Richard Dawkins and the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club

Richard Dawkins may have finally gone too far. (Not the first time I've said this, I know.) After his most recent Twitter feud, he's found himself disinvited by the Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism. It seems they've finally noticed that he's a raging misogynist. Some of us caught on to this problem a little quicker. Skepchick blogger Rebecca West gives a rundown of this latest fiasco here.

In short, he retweeted a video from a men's movement ideologue called Sargon of Akkad, which mocked and attacked a feminist activist. Even when it was made clear to him that the woman is being terrorized with rape and death threats, and that she was doxxed, his reaction was to double down. This red-haired feminist was just too mockable for him to let it go. She's so obviously the wrong kind of feminist. Dawkins, by the way, is the right kind. He really understands what women should want in life, and is more than happy to explain it to us until we get it into our pretty, little heads.

In particular, he's very clear about what Muslim women should want. He'd like to start a feminist revolution for them, and he'd like to start with their clothing. That this isn't what Muslim feminists are concerned about doesn't seem to phase him. And so goes the other Twitter war, in which Dawkins finds himself these days. In the since deleted tweet, he explains how a "good Muslim" woman comports herself.

That Time Reza Aslan Smacked Down Bill Maher

I've never much cared for Bill Maher's commentary on religion. I think his views on the issue are shallow and reasoned backwards from the most extreme examples. So I very much enjoyed Reza Aslan's recent take-down of Maher's thoroughly ignorant, Islamaphobic rant. In the process he schooled the equally simplistic Don Lemon and Alisyn Camerota.

Comedian Bill Maher recently made some comments about Islamic countries that characterized them as more prone to violence, misogyny and bigotry, and now religious scholar Reza Aslan has called Maher out on his own “bigotry.” Aslan, who became famous when he skewered Fox News, appeared on CNN to pick apart Maher’s “not very sophisticated” and “facile arguments” that characterize Muslim nations as all the same. As is evident from the CNN bit, these arguments are not unique to Maher, making Aslan’s nuanced argument an essential one to keep in mind as we increase military action in the Middle East.

Here’s Aslan’s point: “To say Muslim countries, as though Pakistan and Turkey are the same… it’s frankly, and I use this word seriously, stupid!”

“The problem is that you’re talking about a religion of one and a half billion people,” he explained, “and certainly it becomes very easy to just simply paint them all with a single brush by saying, ‘Well in Saudi Arabia [women] can’t drive,’ and saying that’s representative of Islam. That’s representative of Saudi Arabia.”

Stealing Malala

Available on Amazon.com

An excellent write-up in Salon takes on Sam Harris's disturbing crush on Malala Yousafzai.

In an era of narcissistic self-obsession, there’s something to be said for the value of self-awareness. This week, atheist philosopher Sam Harris leapt forward to claim Malala Yousafzai as another trophy in his one-man jihad against Muslims and the weak-kneed “Muslim-apologists” he perceives on the left.

That Harris has been denounced as a crude, pseudo-intellectual bigot for his various tirades about the monolithic evil of Muslims didn’t do much to deter him; but what was most interesting about his latest missive was its complete disregard for Malala’s actual words and opinions. Either he didn’t listen to her words at all before plastering her face on his website or he was too contemptuous of her to think it necessary.

According to Harris:

Given the requisite beliefs…. an entire culture will support such evil. Malala is the best thing to come out of the Muslim world in a thousand years. She is an extraordinarily brave and eloquent girl who is doing what millions of Muslim men and women are too terrified to do—stand up to the misogyny of traditional Islam

It’s worth pausing here to listen to whether Malala thinks that she is standing up to her own evil culture and the misogyny of “traditional Islam”:

“The Taliban think we are not Muslims, but we are. We believe in God more than they do, and we trust him to protect us…..I’m still following my own culture, Pashtun culture….Islam says that it is not only each child’s right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility.”

Whatever one thinks of this, given that these are Malala’s beliefs, anyone with a modicum of decency or respect for her would not go ahead and use her suffering as a tool to attack the very things she is fighting to defend. Yet Harris takes up this opportunity with great vigor. For him it doesn’t matter whether Malala believed she was defending traditional Islam, because anyone who tries to differentiate Islam from the acts of extremists are part of the “tsunami of stupidity and violence breaking simultaneously on a hundred shores … the determination that ‘moderate’ Islam not be blamed for the acts of extremists.’”

Another way of saying that is that Harris's blog post doesn't make a lick of sense. As I said when I first read it last week, if Muslims like Yousafzai are standing up to the Taliban and demanding education for girls, how is Islam the problem?

In Harris's world, no "Moderate Muslims" have ever pushed back against extremists before -- just Malala. She apparently sprung up out of nowhere to become the lone voice in the entire Muslim world to stand up for a girl's right to be educated.

