Sam Harris vs Noam Chomsky - atheist writer in search of a cause?

It was one of those Facebook moments, I saw a link to Sam Harris' website promising an exchange between him and Noam Chomsky. I thought that that would likely be an odd conversation to have. Here's a neuroscientist who essentially wrote one short - but bestselling - atheist polemic that I enjoyed reading a great deal. Then came a dreadful book on how science can determine human values and I didn't bother reading whatever he produced since then. Well, then there's Noam Chomsky. You will know (of) Noam Chomsky. He doesn't need an introduction. Love him or loathe him, unlike Harris he is one of America's foremost intellectuals.

I have come to know Chomsky as an invariably courteous correspondent who takes the time to reply to emails even while being overwhelmed with many other competing demands on his time. I couldn't believe - and I encourage you to read the beginning of Harris' exchange with Chomsky - Harris approach to this exchange. You would have thought that there would have been a mutual interest on both sides to have a public debate with a view to publishing the content of that debate.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Harris tells Chomsky that there are purported millions of followers both have that would just appreciate this debate. Chomsky doesn't clearly care one way or another. I must say, I have never heard such nonsense before. I can't wait for Harris to write to the Pope with a similar declaration, insisting that the Pope just must reply to him, because both men have millions of followers that can't wait to read said exchange.

Anyhow, I wasn't surprised to see Chomsky being too polite to tell Harris to go away and leave him alone (he tried initially, but being the guy he is, he eventually relents and engages Harris). Harris, ever keen on publicity, writes early on that he wants Chomsky to reply in such a way that the exchange can be published. Chomsky says 'no', it's one thing to agree to an informal email forth-n-back with someone harassing you for replies, it's quite another to see that published. Well, to cut a long (email conversation) short, Harris eventually coaxes Chomsky into agreeing to let him publish the exchange on his website.  You can tell, Chomsky mostly wants to end the conversation, so he succumbs to Harris bugging him, in order to move on with his actual work, rather than indulge Harris any longer.

I can't help but wonder what Harris' next publicity stunt will look like. My bet, Harris emails Pope. Dreadul, just dreadful. I finally got the meaning of 'people full of themselves'. It tells you all that you need to know about Harris that he chose to actually publish this exchange.

There is no 'War on Christmas'

Here's a link to this weekend's column in the Kingston Whig-Standard.

It’s that time of the year again where books need to be sold and the alleged atheists’ war on Christmas needs to be fought again at all cost.

Failed U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is currently busily hawking her book on the topic, Fox ‘News’ has also started its annual War-on-Christmas campaign, lest we forget that Christmas is coming. For better or worse, being connected to that part of the world courtesy of the Internet and cable TV, even Canadians can’t quite escape the manufactured outrage by assorted business minded Christians like Ms Palin.

So, quick reality check: do us atheists fight a war on Christmas, and presumably elsewhere holy wars on Eid, Diwali and whatnot else that is celebrated by our religious brethren? Do we celebrate anything spiritual at all or is our life really one of eternal boredom stripped of anything deep and meaningful? Our kids, are they really robbed of Santa Claus when all the other kids dress for the occasion?

Well, brace yourselves, most atheists in the West are actually known to celebrate Christmas. It is true that we do not treat Christmas as a time of religious worship, but hey, that puts us in the same boat as the vast majority of Canadian Christians. The latter cannot quite be bothered to trek down to their local church and listen to a preacher’s sermon even during their supposedly most holy of religious events. Incidentally, in addition to Christians we have a hell of a lot of Canadians who worship competing invisible friends in the sky, so they also don’t do Christmas as the Christian churches want us to do. The odds are that the majority of Canadians do not actually treat Christmas as a time of worship but a time of public holidays, gift shopping and literally any number of other things that have zilch to do with the God-related activity that Christmas historically was all about. Most of us have kind of grown out of the religious appendage attached to Christmas. That doesn’t stop us from giving gifts to our kids and each other. It’s also that time of the year where many of us feel sufficiently guilty about not having donated a great deal of money to charitable causes, so it’s the cashing-in time of the year for charities. The spirit of giving isn’t quite dead yet, but it is by and large stripped of its religious meaning.

Atheists would do more or less the same thing in majority-Muslim countries around Eid, and in majority-Hindu countries around Diwali. There is even that peculiar Mexican Dia de Muertos, its Day of the Dead. It is probably fair to say that most Mexicans today will not subscribe to the ancient Aztec beliefs that gave rise to the Day of the Dead. One also can’t help but wonder how many the Muslims enjoying their Eid al-Adha celebrations would be willing to sacrifice their sons to their God, because Eid celebrations are actually celebrating a father’s willingness to sacrifice his son to demonstrate obedience to Allah – it goes without saying that the Bible offers similarly disconcerting stories of human sacrifice in the name of the Lord.

Typically atheists in those countries will simply join in the festivities and get on with their lives. We certainly don’t think it’s worth celebrating someone’s willingness to kill their children for the sake of making their respective God happy. It’s just not how we roll.

Richard Dawkins, one of the better known atheists these days, makes no secret out of his love for Christmas carols, and being an Englishman, the pulling of crackers, the smell of the Christmas tree and so on and so forth. Surely there’s nothing wrong with this. After all, the practice of gift giving around Dec. 25 turns out to be a practice pre-dating Christianity. It can easily be traced back to pagan celebrations of the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice.

What’s more difficult to accept, however, is that public holidays are inflicted upon us around Christmas time. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy holidays as much as the next guy, but there’s something inequitable about how we prioritize Christian religious events over similar events celebrated by other religions. This matters, to my mind, because, as I mentioned earlier, Christmas has been stripped of its religious significance for most of us. So, why should we continue to have public holidays around Christmas instead of Eid, or international human rights day, or whatever else? Why not add a number of holidays to our annual leave budget and leave it to us when we would like to take them.

This surely would not stop Christians – and anyone else wanting to join in their celebrations – from enjoying Christmas. Those of us subscribing to different religious views – or none – would then be free to continue going to the gym, going shopping, being at the office, instead of being shut down for a few days while Christianity is at its celebratory activities. As it stands we unfairly prioritize these traditions over other religious traditions, and the ‘nones’, like me. That is patently unfair.

The state surely would do well to remain neutral in religious affairs. Inflicting religious holidays on everyone isn’t quite what neutrality looks like.

You could call this a war on Christmas if you wish, but at best it’s a war against Christmas holidays. I call it a campaign for fairness toward the majority of Canadians to whom Christmas is merely a cultural event, an event stripped of religious meaning altogether. You could rightly point out that the majority of Canadians are still Christians. That is true, on paper anyway. I guess my case is based on the fact that the vast majority of Canadian Christians can’t even be bothered to visit their houses of worship during this most significant time in their calendar, because – like everyone else – they are too busy gift shopping, visiting friends, and whatnot else. So, an important cultural event it arguably is, a religious event demanding a public holiday, not really.

Udo Schuklenk teaches at Queen’s University, with Russell Blackford he is author of 50 Great Myths About Atheism (Wiley 2013), he tweets @schuklenk

Egypt well on its way to becoming a decent Middle Eastern theocracy

Given the drama currently unfolding in Turkey, a significant development affecting a critic of Islam in Egypt has probably been missed by many of us. The German news magazine DER SPIEGEL has reported prominently about the case, alas only in German language, thereby not exactly helping the situation.

The German-Egyptian intellectual and author Hamed Abdel-Samad gave a talk in Cairo last week where he publicly criticised the ideology of Islam (the religion as much as what goes under the label of political Islam). He specifically criticised tendencies in this ideology that he described as 'religious fascism' and that he suggested are a direct result of its prophet Mohammed's teachings.

