his personal life removed from politics. But in this interview with Glenn Greenwald, he shows that like all other reflexively pro-Israel apologists, he is perfectly willing to check his principles at the door and use his reasoning skills in defense of Israel’s actions. But Glenn Greenwald has the facts and arguments on his side.

Update on the Gaza aid flotilla attack

More news about what happened on the aid boats that were attacked by Israel is emerging even though, as Stephen Zunes describes, Israel tries to prevent the release of any information that they have not filtered:

The Israelis confiscated all of the passengers’ cameras, laptops, cell phones, and other personal devices. The world, therefore, can only see some carefully edited versions from cameramen that accompanied the Israeli commandos. What won’t be seen, for example, will be the accounts of eyewitnesses of commandos with stun guns assaulting passengers who nonviolently formed a ring around the ship’s bridge, the savage beatings of elderly pacifists as they lay on the ground, and other acts of excessive violence.

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The pro-Israel propaganda machine swings into action

Ran HaCohen describes the propaganda effort in the Israeli press to get Israelis to line up behind the government after the flotilla disaster, just the way the US press gets Americans to line up behind theirs whenever any outrageous act by them is revealed. But this strategy only works with people who will reflexively side with you on a tribal basis whatever the facts, and are merely looking for justifications for doing so. Everyone else will see it for what it is, lies.

But as Patrick Cockburn writes, such efforts carry a serious downside:

The problem is that nobody believes Israeli propaganda as much as Israelis. Pro-Palestinian activists often lament the fluency and mendacity of Israeli spokesmen on the airwaves and the pervasive influence of Israel’s supporters abroad. But, in reality, these PR campaigns are Israel’s greatest weakness, because they distort Israelis’ sense of reality. Defeats and failures are portrayed as victories and successes.

When you feed your supporters lies to make them feel good about themselves and get them to rally to your side, you are merely setting yourself and them up for even greater failure in the future, because you will not learn from the past. After all, if you are always right, why change anything?

America’s reflexively pro-Israel apologists have swung into full gear to make sure that people realize that when it comes to Israel, any criticism of any action constitutes betrayal. One such apologist is Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic who seems to be feel that our sympathies should lie, not with the dead and wounded in the raid, but with the Israeli people because they feel bad about the way they botched things.

There’s real pain in Israel today, pain at the humiliation of the flotilla raid, pain on behalf of the injured soldiers, and pain that the geniuses who run this country could not figure out a way to out-smart a bunch of Turkish Islamists and their useful idiot fellow travelers. And no, there is no particular pain felt for the dead on the boat; the video of those peace-seeking peace activists beating on the paintball commandos with metal bars pretty much canceled out whatever feelings of sympathy Israelis might have otherwise felt.

Yes, I am sure that the shame and humiliation felt by people in Israel because the world sees their government and their military as bunglers is much harder to bear than the grief of the relatives of the dead and wounded. Note the contrasting of the phrase ‘paintball commandos’ with ‘metal bars’, again to suggest that Israel is always the underdog, always fighting pluckily against a vastly more powerful enemy. For the record, you can see a photograph (courtesy of the IDF or Israel Defense Forces) of all the alleged weapons that were found on the ships.

The Irish Times reports that “[Israeli] Ministers said in a statement they regretted the loss of life in the raid, but blamed activists who they said assaulted soldiers who boarded the ship for any fatalities.” So the Israeli government has the audacity to argue that people repelling armed boarders in international waters with whatever lay at hand are to blame for the violence. If the roles had been reversed and heavily armed Palestinians had boarded an Israeli passenger ship, then any resistance put up by the unarmed people, even if ill-advised and futile, would have been hailed as courageous and heroic (like the passengers on flight 93 on 9/11 who tried to take on the hijackers), and there would have been total condemnation of the killers.

It is curious how the ‘paintball guns’ killed and wounded so many people while the ‘metal bars’ yielded not a single death on the Israeli side. I am surprised that the Israeli government did not suggest that maybe those devious and dastardly aid activists killed each other just to make Israel look bad, because Goldberg would have dutifully believed that too.

Even more extreme than Goldberg is Jennifer Rubin writing for Commentary for whom even Obama’s groveling to Israel is seen as insufficient. Rubin is very clear about what she expects from all of us:

There is a single question that every individual, group, and nation must answer. To borrow from the most pro-Israel president since Harry Truman: if you are not with Israel, you are against her. And if you do not oppose with every fiber of your being and every instrument at your disposal that which intends the Jewish state harm, you are enabling her destroyers.

Note that what you are supposed to side with is not justice or peace or human rights or other quaint concepts, but Israel. Even when the troops of that country, like pirates, board boats in international waters and murder unarmed aid workers (and please, let’s not hear any more of this nonsense that kitchen knives and wooden sticks constitutes arms when facing heavily armed commandos), you have to agree with whatever Israel says. Rubin might be surprised at the number of American Jews, especially among the young, who by her standard are ‘against Israel’ and ‘enabling her destroyers’.

One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled.

