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Thunderf00t: a ‘moderate’ Muslim speaks out
March 8, 2012 — xanthippaPerhaps you have been following the free speech debate which has been happening on YouTube – or, at least, oe of them: the one involving Thunderf00t.
Thunderf00t is a scientist who became famous on YouTube because of a series of videos he made ‘Why do people laugh at creationists’. It took some of the more outrageous statements made/published on YouTube by Christian young-Earth creationists, contrasted their statements with reality and closed with the catch-phrase: ‘Why do people laugh at creationists? Only the creationists don’t know!’ (I am working from memory, so my wording may not be 100% on, but the gest is there.)
Soon, some of these young-Earth creationists took notice and began to react. Different ones reacted differently. Some invited him to debate them – even live. And he did – and thesedebates are published on YouTube.
Others, however, sought to shut him up – to get his videos flagged and banned. When they could not censor his content as ‘inappropriate’, some sought to use the copyright laws to censor him – claiming infringement where none existed.
Thunderf00t continued his videos, highlighting religious non-science nonsense as well as religious bigotry and intolerance.
Because he criticized not just Christian intolerance bur religious bigotry from all the directions he saw and experienced it, he soon came under attack from the Islamist corner. This time, there was no invitation to debade the worth of ideas: instead, he was doc-dropped, he and his family were publicly threatened with violence and the Univesrity where he works was bullied in an attempt to have him fired. Oh, and his videos were flagged and accused of copyright infringment in an attempt to censor him.
So, now that you have a sketch of the background: here is his latest video documenting his fight for free speech on the internet:
Walker takes a second look at the Individual Rights Party of British Columbia
February 28, 2012 — xanthippaIn the environment of ever-increasing encroachment on civil liberties from many, many directions, is it surprising that I get excited to hear (read) about any pro-individual movement/party/thought ‘out there’?
It seems I am not alone.
Walker, over at The Blog of Walker, has just done a lengthy piece taking a second look at their message. It consists of a number of questions Walker posed to the founders of the nascent party, their replies – and, perhaps most critically, Walker supplies the logistics of how it all ‘fits together’. Interesting.
When Walker took a first look at the party, he got some comments from ‘anonymous’, which were critical of the Individual Rights Party Of British Columbia’s (IRPBC’s) official policy on Islam (which acknowledges the political aspect and considers it to be more defining of the doctrine than its ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ aspects). Walker and I both responded to the comments only to encounter trollish responses from ‘anonymous’.
Trolls may be annoying, but they can also be amusing – and, at times, useful.
The ‘second look’ attracted the same troll back. I don’t know if he is trolling because of the subject matter or if he is Walker’s pet troll, but I took care not to feed him this time around. However, Frank Hilliard of the IRPBC, took the time to defend his party’s position on Islam – and had done this so eloquently that (with permission), I would like to reproduce his comment in full (F.H’s response to ‘anonymous’ has been bolded by me):
“Anonymous said…
So you didn’t ask about the Muslim thing, eh? Can’t say I’m surprised.
So when someone in Canada starts an Islamist Party of Canada, and part of their platform is to remove the constitutional protection to peaceful religion practice from Jews and only Jews, I assume that when you interview them the question will be restricted to asking who the treasurer is, right?”
Nice bit of sarcasm Anonymous, but you’ve dodged around the issue if Islam’s political ambitions. Most other religions have moral rules, but Islam has Sharia law which defines not just personal morality but every aspect of private and public life. As such, it conflicts on multiple levels with Canadian civil, criminal and parliamentary law. The Individual Rights Party of BC simply says that if Islamic communities want to change Canadian law, they should accept the obligations and responsibilities of political organization and run candidates in elections.
We don’t have any problem with Islam as a religion but we totally reject Sharia law weather imposed by incrementalism or by force. I’m pretty sure you would too if you realized your right to comment on this issue would be denied if Sharia were already in effect.
Thought provoking, is it not?
Ezra Levant and Pamela Geller on the ‘Zombie Mohammad judge’ scandal
February 28, 2012 — xanthippaThis is truly scandalous: for a judge in the USA to brandish a holy book of any kind inside the courtroom and apply religious lawinstead of upholding the laws of the land is beyond the pale.
Note: more has been written about Mark Martin, the ‘Zombie Mohammad judge’ and, apparently, he is indeed a convert to Islam. This in itself is irrelevant: it is his actions which count, not his religious convictions. I raise the point only because in the video, Pamela Geller asserts that he is not a Muslim. Therefore, I include this link so people can judge for themselves what to think.
Thunderf00t: YouTube starts banning ‘religiously offensive’ videos
February 25, 2012 — xanthippa
He’s right.
One Law for All: report from the February 11th protest in London
February 15, 2012 — xanthippa(My apologies – embedding decided not to work in this post, though I have no idea why, it’s not like I haven’t done it in several other posts just today…)
Following is an email I received from Maryam Namazie of One Law For All, reporting on the event and supplying some excellent links. Congratulations on a successful event – and thank you to each and every person who participated and/or helped spread the word: this is one fight we must not back down from!!!
One Law for All held a successful rally in defence of free expression on Saturday 11 February 2012 opposite the Houses of Parliament. Hundreds braved the cold weather to join the rally at Old Palace Yard.