Abdel-Samad might be right, he might be wrong, I am not an Islam expert. Whether this political scientist and Islam expert is right or wrong is neither here nor there to be honest. What happened subsequently is the real scandal: Just to prove him wrong close allies of Egypt's President Mursi were quick to denounce him on national TV and called for him to be killed. True to form this sort of stuff goes these days down well in Egypt's academia, namely in its centre of Islamic academic excellence, al-Azhar university. Mahmud Schaaban, professor of rhetoric and himself an explicit opponent of secularism in any form, calls Abdel-Samad an apostate and notes that even if he regrets what he has said, he must be killed. His regret might help him in his afterlife, but meanwhile he just must get killed. Noteworthy perhaps that the university has not called its rhetoric expert to order over his call for mob justice. I kinda doubt that this is covered by academic freedom and might just constitute a form of academic misconduct conducive to bringing the institution where he works into disrepute. It's a firing offense elsewhere. But hey, perhaps I am assuming too much here.

Welcome to Egypt 2.0, where this sort of stuff can be propagated on various national TV channels without any critical comment from government officials. Calls from the German government's human rights czar upon the Egyptian government to distance itself from this call for mob justice remain until now unanswered.

Abdel-Samad has since gone underground, knowing that there are now folks out there to get him, in the name of Islam.

The German political system's bizarre state of affairs on offended Muslims

A remarkable article in the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports an incident in the German state of North Rhine Westfalia. A bunch of radical rightwingers and a bunch of fundamentalist Muslims ran into each other during a demonstration. The rightwingers clearly intended to provoke the Muslims by showing a Danish cartoon depicting the religious figurehead of Islam in a not particularly favorable pose. As you might recall, when a conservative Danish broadsheet published said cartoon there was a big outcry amongst Muslims (they don't like any depictions of their prophet, neither positive nor negative ones). A lot of people were duly killed by enraged Muslims (including, not unexpectedly, many Muslims). So, when in Germany the rightwing activist group Pro-NRW announced its demonstration and its intention to display the Danish cartoon it knew that its favoured enemy, enraged Muslims, would show up and make complete and militant fools of themselves. and so they did. - Between the two of us, without the help of radical Muslims and anti-Islamophobia leftist counter demonstrators, nobody would have taken notice of the 30 or so pro-NRW demonstrators. But hey, like bulls don't take lightly to red sheets of cloth neither do Muslims or leftists in Germany take kindly to a tiny rightwing group trying to look like they actually have the people on the ground to organise a serious demonstration. Fun was had by all involved: The end result, a whole bunch of seriously injured people, including police officers trying to keep the peace between the two sides.

None of this is terribly newsworthy, of course. Rightwingers (especially rightwing Christians) and fundamentalist Muslims love having goes at each other in Western societies, because the rightwing Christians mistakenly believe they own these places and need to defend them against Muslims wanting to establish Sharia law. It's of course a good idea to defend the secular state against any kind of religiously motivated legislation (lest you want to live in failing states like Iran or pseudo-outfits like the Vatican).

Here's the odd bit. The interior minister of the state where said demonstration took place wants to place restrictions on future demonstrations by the extreme rightwing group. A prohibition on showing the offending Danish cartoon during public demonstrations is in the making. Here is the tortured logic: The Islamic fundamentalists count about 1500 members according to the German security services. There is about 4 million Muslims in Germany that want to have little, if anything, to do with their violence. In order to protect German police officers from their violence it is necessary to prevent the extreme rightwingers from showing the cartoon during their demonstrations.

I have no sympathies for the rightwingers here, but it seems to me as if the German state is caving in to Muslim fundamentalists.  German citizens would - in future - be prohibited from doing things that could offend members of a Muslim fundamentalist sect in the country, lest the Muslims would otherwise go on a rampage injuring police officers and other demonstrators. Freedom of speech is subjugated to concerns about security of the security forces (whose job, among many other obligations, ironically, is to uphold German citizens rights to express even harsh criticism of religious ideologies). I can't wait to hear how the German courts will respond to this interior ministerial edict.

Interesting parallel:  in Jamaica, a Caribbean island state known for its large number of militantly anti-gay Christian citizens, we see the police routinely prohibiting demonstration by gay civil rights groups. Their logic also is that there are so many enraged Christians out there that they couldn't guarantee the safety of the demonstrators (at least - unlike in Germany - they're not concerned about the security of the security forces). Another example of a democratic society caving in to religiously motivated militancy.

The trouble with religious freedom is that it is all too frequently misunderstood as the unrestricted freedom of the religious to run roughshot over everyone else.

Offense ain't a good reason for censorship

This debate about whether it's acceptable (with reference to free speech) to draw cartoons of the Muslim's prophet Muhammad or not is just weird. Let's be clear about what I mean by acceptable: Acceptable in the sense of unacceptable being a sufficient reason to prohibit (or prevent by threat of violence) someone else from drawing a cartoon of the prophet (both depicting him negatively or positively). Islam seems to have a prohibition to depict the prophet. That's all quite all right for adherents of that ideology who voluntarily agree not to draw such cartoons. However, what about the majority of people on the planet who happen to be adherents of other ideologies (or none)? Should they be bound (as in legally, or by threat of force) by such a prohibition?

The main rationale that I could find as a justification for declaring depictions of the prophet unacceptable (by my above definition) is that it offends Muslims. So, a lot has been made of good neighborly behavior (Christians, no doubt wouldn't appreciate cartoons of their Jesus as a gay guy who surrounds himself mostly with men, for instance - btw, I am not suggesting Jesus was gay, hey, I'm not even qualified to judge whether or not there's a historical Jesus to begin with). There's probably a point to be made that it would be nice if people stopped depicting the figureheads of major ideologies (religious or otherwise) as pinheads of some sort or other. Less people would be upset (the standard burning of flags and people by some Muslims in developing countries that routinely follows rumors of a new cartoon is, of course, distinctly unhinged and undoubtedly explainable by the low levels of education in such places), and so our world would be a more peaceful place.

However, is that a sufficient reason to declare such cartoons unacceptable (by my above definition)? I don't think so. One reason for this is that the most radical adherents of such ideologies would otherwise be able to dictate to the majority what kinds of cartoons may or may not be drawn and seen. Very clearly those most fanatic about the ideological convictions would also be most likely to be most offended by such speech acts (a cartoon is a kind of speech act after all). Should we really determine the permissibility of speech acts by whoever is the most fanatic? I don't think so.

The bottom line, to me, seems to be that no one has a right not to be offended. Freedom of speech is not absolute, but the right to offend must surely be included in any definition of free speech. All the time honored rationales for free speech are sufficient to justify this conclusion, but just as well, we got to realize that the consequences of allowing the most radical adherents of any given ideology to determine what's too offensive in public debate, are plain unpalatable.

'Race' and God people

Not only in Canada institutions of higher learning have long been sensitive to concerns that students, staff or faculty might be subjected to unfair discrimination by virtue of their 'race', sex, sexual orientation and any number of other features. These concerns are well justified. You don't want anyone discriminated against just because they are of a particular skin color, or because they're female, or gay. The only thing that should matter, surely, is whether someone is best qualified for a job.

Of course, as we all know, common sense as this view undoubtedly is, the reality is quite different in many parts of the world. To my biased mind, it's not entirely coincidental that violations of this common sense rule are most frequently committed in developing countries. Also not coincidentally, to my biased mind, these violations seem to occur most likely in countries where religious ideologies are more rather than less influential. No wonder then that Muslims and Christians happily engage in genocidal acts against each other in Nigeria, gay folks are routinely subjected to mob 'justice' in Jamaica, women reportedly lose their lives during pregnancy in Nicaragua because Catholicism reigns supreme in that neck of the woods, and the list goes on and on and on.