Throughout its roughly twenty year history, the Taliban has targeted education for women and girls, closing schools, forcing professional women out of their jobs and into burqas, and confining all females to their homes. A logical person, even with no real knowledge of the Muslim world, would deduce from that basic and well-known set of facts, that countless Muslim women in Afghanistan and Pakistan were educated and working in a range of careers long before the Taliban came along. Sam Harris, on the other hand, somehow deduces that Islam has been oppressing women and keeping them from getting an education for at least a thousand years. Huh? What then does the Taliban keep closing down?

Harris's post, entitled "No Ordinary Violence," goes on with such fact-free, ahistorical leaps in logic for many florid paragraphs. Muslims kill because they are Muslims. Period. They're deluded by promises of paradise. Iraq, Afghanistan, drone attacks... all irrelevant. In fact, all that military action would be unnecessary but for their religion-fueled, as opposed to clinical, insanity. No. Really. He says that.

Yes, our drone strikes in Pakistan kill innocent people—and this undoubtedly creates new enemies for the West. But we wouldn’t need to drop a single bomb on Pakistan, or anywhere else, if a death cult of devout Muslims weren’t making life miserable for millions of innocent people and posing an unacceptable threat of violence to open societies.

Blithely ignoring the fact that his new-found heroine is a passionate Muslim, Harris exploits her iconic status to bash the religion she loves.

Shortly after Harris posted his paean-to-Malala/anti-Muslim-screed, it was reported that she had told President Obama that, actually, the drones? Kind of a problem.

“I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees,” she said in the statement. “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.” 

Since then, not a peep from Harris about how his golden girl went off the script that exists only in his head and told the leader of the free world that it might just be ordinary violence after all.

Amazingly enough, this is not the worst thing Harris has ever said about Muslims. He has a long, documented history of bigotry masquerading as intellectual enlightenment. Even among New Atheists, his animus toward Muslims is extreme. And New Atheism has created a lot of slickly packaged Islamaphobia.

When criticism of religion morphs into an undue focus on Islam - particularly at the same time the western world has been engaged in a decade-long splurge of violence, aggression and human rights abuses against Muslims, justified by a sustained demonization campaign - then I find these objections to the New Atheists completely warranted. That's true of [Richard] Dawkins' proclamation that "[I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today." It's true of [Christopher] Hitchens' various grotesque invocations of Islam to justify violence, including advocating cluster bombs because "if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too". And it's true of Harris' years-long argument that Islam poses unique threats beyond what Christianity, Judaism, and the other religions of the world pose.

Not only has Harris aligned himself ideologically with European fascists who dream of turning Muslims "into soap," he opines in The End of Faith that, "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them."

I think it's safe to say that when one begins advocating genocide, one has given up the moral high ground.

The rabid anti-Muslim bias of New Atheists has come under increasing scrutiny as their fundamentalist zeal to rid the world religion has gained ground. They simply don't disparage all religions equally. Dawkins, for instance, has made numerous statements along the lines of “Religion poisons everything, but Islam is in a toxic league of its own.”

Dawkins has also refused to distance himself from Harris's many outrageous statements, saying at one point:

You mean the Koran and the Hadith don’t say what Sam claims they say? I’m delighted to hear that, but can you substantiate it? I do hope you can, then we can all sleep easier. If, on the other hand, Sam is summarising Islamic scriptures accurately, why should I be ashamed of myself for simply quoting Sam’s accurate summary?

What may be evident from that statement is something that he's also admitted publicly. He's never read the Quran.

Dawkins, in a recent rant on Twitter, admitted that he had not ever read the Quran, but was sufficiently expert in the topic to denounce Islam as the main culprit of all the world’s evil: “Haven’t read Koran so couldn’t quote chapter and verse like I can for Bible. But [I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today.” How’s that for a scientific dose of proof that God does not exist?

A few days later, on March 25, there was this: “Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read the Qur’an. You don’t have to read “Mein Kampf” to have an opinion about Nazism.”

It’s an extraordinary feat for an Oxford scholar to admit that he hasn’t done the research to substantiate his belief, but what’s more extraordinary is that he continues to believe the unsupported claim. That backwards equation — insisting on a conclusion before even launching an initial investigation — defines the New Atheists’ approach to Islam. It’s a pompousness that only someone who believes they have proven, scientifically, the nonexistence of God can possess.

