It is difficult for us to see what is happening inside Egypt, which is why it is good to listen to the Egyptian thinkers themselves:
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Egyptian Philosopher Murad Wahba: Muslim Brotherhood Ideologically Required to Start Wars
May 16, 2012 — xanthippaModern Day Christian Witch Hunts
May 14, 2012 — xanthippaLike many of the people in the modern anti-religion (anti-ALL-religions), I have, on occasion, been accused by modern-day Christians of unfairly lumping their religion in with all the other unreasonable dogmas which are so destructive to society, yet whose malignancy is tolerated under the guise of ‘religion’.
Sure, they agree, Islam is guilty of persecuting, jailing and executing people on the vacuous charge of ‘witchcraft’. That is obviously wrong and evil and ignorant. (Or, so the narrative goes…) Christianity is better than other religions because we have shed the shackles of ignorance and, for centuries, indulge in these sort of unenlightened practices and have not for centuries…
Show me – they dare – an inquisitor or a witch hunter today!
Well, OK – let’s do that!
Christians today – and not just in developing countries, but in the UK and the US – are active in hunting down and torture-killing witches. The new twist to the narrative is that these modern-day ‘witches’ are children.
Yes, children!!!
Here is a bit about a 15-year-old boy who was murdered (and his younger siblings tortured) by relatives in the UK because they suspected the children of witchcraft. The trial of the family members has concluded with a guilty verdict earlier this year – that is 2012!!!
And, the US is not immune…
Recent surveys show that some 20+% of the adults in the USA believe in ‘witches’ – of the malignant, fairy-tale type, not of the neo-Pagan religious practitioners type…
So much for Christianity having come out of the dark ages!!!
Here are some supporting links:
Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries
Interview: Witches, Mermaids and Exorcisms With Pastor Godwin Umotong On SaharaTV
NY Times: On a Visit to the U.S., a Nigerian Witch-Hunter Explains Herself
Facebook: Stand Against Helen Ukpabio
The short of it is: unreasonable belief leads to unreasonable actions. Adults must be free to do stupid things, but children must be protected from their parents’ religious beliefs.
We accept that a parent, while responsible for a child, does not have the freedom to abuse them sexually. It is high time we extended this protection of children to include protection from religious abuse, because it is no less destructive than sexual abuse!
And while I am at it…
Most of us consider Judaism to be another one of the ‘civilized’ religions – one which has produced some of the most enlightened minds in the field of science and which is not ‘oppressive’ on its practitioners the way some other religions are…
Yet, there is Judaism and there is Judaism…
Many Jews are well integrated into their host societies and for them, being ‘Jewish’ is more of a national identity than it is a religious faith. Many do practice some of the customs which identify them as ‘Jews’ as a form of private observance and, as long as they do not impose it on their children before they are old enough to give informed consent (and, yes, I am referring specifically to the intolerable practice of arbitrary amputation of part of a penis in infants, which ought to be illegal), I have no argument with it.
However, there are other forms of Judaism alive and well in our society – ones which I consider much less benign.
When a group of people refuses to integrate and takes great pains to segregate itself from the society in which they live, bad things happen.
Always.
When religion is the ‘carrot and the whip’ to enforce such a segregation, we ought not tolerate this: it is one thing for adults to exercise their freedom of religion, it is quite another one for them to strip it away from their children.
Because we have learned that over and over and over again , and as one of my role-models, Asma Jahangir, has taught us – when a religious minority demands special rights, they will always use these ‘rights’ to oppress minorities within themselves, most commonly children and women.
As is the case in this story of a self-segregated Orthodox Jewish community, their ‘internal courts’ and child abuse…
Aside: when we fought – and succeeded – against the opening of Sharia courts in Ontario, we also fought against separate ‘Jewish tribunals’ – in effect, the Jewish versions of Sharia courts. I am pleased to say that, unlike in the linked article, Ontario is free of this malignancy: a society cannot exist unless there is one set of laws for everyone, equally applied to everyone by both the police and the courts!!!
To sum up: one law – and one and equal law enforcement – for all members of society is necessary in order to maintain society. Children have innate rights which even their parents must not be permitted to violate – and permitting parents to violate their children’s right to religious freedom (through childhood indoctrination) is deeply connected to and, in reality, little different from permitting parents to commit or facilitate child sexual abuse. It is about time we started treating the two crimes alike!
A tiny step in the right direction for Columbia
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaPerhaps it is not a giant leap, but a tiny – yet important – step for Columbia:
‘The Colombian House of Representatives Wednesday passed the first draft of a bill that seeks to legalize illicit crops.’
…
‘Representative Hugo Velasquez Jaramillo, who proposed the bill, explained that although the cultivation of plants would be legal under the new legislation, the processing and trafficking of drugs would remain subject to criminal sentencing.’
It would be unreasonable to expect Columbia to go further than this – for now. The fear of US reaction to even this must be felt…
But, letting the highly destructive US-led prohibitionism dictate the drug policy of many countries has only had disastrous consequences.