Anyhow, I digress, so there's this Ryerson University in Toronto. It duly commissioned its own racism report. True to international form the writers of this report embarrassingly conflate racism (ie someone goes after you because of the color of your skin and other arbitrary ethnicity related features that are beyond your control) and discrimination because of something you choose (in this case your religious ideology). To be clear: I am not suggesting here that it is acceptable to discriminate unfairly against someone because she or he is Muslim, Christian, Jewish or subscribes to any number of other monotheistic ideologies. Quite rightly so, in a free society people are entitled to make those sorts of choices. The nice thing though, is that in a free society (unlike those men's outfits like the Vatican or Iran) people like myself are also entitled to make fun out of folks buying into such religious claptrap. Many religious people and their leaders don't like this bit at all, hence their attempts to get the same types of anti-discrimination protections that people are entitled to because of who they are as opposed to what kind of religious ideology they choose to believe.

It is deeply offensive to conflate in a report on racism racism with discrimination against people who make the choice to believe such stuff, and who then go out of their way to let the world know that they do (eg by putting black cloth over their heads, or wearing any number of religious knickknack around their necks etc). If you belong to an ethnic minority and you have been subjected to racism you will be permanently scarred to some extent or other. You will continuously wonder when the next shoe's gonna drop. Well, compare that to people who choose to wear religious paraphernalia in order to identify themselves as adherents to an ideology they have chosen. Surely this doesn't exactly fall into the same ballpark. Again, my issue is not at all that unfair discrimination against people because of the ideologies they subscribe to is fair game. Quite to the contrary.

Anyhow, back to the racism report at that Ryerson place. Here are some of the highlights that the experts who drafted the document included. Evidence of racism... a student quote:

“I am Muslim, and once I was fasting and there was an exam and I had to do my prayers and I felt like the Professor was not very accommodating, that he/she seemed to make it look like this was something that was my problem and I should just pray after the exam is done and I didn’t feel like that was fair.”

Here then is the difference between racism (eg a professor saying 'you can't attend my seminar because your skin colour is a tad bit too dark'), and the accommodation this student is clamouring for. The student chose to adopt an ideology as her belief system that requires her to stop eating at a certain point in the calendar, and to talk at a certain time to a higher entity that no one has ever demonstrated actually exists. It is clear to me at least that this indeed is the student's problem and not the professor's. Nobody forced her to make the choices she made. The ideology that she chose is her own responsibility, and so is her private matter. It's a bit like me choosing a membership in a political party, the boy scouts, or wherever. In case I wish to attend a party meeting, or go and stuff party political materials into letter boxes I have no reason to assume that my line manager would have to accommodate me. Equally though, as long as I do my job, she has no reason to discriminate against me either. The idea though, that my membership in a voluntary association should kind of trigger a special dispensation - as the Ryerson student seems to think is her God given right - is patently absurd.

Here's another bit from the Ryerson racism report,

Some Muslim students complained about the number of times jokes about sex are used by the instructor and students in class, and how, especially when they seem irrelevant to the subject matter at hand, this makes them extremely uncomfortable. One professor, for example, told a class one day that journalism is all about lots of sex and beer. Another professor who was teaching students how to modulate their voices for radio told the class to pretend they were having sex and to imagine the voice they heard when they experience “pleasure.” Other students joined in and began making “very weird noises,” leaving some students very uncomfortable. They suggested that cultural sensitivity is important in the classroom.

So, the idea here is that as professors we should not talk about sex anymore because it might affect our adult students' sensibilities. I take it, talk of evolution might just have the same effect, so perhaps we should consider dumping that, too. I mention things like abortion in my bioethics classes. Another culturally sensitive issue (and seemingly now a proper topic for a report on racism) obviously. Potentially my Christian students could be upset by what I have to say, or even by some of the language I might choose to describe a few hundred fetal cells (ie the Christian person equivalent). Wow, I can see already that I will find myself quoted in some other insane racism report.

To my surprise the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente truly nailed the Ryerson report in an OpEd. I don't say this lightly. I have cancelled my subscription to the Globe and Mail because too many of its editorial writers (Wente being one of em) are so utterly below grade. Anyhow, to give credit where credit is due, she wrote a brilliant OpEd on this occasion. Here's bits and pieces from her piece:

“I pulled my hair when I saw the coverage,” says Kamal Al-Solaylee, an assistant professor at Ryerson's School of Journalism (and a former Globe theatre critic). “I've never worked in a more accommodating environment in my life.”

Mr. Al-Solaylee is a brown-skinned Muslim who is openly gay. He thinks the entire exercise is a frivolous diversion. “There are things that I need from the university, but this isn't one of them,” he says. “I need computers that don't crash all the time. I want students who don't have to hold bake sales to raise money for their graduate projects. There should be money for these things, not equity officers.”

Sensitivity to perceived discrimination is so acute these days that it can lead to perverse results. One instructor at the University of Toronto was told not to criticize foreign-born students for their poor language skills, even if they were unintelligible. Some aboriginal students say they shouldn't be evaluated by the same standards as everyone else, because they have different ways of knowing. Yet, as Mr. Al-Solaylee sensibly observes, his students will be working in an English-speaking, Eurocentric world. So they might as well get used to it.

The most bizarre revelation can be found in the report's fine print. Among the students, racism and discrimination scarcely register at all. Only 315 students (out of 28,000) bothered to respond to a task force questionnaire. Half the respondents were white, and half non-white. On the question of whether Ryerson treats students fairly regardless of race, the vast majority of both groups – more than 90 per cent – believed it did. Fewer than 30 of the non-white students said they had ever experienced discrimination. That's a 10th of 1 per cent of the student body.

Naturally, the task force has an explanation for this: People are too scared to speak out! That's the great thing about systemic racism. You don't need any evidence. Every negative proves a positive, and the absence of evidence just proves how bad things really are."

Go Margaret go! My qualm about this whole sad saga is not that it's unreasonable to have a conversation about reasonable accommodation of God folks, but please do not permit anyone to confuse this with racism. It's beyond pale, and, frankly, unworthy of a university.

Maia Caron interviews Udo Schuklenk

Grin, here's a nice interview by Maia Caron with myself. Enjoy (or not, as the case might be). In case you are interested or can be bothered, here and here are discussions of the views expressed in the interview. I have not corrected the few mistakes that can be found in the original text below. You might want to note that I am not author of the volumes mentioned, but usually a co-editor. In case you want to know what it is that I have written or edited during the last 10 years or so, go here.

Interview with Udo Schuklenk

Posted By Maia Caron on January 14, 2010

I’m hosting an interview series with prominent atheist and skeptic authors called Conversations with Freethinking Authors.

Today, I’m talking to Udo Schuklenk, co-editor with Russell Blackford of 50 Voices of Disbelief, Why We Are Atheists. Udo is also author of The Power of Pills: Social, Ethical and Legal Issues in Drug Development and The Bioethics Reader.

MAIA: Welcome Udo, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk about your and Russell Blackford’s book. I very much enjoyed reading these essays. Not only was it an opportunity to hear favorite atheist authors air recent thoughts on their personal realizations on what it means to be an atheist, but it also introduced me to other areligious authors and their books. It’s a compelling read and a powerful argument for atheism. Thank you for compiling so many excellent essays.