As we know from years of seeing Dawkins and Harris in action, whatever scholarly standards they may apply to work in their own fields of science go right out the window when they start talking -- and writing -- about religion. They are scientists. Therefore everything they do is scientific, even when it isn't, seems to be the reasoning. As Terry Eagleton observed, "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

That problem of ignorance masquerading as scholarly rigor can only be compounded when they start holding forth on a religion in which they were not raised. That they have a childlike grasp of Judaism and Christianity can carry them a ways in bashing both. But, notably, they've both made a great deal of apology for both of those religions as compared to the Islam of which they have zero experiential knowledge.

Now, into the thick of that fiercest of ironies, Sam Harris has dragged a devout Muslim, magically transforming her courage and faith into a testament to his lack of both. Hasn't she suffered enough?

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William Henry on the Judgement Day Device

I noticed this article about the Muslim view of the apocalypse The Huffington Post and it reminded me that I've been meaning to listen to two recent interviews with William Henry. From the article:

Muslim and Christian views of the Apocalypse are remarkably similar, albeit with a different ending.

. . .

Contemporary Muslim apocalyptists have even borrowed from their Christian counterparts, such as Hal Lindsay, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, to discern the dates of the Antichrist's arrival, said David Cook, an expert on Islamic eschatology and associate professor at Rice University.

. . .

Some Muslims don't like the idea of Jesus playing the messianic hero, and have thus assigned a larger role to the Mahdi, said Cook. That belief is strong among Shiites, particularly the "Twelvers" in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often spoke of the Mahdi's return.

William Henry's research adds an important piece to the puzzle of apocalyptic prophecies: the Ark of the Covenant. Henry believes that all the players are seeking the ark, in hopes of harnessing its mythical power. Above is posted his recent interview on Red Ice Radio and his interview on Awake in the Dream can found here.

The whole thing is a study in the dangers of literalism. Supplemental reading and listening can be found here and here.

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." ~ Luke 17:20-21

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Pagan Kerfuffle Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

I was reading this ghastly story this morning about a man who was recently executed for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia.

According to SPA, the Saudi state news agency, Muree bin Ali bin Issa al-Asiri, a man "found in possession of books and talismans" was beheaded in the southern province of Najran.

The BBC reported that the execution was carried out after al-Asiri's sentence was upheld by the Middle Eastern monarchy's highest courts, and that "no details were given of what he was found guilty of beyond the charges of witchcraft and sorcery."

Although Amnesty International stated that the country does not consider it a capital offense, executions on charges of sorcery and witchcraft have occurred in Saudi Arabia in recent years. 

Books and talismans... sigh...

So, I was trying to remember what exactly Rob Kerby had said about Saudi Arabia's proactive response to the witch and djinn (genie) problem. I seem to remember he was fairly laudatory. But when I clicked on the link to the original post, I found that it was gone. I ran some searches on the site. I can't find it. I seem to remember that the response to that piece by Beliefnet's Pagan blogger Gus DiZerega linked to a different version of the same story on that site, so I clicked the link to DiZerega's post. Also gone.

I guess disposing of comments was not enough. Beliefnet has flushed the entire episode and still seems to be trying to profit from its pre-existing brand as a religiously tolerant site. Gus DiZerega has not posted anything since, however, so I'm assuming he and the Pagan community never got that requested apology.

They could not, however, remove all traces of Kerby's diatribe. An extant version can still be found on The Blaze, so I was able to refresh my memory.

In September, Abdul Hamid Bin Hussain Bin Moustafa al-Fakki, a Sudanese national, was beheaded in Medina after being convicted of casting a spell involving jinni designed to reconcile a divorced couple.

“Saudi law does not clearly outlaw sorcery,” reports Cecily Hilleary of Middle East Voices, a Voice of America website, “but the country’s legal system is based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.”

According to the Understanding Islam website, belief in magic is integral to the Islamic tradition. Many Saudis say their belief in sorcery and jinni is an integral part of Islam.

Anyone Muslim denies their existence is not a true believer, according to Christoph Wilcke, Senior Researcher for the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch.

“I recall a meeting with the highest adviser to the Minister of Justice in Saudi Arabia a few years ago,” Wilcke told the Middle East Voices, a Voice of America website. “I asked him, ‘How do you prove sorcery or witchcraft in court?’ And the answer he gave me, after looking a little bit stupefied, was to point to the American justice system – how do Americans know what is pornography?

“He basically said, ‘I know it when I see it.’”

Witchcraft is a profitable business in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Muslim world, he said.

“The poor, the ailing and the heartsick, believing in magic, turn to fortune tellers and herbalists for help,” writes Hilleary.

In the west, witchcraft is trivialized with children’s books such as Harry Potter and Disney movies and TV shows that present it as harmless.

I know it when I see it... and then off with their heads. And this is what Kerby holds up as a model for taking the dangers of Harry Potter seriously. Wow. It's even worse than I'd remembered.