The rally followed several incidents in London recently where freedom of expression was curtailed in favour of fear of causing offence. In one incident, a talk on sharia law by One Law for All’s Anne Marie Waters was cancelled following threats of violence. Rhys Morgan was told by his school to remove a picture of Jesus and Mo from his Facebook page – a picture he had used in solidarity with the University College London Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society who had been asked by their student union to remove the same image. Both UCL and the London School of Economics have since passed draconian motions which will further restrict religious criticism or satire at their schools.
Speakers at the rally included A C Grayling, Nick Cohen, Caroline Cox, Gita Sahgal, Keith Porteous Wood, and Rhys Morgan.
The event was sponsored by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science UK and featured Richard Dawkins who told the crowd to ‘stop being so damn respectful’ and that without freedom of speech, society would be a ‘scientific, technological, moral dark age’.
Maryam Namazie of One Law for All closed the rally by remembering those, around the world, who are fighting for freedom of expression, often at cost of their lives.
You can listen to a podcast of the London rally here: http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2012/02/11/rally-to-defend-free-expression-11th-february-2012/ and see videos of the event here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL324F7E92CC808428&feature=view_all. See some photos from the rally here: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/11-february-2012-an-important-stand-for-free-expression/.
Actions to mark the occassion were also held in other cities, including Germany, Portugal and South Africa. Some highlights included a solidarity rally in Warsaw, Poland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqRBW7zGflk&fb_source=message, a fundraising dinner for One Law for All in Melbourne, Australia and the start of a campaign by Women’s Initiative for Citizenship and Universal Rights in France to denounce discrimination faced by women due to the application of unfair laws in France.
The Free Expression Day of Action was endorsed by hundreds of people and organisations: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/endorsements-for-11-february-day-of-action-for-free-expression/.
As a follow up to the day, One Law for All has initiated a campaign in defence of 23 year old writer, Hamza Kashgari, who faces execution in Saudi Arabia for tweeting about Mohammad, Islam’s prophet. To support the campaign, click here: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/freedom-for-saudi-writer-hamza-kashgari/.
NOTES:
1. Also see a joint letter to Human Rights Watch on the importance of secularism: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/to-human-rights-watch-separation-of-religion-from-state-is-the-most-basic-guarantee-of-rights/.
2. To donate to the work of One Law for All, please either send a cheque made payable to One Law for All to BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK or pay via Paypal: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/donate/. We need regular support and also for supporters to commit to giving at least £5-10 a month via direct debit. You can find out more about how to join the 100Club here: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/donate/.
3. If you shop online, please do so via the Easy Fundraising website: http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/register-supporter/?char=40474. It won’t cost you anything extra but can help raise much needed funds for One Law for All.
4. For more information, contact:
Maryam Namazie
Anne Marie Waters
Spokespersons
One Law for All
BM Box 2387
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
Thunderf00t: The BEST emotional PORN
February 14, 2012 — xanthippa
He is right, of course!
In a similar vein…
People often justify ‘religion’ by saying that ‘it brings people comfort’. Quite aside from the validity of the justification, I am begining to doubt the truth of the statement.
Let me explain…
Many of my friends are religious – and yes, they do claim that their religious beliefs bring them ‘comfort’ and make them ‘feel better’. Not being religious myself, I have simply accepted this assertion at face value. While I never bought in to the claim that it is ‘good’ to promote/accept things simply because they make you ‘feel good’, I had never questioned the assertion itself.
Until, that is…
A friend of mine got hit by a truck while riding her motorcycle. She was really lucky – not only did she survive, thanks to medical advances, she did not loose the leg that was so badly injured in the crash.
This friend also happens to be deeply Catholic.
One day, her (then very pregnant) daughter and I visited her in the hospital. My friend had already had one surgery to screw the bones of her leg back together, but was still waiting for more surgeries, including the one that would use a skin graft to try to close some of the biggest wounds. (Sorry to go into this much detail – it goes to ‘state of mind’… My friend was hurting, afraid, and had almost died in a crash before her first grandchild was to be born.)
While we were putting on a brave pretense of lighearted banter to relieve my friend’s discomfort, a volunteer had come into her room. This woman offered to pray with us – which my friend and her daughter gladly accepted. At the end of the prayer, whe did some sort of a blessing and handed each of them a consecrated host. Both my friend and her daughter said they were greatly comforted, we thanked the woman, and she left.
The thing is – I don’t think that it did make them feel better!
No, I am not accusing them of lying – I think they truly believed they ‘felt better’. But their behaviour betrayed their actual state of mind.
Both their demeanours changed – for the worse. Instead of talking about how lucky my friend was, that she survived the crash, she was tearful, saying things like that since her soul has been cleansed, it would be OK for her to die now…which brought hysterical crying from her daughter, and then it spiralled downwards from there.
They were certainly not ‘feeling better’!
There was a disconnect between how they believed religion made them feel and how it actually did make them feel. Sure, it can make some people feel better at some times – but, we need to treat self-reporting in this area in the same way as we treat self-reporting in other fields…with a very healthy dose of skepticism.
By constantly focusing the mind on physical death and ‘fear of God’, ‘religion’ brings terror, not comfort, to the people who fall for it. And they don’t even realize it themselves…
Thunderf00t compares ‘religion’ to ‘spiritual masturbation’ – and I can certainly understand his point. But, having thought about it, I am wondering if it would not be more accurate to see ‘religion’ as ‘picking on a spiritual scab’: it is hard to stop doing it, even when you know it is bad for you!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 