In the introduction to 50 Voices of Disbelief, you and Russell Blackford write that, “Religious dogmas and organizations are legitimate targets for fearless criticism and satire” and “There must not be special treatment for religious ideas of any kind.” I couldn’t agree more. You also mention the importance of Voices of Reason being heard at this point in our history. Why now more than ever?

UDO: I think there are several good but also quite varied reasons for this. One reason is that the religious backlash against humanist thinking is becoming ever more virulent. The UN Human Rights Council has decided to encourage the organisation’s member states to introduce blasphemy laws. I have argued in THE ECONOMIST magazine, ‘freedom of speech “must include the right to ‘defame’ religions” (“The meaning of freedom”, April 4th). The UN Human Rights Council, which adopted a resolution decrying religious defamation as an affront to human dignity, is controlled mostly by countries that are among the most prolific violators of civil rights, including the right to speak one’s mind.

The blasphemy document itself is remarkable in its scope and deliberate vagueness. Notorious civil-rights violators like Iran and Saudi Arabia will now be able to claim with some confidence that the UN is on their side when they clamp down on liberal-minded or secular Muslims. Western countries will also be happy to note that the council thinks the human right to free speech is not violated when they enforce their own, less draconian, blasphemy laws. The UN has firmly established itself as a body that is not even prepared to defend the basic principles enshrined in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights.' This then is the first answer to your question: Religious institutions and the states they control move ever more viciously against freedom of speech to protect themselves from legitimate criticism. We must not allow this to stand. Religious beliefs, ultimately, can only survive if our right to question and criticize them can be efficiently curtailed. If I am right, and we are at some kind of strategic inflection point as far as the influence of organized religions in the Western world is concerned, their fight to maintain their special rights and status will become ever more vicious. Hence, it is important right now for us to speak out and not leave that to very few atheist cheer leaders.

I also happen to think that it is important to demonstrate to the wider public that atheists can think for themselves and that our views about many issues are very diverse. We don’t do ourselves any favors at all by leaving people with the impression that our capacity to think independently is reducible to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. We are not a hierarchical religious outfit after all. Our book, the 50 Voices of Disbelief demonstrates just that beautifully.

MAIA: I couldn’t agree more that atheists and anyone who cares about freedom of speech and human rights must act rather than remain silent. In your introduction, you reference contributing essayists, saying: “… some are even wary of the words atheism and atheist words that can carry unwanted connotations in many social contexts.” This is a theme also picked up in Michael Shermer’s essay in the book. He wrote, “Words matter and labels carry baggage,” going on to say that people associate atheism with “… communism, socialism, or extreme liberalism,” and that “… we can try redefining the word in a more positive direction.” There’s an ongoing debate among atheists/skeptics/agnostics/freethinkers/rationalists as to what an unbeliever should be called. Do you think the word “atheist” is a viable term? Or should a new name be coined that would more accurately represent the areligious?

UDO: That’s a very good question. I hold it with Karl Popper on labels really. It’s unimportant to me what label we use as long as it is clearly defined (and packs a punch in the public arena). To me it matters not at all what label it is, but it would be nice to have not too many competing such labels about as they only distract from the main messages and are indicative of sectarian scheming and territory marking. You might recall in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, there is this scene where our would-be liberationists sit in an arena introducing themselves to each other. They all follow pretty much closely aligned (albeit not exactly aligned) agendas and have nearly all the same name bar some small difference in labeling. They go on arguing forever about their small differences and miss the bigger picture as a result of that. I think we would be well advised to go about this more professionally by surveying which label the wider public would be most comfortable with, take that label and move on from there. A good example of how successful this is is the self-labeling of anti-choice campaigners in the context of reproductive rights. They call themselves ‘pro-life’ which clearly sounds much better than ‘we-don’t-care-about women’, or ‘we decide for pregnant women’ or ‘anti-choice’, which is what they really are. Marketing in this context clearly matters, unless we think that our agenda is entirely theoretical and inconsequential.

MAIA: I’ll have to watch Life of Brian again for that scene you descsribe. Good analogy for what goes on in the many-labelled freethinking/atheist community. In your introduction you also write, “It is high time we took charge of, and responsibility for, our own destinies without God, or God’s priestly interpreters, coming between us and our decision-making.” It’s a theme that Ophelia Benson picks up in her essay when she writes: “I refuse to consider a God ‘good’ that expects us to ignore our own best judgment and reasoning faculties.” Do you see more people taking responsibility for their own destinies? And what is the danger when they do not?

UDO: The fact that the number of people clearly affiliated with mainstream religions has been decreasing in the West for more than a decade by now indicates that more and more people have begun thinking for themselves. I suspect, ironically, this is even true for many religious people who confronted the atheist challenge, and on reflection decided to remain with their God. Reflecting on these issues is a good thing. We can only truly live our own lives if we make a considered choice as to the values (and basis of those values) that guide our lives. If we don’t, if we follow religious (or other authority) blindly, we live an other-directed life, and in that sense we don’t actually live our own lives. The ongoing public exchanges between non-religious people and people believing in some kind of higher being actually serve that purpose.

MAIA: “Other-directed life” is an excellent way of putting it. I couldn’t agree more that ”otherness” is a foundational problem, and many individuals don’t realize how thoroughly they are plugged into “they” and “we.” In 50 Voices of Disbelief, a common recurring theme among the atheist contributors (yourself included) is an early questioning of the status quo of the religion you were brought up believing. Why do you think some people believe willingly, accepting without question their entire lives, and others question early, and reject the façade of belief?

UDO: You are asking an empirical as opposed to a philosophical or ethical question. I’m not trained to address this question as a professional. I can think of only one good reason for why someone might decide (unconsciously, if there is such a thing as an unconscious decision), and that is that there is quite a lot of comfort one can take from believing in a higher being. This comfort might be mistaken if there is no such being, as we atheists happen to think, but surely one got to acknowledge that confidence in an afterlife will make it easier for many religious people to cope with miserable lives. This is especially true for miserable lives that seem to have no end. I have always thought, call it arrogant, that those who are stronger willed or stronger minded are more likely to question this comfort and its pseudo-answers than people who are psychologically weaker. Surely there is comfort in knowing that a good, all-knowing entity is watching over you. It’s delusional, no doubt, but believing this must give you a warm and fuzzy feeling, and possibly the strength to deal with life’s adversity.

MAIA: In your own contribution to the book, an essay titled Human Self-Determination, Biomedical Progress, and God, you raise what I think is a very important issue, writing, “Political correctness today seems to demand that progressive intellectuals pretend that the barbarism that pervades many Islamic countries is not happening.” Political Correctness has become pervasive. Do you think that in general, atheists should be more aggressive in criticizing Islam?and exposing harmful religious ideologies?

UDO: Oh, absolutely. As writers like Henryk Broder have rightly pointed out, what we see across the Western world is the political left and political liberals continuing their arguments with Christians, but not with the arguably much greater threat to secular multi-cultural societies, that is conservative Islam. The UN Human Rights Council has already decided to deliberately muddy the waters by claiming that Islamophobia is a form of racism. How offensive is that to anyone who has ever been attacked or otherwise discriminated against because of their ethnicity? People choose these religious ideologies, you don’t choose the color of your skin. – As an aside, if these people argue that they have not even consciously made the choice to be Muslim (or Christian, or Scientologist or Aquarian for that matter), there is even less reason to take their religious convictions seriously, because they’re not meaningfully their own. – I think the conflation of such issues is deliberate.