People like Rubin are living in the past when critics of Israel’s policies in the US could be muted because people feared being labeled anti-Semitic. That accusation has been so cheapened by repeated use against even mild criticism that no one cares anymore if they are labeled as such. It is seen for what it is, a rhetorical intimidation tactic.

Commenting on Rubin’s ultimatum to everyone to get with the program and support Israel or else irrespective of what that country does, satirist Tbogg says, “This must be what it is like to be trapped in an arranged marriage to a serial killer.”

POST SCRIPT: Another aid ship on the way to Gaza

The Irish Times also reports that another aid ship is on the way to Gaza, with some high-profile passengers on board.

The Rachel Corrie, which has five Irish nationals and five Malaysians aboard, is due to arrive in Gazan waters over the coming days, a spokeswoman for the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said. It became separated from the main aid flotilla after being delayed for 48 hours in Malta due to logistical reasons, and is currently off the coast of Libya.

Nobel laureate Maireád Corrigan-Maguire, former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday, film maker Fiona Thompson and husband and wife Derek and Jenny Graham are the Irish nationals on board the Rachel Corrie.

Speaking from the ship today, Mr Graham said the vessel was carrying educational materials, construction materials, medical equipment and some toys. “Everything aboard has been inspected in Ireland,” he said. “We would hope to have safe passage through.”

Some of you may remember Rachel Corrie. She is the young American woman who was run over and killed in 2003 by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer when she was trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli government.

rachelcorrie.jpg

More on the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla

I have discussed in the past (see here and here) that all governments know the value right after a major event of controlling the message and getting their version of the story out first, especially if it is false.

The least effective way to do this is to actually own the media or practice overt censorship because then everyone sees propaganda for what it is. The most effective, as in the US, is have the aid of sycophantic major media that will self-censor and bias their reporting towards the point of view that puts their own country and government in the best light.
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The latest atrocity by Israel

There is nothing that I can add to Glenn Greenwald’s description of Israel’s descent into becoming a brutal nation that ignores international law and just plain human decency, as it continues its strangling of the people of Gaza with their blockade. This blockade, imposed after the deadly assault on Gaza in December 2008, destroyed a lot of its infrastructure such as water and power supplies and hospitals, and the aid flotilla was trying to both ameliorate the awful conditions as well as draw attention to the plight of Gaza’s.
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God is everywhere

(Since today is the Memorial Day holiday, I am taking a break and doing a repost.)

There is a famous and funny old sketch called the Five Minute University in which comedian Don Novello acts in his character of Father Guido Sarducci.

As he says, when students study theology at his university, all they will learn are the answers to the two questions: “Where is god?” (Answer: God is everywhere) and “Why?” (Answer: Because he likes you). I am beginning to think that the answer to the first question is absolutely correct.

Take a look at this picture of a cut tree stump that is in a churchyard in Ireland. What do you see?

mary tree stump.jpg

Nothing? Just a tree stump that someone has cut in an odd way? Oh ye of little faith! To the devout this looks like the Virgin Mary and they think its appearance is (what else?) a miracle. People are making pilgrimages to pray around it. Over 2,000 have signed a petition objecting to plans to uproot the stump, and want to convert it into a permanent shrine of some sort.

The thing that strikes me is that recently Jesus and Mary seem to be showing up all over the place, in slices of toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, womb ultrasounds, Marmite jar lid, Kit Kat bar, shower curtain, cheese curl (the last one has been dubbed ‘Cheesus’), dental x-rays, mugs of hot chocolate, even on the backside of a dog and in bird droppings.

Commenter Chris sent me this compilation of a huge number of Jesus sightings that local TV news shows love to report on. There seems to be an epidemic.

The one newsperson had it right when she said, “You know, it seems like if Jesus was going to show up somewhere it wouldn’t be in ice cream.”

Such stories, apart from revealing religious people to be hopelessly credulous, also demonstrate how weak some people’s faith is, not how strong. It is only people who are really desperate for a sign to bolster their beliefs that will seize on such pathetic things as validating their faith. The woman who saw the Marmite Jesus ‘took comfort from the image’ saying, “I’m not particularly religious but I like to think it’s Jesus looking out for us.” She seems oblivious to how ridiculous it is to think that god would reveal his presence in a bread spread.

This kind of thing puts religious authorities in a quandary. On the one hand, they realize that if you have too many such sightings, religion begins to look more and more ridiculous. Even the TV reporters in that compilation clip seemed to find the whole phenomenon humorous. After all, if people start worshipping tree stumps, how can you distinguish so-called mainstream religion from more allegedly primitive religions, such as paganism. Some religions actually do involve tree-worship and the Christmas tree symbol itself likely began as one.

On the other hand, religious authorities cannot categorically debunk all of them as nonsense because their livelihood depends on people believing that god can reveal himself to people on occasion even if it is such weird and useless ways. The problem for the church is that it wants to discourage freelancers and maintain a monopoly on what qualifies as a revelation of god and what doesn’t, as this is the source of their power and money. They tried to walk that fine line on this occasion too.