Not only is prohibitionism anti-freedom (in a very real sense, it claims greater property right over the citizen’s own body for The State than the citizen’s own claim to self-ownership), it enriches and strengthens organized crime. In some countries, this undermines governance to such a degree that civil liberties cannot be exercised at all!
Obviously, it is in no-one’s interest (except, of course, the organized crime groups and the ever-more-militarized police forces which grow to combat them) to continue with drug prohibition: the evidence is there for all to see. Still, I doubt that most people are willing to look…
But, let’s not spoil the moment: Columbia has taken a step in the right direction. Let’s hope more countries follow – and that this is just a small step in a long march towards eventually abolishing all drug laws!
A bully is a bully is a bully…
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaHow can anyone regard this man as ‘electable’?!?!?
‘The incident was told to the newspaper independently by five students, one who said that Romney, the son of then-Michigan governor George Romney, had it out for a younger boy because of his long bleached-blond hair.’
He didn’t know the boy was gay?!?!?
What kind of an apology is that?!?!?
So, it would have been all right to get a gang together and assault younger students, as long as they were not gay?
If you are the type of person who would do this – to anyone – you are exhibiting some seriously psychopathic behaviour. When you couple this with his documented animal cruelty, there should be no doubt that this man is not fit for public office of any kind!
Are the Republicans actively trying to get Obama re-elected?
ReasonTV: The Vampire Economist and the Moral Molecule: Q&A with neuroeconomist Paul Zak
May 10, 2012 — xanthippa
The Church of Kopimism
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaBelief in the moral goodness of file-sharing is now protected, just like any other religious creed, as the Missionary Church of Kopimism becomes an officially recognized religion.
In Sweden – for starters. From their website:
* All knowledge to all
* The search for knowledge is sacred
* The circulation of knowledge is sacred
* The act of copying is sacred.
(Though not recognized as an official religion in Canada, their Canadian site is here.)
Please, share the video of the first Kopimist wedding:
As big business and big government continue to merge into one corrupt pile of steaming dung, freedom of speech will continue be curbed by commercial laws as much as by any others: it is now that we must recognize that the very concept that ‘ideas’ – in any form – may be ‘owned’ is outrageous, immoral and indefensible. It is precisely in order to protect our freedom of speech that we must fight against any attempt to limit the freedom to spread ideas and information freely.
We do not make up our minds about ‘things’ based on facts – we can only make up our own minds up based on the facts we know – on the information available to us. Without free, unfiltered access to informtion and ideas – all ideas – we are robbed of the very capacity to think freely.
Though I generally see religions (theistic or not) as intrinsically evil, I hope this new religion will be a useful tool in this war!
Net Neutrality Becomes the Law in the Netherlands
May 9, 2012 — xanthippa‘In addition, the law includes an anti-wiretapping provision, restricting internet providers from using invasive wiretapping technologies, such as deep packet inspection (DPI). They may only do so under limited circumstances, or with explicit consent of the user, which the user may withdraw at any time. The use of DPI gained much attention when KPN admitted that it analysed the traffic of its users to gather information on the use of certain apps. The law allows for wiretapping with a warrant.’
Bits of Freedom goes on to explain that with passing this law, Netherlands becomes the first country to implement the EU guidelines on Net neutrality.
This comes shortly after we have had a tangentially related – but nonetheless noteworthy – ruling from EU Court of Justice: No Copyright on Computer Functionality or Computer Languages.
Which only makes sense.
Scientific American raises concern about unpublished source-code
May 9, 2012 — xanthippaScientific American has sounded the alarm about the dangers of ‘doing science’ and then presenting the results without permitting anyone to see the code which was used to ‘massage’ process the data. (Global Warming apocalypse-predicting ‘computer models’ pop into my mind: ‘Yeah, our computer models predict catastrophic climate changes – no, you can’t see how! Just take our word for it!’)
Pseudo-scientists hide behind the ‘copyright on source-code’ to present bad research – and many genuine scientists are truly limited by it, too. The result is that, without the source-code, it is impossible to replicate their research: an essential step in the actual real scientific process.
Without this step – replicating one team’s research by another, unrelated team to either verify or disprove their results – we will not be able to tell ‘good science’ from ‘bad science’ – or, indeed, downright scientific fraud. This will not only undermine people’s trust in all ‘science’, it will lead to people getting seriously hurt as ‘bad science’ becomes public policy.
This is yet another example of how copyright has been taken to a level which is harmful to us all.
BCF is on the trail
May 8, 2012 — xanthippaIn the last few (OK, many) years, the only journalists who seem to be doing their jobs are bloggers.
Not all all bloggers, of course, but there are a few shining stars.
BlazingCatFur (BCF) is one of these.
Here are two connected stories he has been uncovering:
One Islamic school (Madrassa) has been preaching hate-speech directed both at Jews and and Muslims of differing denominations. And not the usual ‘hate speech’ which the Human Rights Commissions are persecuting, which is a thinly weiled code for ‘not politically correct speech’. We are talking REAL hate speech…
And, there is always the money trail: when charities get their tax exempt charitable status, they have to open their books to scrutiny, so that everyone can follow their financial trail. When this trail gets a little muddy, BCF just might be there to clear things up!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 