There is also this continuing stuff about how peace loving Islam and its adherents are, yet most acts of religiously motivated violence we have seen across the world during the last decade or two were motivated by the ideology of Islam. We have all seen time and again on TV how adherents to this ideology have burned effigies of leaders of Western countries where cartoonists ridicule their God. What makes them think that their strongly held beliefs, baseless as they clearly are, deserve special respect? What makes them think that there is some divine right of Muslims not to be offended by people who disagree with their beliefs? I am offended all the time by their views on a lot of normative issues. Do I go out and burn effigies of Islamic countries’ leaders or prominent religious figures? No. Do I bomb Iran’s airline? No. There is no special moral entitlement of Muslim or other religious folks not to be offended by someone who disagrees with the ideology they hold dear to their heart. Protecting religious ideologies from the same acerbic wit that other ideologies (communism, capitalism, liberalism etc etc) have to endure is mistaken. This is what the rough and tumble of liberal democracies is all about. It is important for us as atheists to protect these freedoms against the onslaught of religious (and other) ideologies.

MAIA: I agree with you whole-heartedly on that. In your essay, you also bring up a very important point about the special rights that health care professionals have under “conscientious objection,” that if they “strongly hold personal religious beliefs that are in conflict with what would normally be required of them as a health care professional, they can “legitimately object to providing such professional services on grounds of personal conscience.” This practice is reprehensible and as you write, “It is arguable that, if individuals abuse that privilege by discriminating against particular patients because of their personal convictions, they violate basic standards of professional conduct.” This sort of thing goes on, and yet atheism is considered the unethical force. As you say, “religious consciences are reaching arbitrary conclusions about what is right and what is wrong.” Do you see the need for atheists to organize a more united front and demand that this kind of unfair practice be controlled by government legislation?

UDO: I have written on this issue on my blog and various articles during the last few years. I do believe we should do away with the right to conscientious objection in medicine altogether. Here are my reasons for this: Usually in the context of the abortion controversy, religiously motivated health care professionals claim the moral (and often legal) right to conscientious objection to the provision of certain health care services. The basic idea is that if, say, Christian doctors and nurses object for religious (conscience) reasons to abortion they should not be forced to provide such services. On the face of it this seems uncontroversial. I think both accepting such conscience based refusals to provide health care services as well as assuming that such decisions are uncontroversial is mistaken. Let me explain why.

First things first: health care professionals such as doctors and nurses are first and foremost called upon by us as members of society as professionals and not as members of the Communist Party, the Klu Klux Clan, the local chess club, or a particular church. They provide a public service. In return for this we as society grant them a monopoly on the provision of such services (eg doctors have a monopoly on the provision of many health delivery services, including the prescription of drugs). We as society also invest substantial amounts of public funds into their training.

In many countries abortion is legal to some extent or other. In other words, societies have decided that it is ethically acceptable for women to make such choices (usually within certain well-defined limits). In societies providing public health care, women are entitled to receive abortion services through health care professionals that are publicly funded. These professionals are seen by pregnant women for the purpose of having an abortion. They are sought out as professionals and not at all as private individuals with their own private views on the morality or otherwise of abortion. I think it is preposterous to suggest that such professionals could kind of opt-out of the provision of some services because they feel strongly about such services. Religious provisions are more or less arbitrary. Some make sense, others don’t, and among religions there is little consensus on what is and isn’t ethical. To permit the delivery of health care to be controlled by what amounts essentially to a lottery is unacceptable.

Patients treated by a public sector doctor belonging to Jehova’s Witnesses wouldn’t get blood transfusions, those falling into the hands of an adherent to the Scientology Church won’t receive antidepressants, the list is endless. It’s easily imaginable that a racist doctor belonging to a suitably racist church could refuse to provide life-preserving services to patients from ethnicities other than her own. The conscientious objection to abortion crowd might not like to hear this, but there is no in-principle difference between their objection and that of the medic belonging to the Aryan Nation Church of Jesus Christ Christian. They will, of course, claim that they have ‘better’ reasons and that the competing church (ie the smallish racist outfit) is either not a ‘real’ church or that the racists are ‘wrong’ etc. The thing is, strictly speaking, none of this can be shown to be true, because, as it happens all monotheistic religions depend on untestable claims about the existence of ‘God’.

A reliable delivery of health services (and this includes equitable access) depends on guaranteeing timely access based on health need. Conscientious objections are a serious threat to precisely that. If you are a pregnant woman living in a rural area with a limited number of predominantly conservative Christian or Muslim doctors you might well not be able to execute your legal right to have an abortion at a certain point in time, if respect for conscientious objections was considered to be of greater importance than your access to services.

This argument is very powerful indeed, when you consider the dearth of health care professionals serving the public sector in developing countries. So, the sooner we get rid of the right to conscientious objection, the better for us, the public. And to be clear, if health care professionals feel strongly enough about this matter, they should be invited to leave the profession and do something else with their lives. We cannot reasonably permit a pick-and-choose type interpretation of professionalism to become the norm. As someone who has taught for many years in medical schools, I can testify to quite a number of people who have chosen dentistry over medicine, for instance, because they did not wish to ever have to face the moral conflicts that come into play in the abortion controversy or end-of-life decision-making. In all honesty, these professionals deserve our respect for what I think is a grown-up understanding of what it means to be a professional. I think a strong case can be made for atheists targeting this serious problem policy wise.

MAIA: In Michael Tooley’s essay, he writes, “Most people in the world accept the religious beliefs of their parents with relatively minor changes, and never think critically about those beliefs.” He asks an important question: “Can anything be done to enable ordinary people to step back from their religious beliefs and to consider whether those beliefs are really true?” This question is echoed by many other atheist contributors, among them: Julian Baggini: “Why do intelligent people continue to believe?” Susan Blackmore: “God and the paranormal …. inspire deeply held beliefs and have spawned highly evolved memeplexes that are very infectious and difficult to root out once they are installed in the human mind,” Dale McGowan: “How do we go on, century after century, skating on the thin ice of a system so self-evidently false and self-contradictory?” and Ophelia Benson: “A lot of people think they know things about God which seem to be contradicted by everything we see around us. It’s odd that the discrepancies don’t interfere with the knowledge.” Because the theme of questioning is prevalent in my own book, I’d like to hear what you think can be done to turn the penchant of humans to believe rather than question. Is it possible?

UDO: Another empirical question. I suspect as atheists we probably need to offer an alternative to the needs ‘God’ satisfies (well, doesn’t satisfy in reality, but psychologically – you know, the afterlife, redemption for wrong-doing, some good all powerful big guy watching over you, that kinda stuff). We need to show that a life without ‘God’ can be meaningful and satisfying. I think humanist groups presiding over non-religious weddings and funerals have made a good and quite successful start in many countries on this front. Beyond that, it’s up to each of us individually to provoke believers into explaining themselves and their beliefs. After all, as Dawkins (yes, Dawkins) said once, ‘There is more to vicars than giving tea parties, there are evil consequences.’ US evangelicals were by and large behind attempts to introduce the death penalty for certain homosexual sex acts in Uganda.

I think it might well be worth re-focusing humanist efforts, like the religious organizations have done for many many decades, on developing countries, supporting free speech and liberal causes and their supporters there more pro-actively. The fights humanists have on their hands in places like Nigeria, India and other such countries is arguably of much greater significance than the skirmishing we engage in with Christians in the developed world.

MAIA: Thanks for joining me today, Udo. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to address these topics. If you’d like to know more about Udo Schuklenk, please visit his website. And if you haven’t read 50 Voices of Disbelief, I highly recommend it. Let’s raise our disbelieving voices and be heard.