Local parish priest Fr Willie Russell said on radio station Limerick Live 95FM yesterday that people should not worship the tree. “There’s nothing there . . . it’s just a tree . . . you can’t worship a tree.”

A spokesman for the Limerick diocesan office said the “church’s response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism”.

“While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition,” he said.

Fortunately for the spokesman, he was not asked what distinguishes this particular “superstition” from all the superstitions that the church expects people to believe, such as that the wafer and wine become transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus when the priest mumbles some words over it. Mary-in-a-tree-stump is nothing compared to that. He could depend on the ‘respect for religion’ nonsense to deter ‘polite’ reporters from asking such obvious questions.

That Mitchell and Webb Look reports on another miraculous sighting.

All these Jesus and Mary sightings and the comment in the above clip that the melon message blew his tomato message out of the water gave me an idea for a new reality TV series, because what the nation really needs is another reality show. This one would consist of people bringing their candidates for an authentic god appearance and making the case for it on live TV. Then a panel of theologians would give their comments, the audience votes for which artifact is the best miracle of god, and then everyone worships the ultimate winning object.

I think the perfect title for the show would be “American Idol”. I hope no one has used it already.

POST SCRIPT: You mean the Earth isn’t 6,000 years old?

Watch this statement by Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen (R).

What is amazing is that her statement that the Earth is 6,000 years old is said so casually during a discussion of environmental concerns over uranium mining, as if it was the most commonplace fact in the world and not at all something idiotic and controversial. These people live in their own bubble world.

The internet and religious taboos

One of the great strengths of the internet is that it allows broad-based actions and thus can undermine hierarchical control of messages. It has become very easy for like-minded people all over the world to quickly connect up and act in concert in support of any particular cause. Furthermore the considerable anonymity afforded by the internet means that people can defy taboos with impunity.

Take for example, the absurdly hysterical response of Muslims whenever someone draws an image of their prophet Mohammed. They go on riots and rampages and even threaten to kill the perpetrators. Just recently Lars Vilks, a Dutch cartoonist who drew an image of Mohammed as a dog, was attacked while lecturing on free speech. Fortunately he was not seriously hurt because police rushed to his rescue but during the assault other students chanted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”). If they thought they were bringing honor to their god and religion by this disgusting display, they were greatly mistaken. It is a truly pathetic god who needs thugs to beat up people who are merely exercising their right to speak.

In the past, there was little that anyone could do about this kind of thuggery in the service of religion because access to the media was limited and because the major media do not want to alienate their advertisers, they were likely to self-censor, the way Comedy Central did with its show South Park and the Mohammed controversy.

But things are different with the internet and it looks like Muslims have gone too far with their demand that everyone (Muslims and non-Muslims alike) adhere to the ban on drawing images of Mohammed. There has been a backlash and this taboo has been violated on a grand scale. For example, May 20 was declared to be “Everyone draw Mohammed day”, where people around the world were encouraged to submit their entries. There were many Facebook pages such as this one.

As one can expect when amateurs enter the scene on a mass scale, some of the resulting images are far more insulting to Muslim sensibilities than the ones that triggered the initial protests.

As a result of this response, Pakistan, which is rapidly going down a theocratic road, has banned YouTube and FaceBook because of its ‘growing sacrilegious content’. But this will also fail because the internet is hard to corral and people will find ways to get around any fences that governments try to set up.

The AAF (Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers) student group at the University of Illinois decided to counter this by chalking stick pictures of Mohammed. They have been joined by other student groups at other college campuses. (This act had its own amusing unintended effect with some students, unaware of the controversy or even of who Mohammed was, saw the stick figure chalking campaign as some kind of show of support for a seemingly very popular student with that name.)

Were all these actions gratuitously provocative? Yes of course. Were they rude? Certainly. Were they even juvenile? No doubt. But this is the kind of response that people should expect in the internet age when they try to enforce their peculiar taboos on everyone. The internet allows widespread yet concerted and anonymous action and religious people should realize that they can no longer control the message and decide what everyone should consider sacred. Trying to do so only makes things worse for them, a la the Streisand Effect. They should just learn to act like adults.

No one has the right to force devout Muslims to look at such drawings. If Muslims stumble across one, they should do what we all do when we encounter a visual image we do not like, and look away. But none of us have the right to prevent other people from drawing things and viewing them and the sooner religious people realize and accept this and leave it to their god to defend his honor, the better.

POST SCRIPT: How religions began (language advisory)

Religion and evidence-7: Uniqueness and the problem of induction

(For the complete series of posts on religion and evidence, see here.)

In the previous post, I argued that under the rules of logic, existence claims placed the burden of proof on the person making the claim to provide evidence in support of it, while universal claims required the person disputing it to provide evidence. In the case of ‘god exists’, which is clearly an existence claim, the burden of proof is on the believer. Similarly the claim ‘there is no god’ is a universal claim and again the burden of proof (or disproof in this case) is on the believer.
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