Iran: Open Letter to UN General Secretary

To: Secretary General of the United Nations, His Excellency, Mr. Ban Ki Moon

From: Akbar Ganji, journalist and political dissident

June 23, 2009

Dear Mr. Ban Ki Moon,

Evidence shows that in the Islamic Republic of Iran elections are not free, competitive or fair, and they never lead to a real transformation in the country’s political structure. Several reasons exist for this:

Article 110 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html) places most of the power in the hands of the Supreme Leader (rahbar) and institutions that are directly under his control. Article 57 of the Constitution places all three branches of the government – namely the executive, legislative and the judicial branches – “under the purview of the absolute [divine] rule and [divine] leadership” of the Supreme Leader. The people of Iran only have a say in voting for the presidency, the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles), and local councils. Even if the people’s representatives were to be elected on fair and competitive grounds, they would be unable to bring about any real reforms in the affairs of the state. Non-elective institutions, such as the Guardian Council, the Exigency Assembly, and the High Council of Cultural Revolution, often thwart and nullify the action of elected institutions.

In practice, the real power in Iran lies in the hands of the Supreme Leader (rahbar) and it goes beyond the letter of the law as written in the Constitution. According to Article 98 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Guardian Council has the authority to interpret the Constitution, and members of this Council are directly appointed by the Supreme Leader (rahbar). The Guardian Council holds that the power of the Supreme Leader is not limited by the letter of Constitution, rendering the powers of the rahbar of the Islamic Republic virtually limitless.

The recent Iranian elections were carried out under these same limiting circumstances. Moreover, political dissidents are excluded from the pool of candidates, and a pre-condition for being considered as a candidate is to express their belief in and adherence to Islam, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, and the absolute authority of the Supreme Leader. In the latest parliamentary elections, the Council of Guardians disqualified some two thousand potential candidates and excluded them from the candidates’ pool. Again, in the most recent presidential elections, the Council of Guardians disqualified four-hundred-seventy-one applicants for candidacy and only allowed four candidates into the competition, all of whom had previously been top official positions in the Islamic Republic over the past three decades. During the Friday Prayer congregation on June 19^th, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic publically divulged that the one candidate who came closest to his own personal views was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the election held on June 12^th 2009 more than eighty percent of eligible voters participated under these very restrictive and pre-screened conditions. Sadly, their free choice was rejected even in this latest election, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced as the winner.

Most Iranians concur that their vote has not been truthfully accounted for. All across the country, the people have come out and held peaceful rallies to protest electoral violations that amount to a drastic violation of their right to shape their future. Sadly, the government of the Islamic Republic has faced off these peaceful and civil protests harshly, and several innocent people, including students in the nation’s universities have been barbarically assaulted by the state police. Numerous political and civil activists have been imprisoned without due process and, and at the same time, communication networks have been widely disrupted and severe restrictions have been placed on the activities of reporters and international observers.

We, intellectuals, political activists, and defenders of democratic rights and liberties beseech you to heed the widespread protests of the Iranian people and to take immediate and urgent action by:

1) Forming an international truth-finding commission to examine the electoral process, vote counting and the fraudulent manipulation of the people’s vote in Iran

2) Pressuring the government in Iran to annul fraudulent election results and hold democratic, competitive and fair elections under the auspices of the UN

3) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to release all those detained in the course of recent protests

4) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to free the media that have been banned in recent days and to recognize and respect the right of the people to free expression of ideas and the nonviolent protesting the results of the recent elections

5) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to stop its harsh and barbaric treatment of the people of Iran

6) Refuse to recognize Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government that has staged an electoral coup, and curtailing any and all forms of cooperation with it from all nations and international organizations

Sincerely,

Akbar Ganji

Jurgen Habermas

Martha Nussbaum

Philip Pettit

Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd

Nader Hashemi

UN Human Rights farce continues unabated

Hey, now I can be certain, my views on organized religion are unequivocal human rights violations at least according to the UN Human Rights Council. The UN Human Rights Council, an outfit today dominated by Muslim nations, has issued a resolution today that resolves that criticizing organized religion constitutes a human rights violation. In Resolution A/HRC/10/L.2 the UN states under the - as usual - misleading title 'RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED FORMS OF INTOLERANCE, FOLLOW-UP AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DURBAN DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION' the following niceties: It recognizes 'the valuable contribution of all religions to modern civilization' (among those contributions were the crusades, the slaughtering of children by the Maya, the killing of innocents in the name of Allah, and the list goes on and on and on).

Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, I suppose. In other bits of the resolution the UN stresses that 'defamation of religions is a serious affront to human dignity'. Agh, there we go again, 'human dignity' (a short for, 'I don't like what you're saying or doing, but have no good reasons for that'). They also want 'all States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general, and to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs.' What's religious hatred? Anything that 'defames' religion (like saying that God doesn't exist, Allah is a fiction, stuff like that). How can we figure out whether something is seriously defamatory? Because religious folks dance in the streets and randomly kill folks they happen to disagree with (a not uncommon pastime in some Islamic countries these days). So, it seems that I have just incited you to 'religious hatred'. Truth be told, in centuries gone by, this would have been called blasphemy. Whoever thought we had left those dark ages behind where criticism of religion could lead to serious forms of state sponsored punishments was obviously mistaken.

Here's another gem, aimed at internet and other media censorship: 'Deplores the use of the print, audio-visual and electronic media, including the Internet, and any other means to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination towards any religion, as well as targeting of religious symbols and venerated persons'. So, from today you better don't take the mickey out of religious symbols or folks like "don't use condoms in the midst of an AIDS pandemic" Pope Benedict, no matter how idiotic they might be, because otherwise, you guessed it, you'd violate 'dignity' (and so some kind of alleged human right of religious folks not to offended).

The UN Human Rights Commissioner is ordered in the resolution to develop initiatives aimed at 'the prevention and elimination of all such forms of incitement and the consequences of negative stereotyping of religions'. There we have it, the 'negative stereotyping of religion' (as in, saying in public that monotheistic religions usually aim at prohibiting women from exercising their reproductive rights, being good buddies with some of the worst totalitarian regimes in power today, the stoning to death of gay men that's a fav pastime in some Islamic countries, stuff like that) will soon be met by a vigorous human rights/dignity based response from the UN.

'Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance to report on all manifestations of defamation of religions, and in particular on the serious implications of Islamophobia, on the enjoyment of all rights by their followers, to the Council during its 12th Session.' Cool, with a bit of luck our 50 Voices of Disbelief book project might soon find itself in an official UN Human Rights 'report' as defaming religious people, symbols or non-reality based ideologies in general. Kinda cool, we'd find ourselves in suitably good company, just think of Voltaire's Candide, undoubtedly another prime candidate for inclusion in the report. Because the Council is controlled these days by Islamic countries, despite its misleading title, the prime objective of this document seems to be to isolate Islamic theocrats and adherents from any kind of criticism of this particular ideology.

Scary stuff, but thank goodness, like most UN human rights stuff, it's non-binding. The real problem is, of course, that the totalitarian regimes that sponsored the resolution will probably use it to come down hard on opponents inside their countries.

It goes perhaps without saying that the same document stresses the compatibility of this witch-hunt with freedom of expression. Bollocks.

Gambia's crackpot leader is at it again

I have written before about the amazing leadership qualities of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. Last time I wrote about this African leader I noted that his claim to have personally found a cure for AIDS might have been ever so slightly mistaken - well, I used more drastic words. Since then a reader of this blog alerted me to information about the latest travails of Gambia's leader. Yahya Jammeh had about 1000 villagers abducted by his special forces and rounded up in camps where 'witch doctors' beat the living hell out of them and forced them to drink all sorts of noxious substances. Reason being: the cause of death of the great leader's aunt was alleged witchcraft. So the Pres imported 'witch hunters' from neighbouring Guinea and had them have a go at about 1000 randomly chosen Gambian villagers. Amnesty International reports 'Many said they were then forced to confess to being witches. In some cases, they were also allegedly severely beaten, almost to the point of death. ... Villagers said they had been held for up to five days and forced to drink unknown substances, which they said caused them to hallucinate and behave erratically' I thought the Roman Catholic Church had a monopoly on these sorts of activities, but no, Muslim leader Jammeh seems to be operating in the same vein. Never mind that this kinda stuff is happening today, a few hundred years after the Catholics fought 'witchcraft' and burned to death a lot of people all over Europe.

Meanwhile, the leader of said Church, Pope Benedict (of ex-Hitler Youth fame) went out of his way to contribute to the AIDS crisis on the African continent by telling the locals in Cameroon that condoms contribute to the AIDS pandemic and that people should not be using them. I'm sure Benedict (whose penchant for wearing red shoes and colorful dresses is well-known and well-documented) is not using condoms either.

It's amazing what kind of things religious folks get up to when given half a chance, it seems. I wonder how long it will take until reality based policies will take hold in such godforsaken (pun intended) places. In any case, the African continent seems to be today's preferred playground for crackpots of all shades and colors. I wonder why...

Good ol British hypocrisy

There it is the land of the free, the defender of freedom of thought and speech, notorious for tolerating people with quirky habits and beliefs... that is, unless you're criticizing Islam. Why did I add hypocrisy in the title of today's post? Well, there's different standards for different people. A notorious, rightwing Dutch MP by the name Geert Wilders called the Koran a 'fascist book' in an anti-Islamic video some time ago. As we know by now, many Muslims respond to this sort of stuff with mayhem - you know, burning effiges of people who are not Muslims, killing other Muslims while they're at it, that sort of thing. So, one arguably over-the-top and offensive statement by Wilders leads to an even more problematic and out of proportion response by Muslims. Wilders, an EU citizen, wanted to visit the UK but has been banned by the UK Home Office on the grounds that his presence would threaten 'public security'. So, the presumed Muslim response determines whether one of Islam's critics may enter the country. It would follow then that the more out of proportion Muslims' responses to critics' views of that ideology is, the less likely it is that people who publicly hold such views would be permitted to enter the UK.

Here's the bit that really interests me in this: The UK Home Office also permits Caribbean singers to enter the UK, even though these shady characters routinely call for violence against gays and lesbians in their songs (including the murder of such people, just for good measure). It seems to me as if gays and lesbians are well advised to go on the streets, burn cars and create a lot of mayhem, because according to the screwed logic of the UK Home Office, that would then constitute a sufficient reason for not letting such 'artists' enter the country. If on the other hand you protest peacefully, 'public security' is not threatened and people advocating violence against gays and lesbians may freely enter the country.

QED

ps, in case you care to find out... here's an ineresting piece Russell Blackford wrote on the same issue: http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/02/geert-wilders-refused-entry-to-uk.html

Call for an End to Sharia Courts

For your information, from me as one of the signatories of the Call for an End to Sharia Courts, the press release of the group that initiated this campaign.
udo schuklenk

Press Release
CALL FOR END TO SHARIA COURTS AFTER REPORT SHOWS WIDESPREAD INJUSTICE
December 16, 2008

A new report showing that Muslim women are discriminated against and encounter gross bias when they subject themselves to Sharia adjudications was welcomed today (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7783627.stm) by The One Law for All Campaign, which is supported by a variety of organisations and individuals.

The campaign's spokesperson Maryam Namazie said: 'This research reinforces our own findings that Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are discriminatory and unfair. However, the solution to the miscarriages of justice is not the vetting of Imams coming to the UK as the report has recommended but an end to the use and implementation of Sharia law and religious-based tribunals.' She added: 'At present these Sharia-based bodies are growing and appear to have some sort of official backing. But they are leading to gross injustices among women who are often unaware of their rights under Britain's legal system.'

This perspective was reiterated in the One Law for All Campaign's launch on December 10, 2008 in the House of Lords at which Maryam Namazie and campaign supporters Gina Khan, Carla Revere, Ibn Warraq and Keith Porteous Wood spoke; the meeting was chaired by Fariborz Pooya, head of the Iranian Secular Society.

Gina Khan, a secular Muslim, said: 'Under British law we are treated as equal and full human beings. Under the antiquated version of Sharia law that Islamists peddle, we are discriminated against just because of our gender. These Islamists use our plight by meddling in issues like forced marriages, domestic violence and inheritance laws for their own political agenda. To allow them to have any sort of control over the lives of Muslim women in British communities will have dire consequences.' She added: 'Sharia courts must be a pressing concern not just for Muslims but for all those living in Britain. Anyone who believes in universal human rights needs to stand united against the discrimination and oppression visited upon Muslim women.'

Carla Revere, Chairperson of the Lawyers' Secular Society, said: 'Such self-appointed, unregulated tribunals are gaining in strength; they increasingly hold themselves up as courts with as much force as the law of the land, but are not operating with the same controls and safeguards. They appear to be operating in the area of family law and some even in criminal matters, where they have no right to make binding decisions as they claim to do. Even if the decisions were binding, UK courts do not uphold contractual decisions that are contrary to UK law or public policy. We call on the Government and legal establishment to stand up for the vulnerable and tackle this significant and growing problem, rather than ignoring it.'

Writer Ibn Warraq said: 'Sharia does not accord equal rights to Muslim women- in regards to marriage- she is not free to marry a non-Muslim, for instance; in regards to divorce, custody of children, inheritance, the choice of profession, and freedom to travel, or freedom to change her
religion. In other words, Great Britain in allowing Sharia courts has contravened the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and all the other more legally binding United Nations' Covenants on Discrimination and the Rights of Women... Multiculturalism is turning communities against each other, it is fundamentally divisive. We need to get back to the principles of equality before the law, principles that so many people fought so hard to achieve for so long.'

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: 'Sharia is becoming a growth industry in Britain, putting growing pressure on vulnerable people in the Muslim community to use Sharia councils and tribunals to resolve disputes and family matters, when they could use the civil courts. Sharia law is not arrived at by the democratic process, is not Human Rights compliant, and there is no right of appeal.'

Writer Joan Smith who was unable to speak at the launch sent the following message: 'This campaign is very important because many people in this country - including politicians - have yet to realise the isolation of many Muslims, particularly women, from the wider society. Some of them are already under intolerable pressure from their families, and the principle of
one law for everyone is a protection they desperately need. That's why I give this campaign my whole-hearted support.'

To find out more or support the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain visit www.onelawforall.org.uk.

• You can also listen to Maryam Namazie's debates with Sidiqqi, head of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, on BBC 5 Live and with Muslim lawyer Aina Khan on BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour here: http://www.onelawforall.org/mediacoverage.html
• To listen to Gina Khan's speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=J6mvv2ZCTKs&feature=channel_page
• To listen to Maryam Namazie's speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=I_GIdnJGKEQ
• To listen to Carla Revere's speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=gDgMB6URugg&feature=channel
• To listen to Ibn Warraq's speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx8sO6c5JcY&feature=channel_page
• To listen to Keith Porteous Wood's speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=CMg49Smhj1k&feature=channel_page

Some of the signatories to the Campaign

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Coordinator, Stop Child Executions Campaign, Canada
Mina Ahadi, Spokesperson, Council of Ex-Muslims of Germany; Coordinator, International Committee against Stoning, Köln, Germany
Sargul Ahmad, Activist, Women's Liberation in Iraq, Canada
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Writer, Washington, DC, USA
Mahin Alipour, Coordinator, Equal Rights Now - Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran, Stockholm, Sweden
Homa Arjomand, Coordinator, International Campaign against Sharia Courts in Canada, Toronto, Canada
Farideh Arman, Coordinator, International Campaign in Defence of Women's Rights in Iran, Malmo, Sweden
Abdullah Asadi, Executive Director, International Federation of Iranian Refugees, Sweden
Ophelia Benson, Editor, Butterflies and Wheels, USA
Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, UK
Nazanin Borumand, Never Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour Killings, Germany
Roy Brown, Past President, International Humanist and Ethical Union, Geneva, Switzerland
Ed Buckner, President, American Atheists, USA
Marino Busdachin, General Secretary, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organization, Netherlands
Center for Inquiry, USA
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, UK
Council of Ex-Muslims of Germany, Germany
Council of Ex-Muslims of Scandinavia, Sweden
Caroline Cox, Peer, House of Lords, London, UK
Austin Dacey, Representative to the United Nations, Center for Inquiry-International, USA
Shahla Daneshfar, Central Committee Member, Equal Rights Now - Organisation
against Women's Discrimination in Iran, London, UK
Richard Dawkins, Scientist, Oxford, UK
Patty Debonitas, TV Producer, Third Camp against US Militarism and Islamic Terrorism, London, UK
Deeyah, Singer and composer, USA
Nick Doody, Comedian, UK
Sonja Eggerickx, President, International Humanist and Ethical Union, Belgium
Afshin Ellian, Professor, Leiden University Faculty of Law, Leiden, Netherlands
Equal Rights Now - Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran, Sweden
European Humanist Federation, Belgium
Tarek Fatah, Author, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, Toronto, Canada
Caroline Fourest, Writer, France
Tahir Aslam Gora, Writer and journalist, Canada
AC Grayling, Writer and Philosopher, London, UK
Maria Hagberg, Chair, Network against Honour-Related Violence, Gothenburg, Sweden
Johann Hari, Journalist, London, UK
Christopher Hitchens, Author, USA
Farshad Hoseini, Activist, International Campaign against Executions, Netherlands
Khayal Ibrahim, Coordinator, Organization of Women's Liberation in Iraq;
Arabic Anchor for Secular TV, Canada
International Committee against Executions, Netherlands
International Committee against Stoning, Germany
International Humanist and Ethical Union, UK
Iranian Secular Society, UK
Shakeb Isaar, Singer, Sweden
Maryam Jamel, Activist, Women's Liberation in Iraq, Canada
Keyvan Javid, Director, New Channel TV, London, UK
Alan Johnson, Editor, Democratiya.com, Lancashire, UK
Mehul Kamdar, Former editor of The Modern Rationalist, USA
Naser Khader, Founder, Association of Democratic Muslims, Denmark
Hope Knutsson, Chair, Sidmennt, Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, Iceland
Hartmut Krauss, Editor, Hintergrund, Germany
LAIQUES - Région PACA, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Stephen Law, Editor, Royal Institute of Philosophy journal, London, UK
Shiva Mahbobi, Producer, Against Discrimination TV Programme, London, UK
Houzan Mahmoud, Abroad Representative, Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq, London, UK
Doreen Massey, Peer, House of Lords, London, UK
Anthony McIntyre, Writer, Ireland
Caspar Melville, Editor, New Humanist magazine, London, UK
Bahar Milani, Activist, Children First Now, London, UK
Tauriq Moosa, Writer, Capetown, South Africa
Reza Moradi, Producer, Fitna Remade, London, UK
Douglas Murray, Director, Centre for Social Cohesion, London, UK
Taslima Nasrin, Writer and activist
National Secular Society, London, UK
Never Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour Killings, Germany
Samir Noory, Writer; Secular TV Manager, Canada
David Pollock, President, the European Humanist Federation, London, UK
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Pakistan
Fahimeh Sadeghi, Coordinator, International Federation of Iranian
Refugees-Vancouver, Vancouver, Canada
Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Chief Executive Officer, Giordano Bruno Foundation,
Germany
Udo Schuklenk, Philosophy professor, Queen's University, Canada
Sohaila Sharifi, Editor, Unveiled, London, UK
Issam Shukri, Head, Defense of Secularism and Civil Rights in Iraq; Central Committee Secretary, Left Worker-communist Party of Iraq, Iraq
Bahram Soroush, Founding member, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, London, UK
Peter Tatchell, Activist, London, UK
Hamid Taqvaee, Central Committee Secretary, Worker-communist Party of Iran
Union des Familles Laïques - section Arles-Istres, France
Union des Familles Laïques - section Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, France
Afsaneh Vahdat, Coordinator, Council of Ex-Muslims of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden
Marvin F. Zayed, President, International Committee to Protect Freethinkers, Ottawa, Canada

For more information, please contact Maryam Namazie, email:
onelawforall@gmail.com, telephone: 07719166731; website:
onelawforall.org.uk.

Peaceloving religion of Islam once again triggers mass murder

Fair enough, I am an atheist, so you'd probably expect me to pounce on the carnage currently going on in India. In case you've lived in a cave or had no access to the world for some other reason: a bunch of Islamic militants have, among other things, attacked tourists at hotel pools in India's largest city, Mumbai; in reportedly selfless acts of Islamic martyrdom they also threw hand grenades into crowds of passengers waiting to board their trains in the city's main railway station. These brave warriors even succeeded in murdering a bunch of Jewish people in a synagoge.

I can see already the voices saying that we should not confuse that wonderful peaceloving ideology of Islam with these murders. After all, there's another billion of Muslims who just don't do these things. Indeed, Muslim organisations the world all over have quickly condemned these attacks - as they well should have.

My problem with this analysis is that it is both correct, and clearly seriously flawed. At this point in time we have substantial numbers of Muslims thinking nothing of killing unarmed tourists, train passengers, cartoonists, office workers in the world trade center, commuters on trains in Spain and the UK, as well as fellow Muslims, all in the name of Islam. Well, here's my problem, IF that religion was as peaceloving as its adherents routinely claim it is, how come it routinely motivates quite some of its followers to commit mass murder of innocents? How can it be explained, if the ideology of Islam really has nothing at all to do with the continuing carnages the world all over, that not similar carnages are being committed in the name of the unitarian church or the metropolitan community church or in the name of atheism?

If Islam is being misused here by fanatics, one would surely expect that atheism or humanism would also be misused by fanatics to kill - say - religionists. Yet, this never seems to have happened, at least to my knowledge. Naturally, this makes me wonder whether the obvious correlation between Islamic faith and a growing number of crimes against humanity might actually be more than just a coincidence.

In case you're in doubt about the militants' honorable motives: reportedly they carried out the attacks in order to stop further Hindu violence against Muslims in India. I think we can be confident that they have successfully achieved the opposite. No doubt, innocent Muslims will suffer at the hands of vengeful Hindus, and so the inter-religious violence will happily continue, only briefly interrupted by on-and-off random killings of tourists at their hotel pools.

I just saw the other week the movie RELIGULOUS with Bill Maher. I thought it showed quite nicely how monotheism breeds intolerance and hatred. The current outpouring of Islamic barbarism is not that dissimilar to the barbarism committed by Christians during the crusades. The only surprising thing really is that this is happening in the 21st century. Even more surprising that there still seem to be people who think religion got nothing to do with it. Religions are at the heart of the problem. The sooner we get over them , the better we will be for it