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That's the Way the Jeffersonian Wall Crumbles

In 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy spoke eloquently about his commitment to keeping church and state separate. In 2011, presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced that Kennedy's pronouncement made him "want to throw up." Yes, our political discourse has degraded to the point where presidential frontrunners talk like melodramatic teenagers... And then there's the whole trashing of the First Amendment thing.

In remarks last year at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen in Warner, N.H., Santorum had told the crowd of J.F.K.’s famous 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, “Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.”

. . .

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Santorum said. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.”

He went on to note that the First Amendment “says the free exercise of religion — that means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square.”

To Santorum's way of thinking, Kennedy "threw his faith under the bus in that speech."

Kennedy's speech was made in the context of fears about electing the first Catholic to the presidency. In that respect, he paved the way for a Santorum candidacy. But Santorum also benefits from the fact that there is no longer much friction between Catholics and Protestant evangelicals who have bonded over exactly the kind of social issues Santorum articulates with a vehemence I can't recall ever hearing from a presidential frontrunner: abortion, gay rights... contraception (?!!)...

With his comments about Obama's"phony theology" that isn't "based on the Bible," Santorum did not simply bring his faith with him into the public square. He dragged numerous sectarian divides into the political process. He's made this campaign about acceptable and unacceptable religious views and, in so doing, ran afoul of the Constitution. But he hasn't done it alone. Outrageous as it seems, Santorum's religious focus is about pitch perfect in a GOP primary that has become all about religion and which seems to flagrantly spurn Article VI which prohibits a "religious test" for anyone pursuing public office.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

This has become a debate not only over Christianity vs other religious beliefs (or the lack of them) but between Christian sects and over what constitutes a "good Christian." Reverend Franklin Graham, son of the legendary Billy Graham, really upped the ante when he repeatedly hedged on the question of whether or not President Obama is a Christian.

The upshot? People have to be taken at their word that they're Christian unless Graham disagrees with their political choices... or if they're Mormons like Mitt Romney. "Most Christians" don't view Mormons as Christian, according to Graham. Personally, I don't think Graham is in a position to speak for Christians everywhere so I'd want to see some stats before I accept that statement at face value. Certainly Robert Jeffress doesn't. As previously discussed, Jeffress believes the Mormon Church to be a cult. Of course he's said the same thing about Catholicism. So, of course, Jeffress has been dragged out in front of the cameras again to weigh in on the issue of who is and who isn't a proper Christian. So this is a completely bizarre exchange with gaping holes in logic about a completely bizarre exchange with gaping holes in logic.

Jeffress believes Obama is a Christian. He will take him at his word even if Graham won't. Mormons? Not so much. And he'd have to "hold his nose" to vote for the Mitt Romney.

Jeffress explains that Mormonism isn't in line with "historic Christianity" and asks, if Mormons and Christians believe the same things, "Why are they always on my front doorstep trying to convert me?" Pithy. But by that logic, a great number of evangelicals are not Christian because they actively proselytize to mainstream Christians who haven't been "born again," or "saved," and therefore won't get into heaven.

Such minutiae may make for an interesting theological debate but why on earth is it being hashed out in the political arena? Oh. Right. Because Rick Santorum questioned Obama's "theology." He assures us, though, that he never meant to imply that Obama is a Muslim (heaven forbid) and insists he was referring to his environmentalism... even though that doesn't make any sense.

Obama is too soft on Muslims, though, and this business of apologizing for the accidental Qu'ran burning incident that has sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan, just makes him look "weak." Santorum reasons that you don't apologize for things you didn't do on purpose.

"There was nothing deliberately done wrong here. This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake ... when that is occurring, you should not be apologizing for something that was -- an unfortunate -- say it’s unfortunate, say that this is something that should have been done," Santorum said. "To apologize for something that was not an intentional act is something that the president of the United States, in my opinion, should not have done."

"But if it was a mistake, isn’t apologizing the right, important thing to do?" asked ABC News host George Stephanopoulos.

"It suggests that there is somehow blame, this is somehow that we did something wrong in the sense of doing a deliberate act wrong," Santorum replied. "I think it shows that we are -- that I think it shows weakness."

I know when I bump into total strangers with my grocery cart, I apologize. And I almost never bang into people in the supermarket on purpose.

And if Santorum thinks it's inappropriate to apologize for inadvertent errors, why did his own press secretary call to apologize for accusing President Obama of "radical Islamic policies" on national television? She swears she meant to say "environmental," as she struggled to explain Santorum's reference to Obama's non-Biblical "theology." Her offside comment smacked of the kind of Freudian slip so brilliantly depicted by the Kids in the Hall, as an award winning actress accidentally thanks Hitler.

Santorum has walked back his nauseous protest of the late President Kennedy's remarks just enough to allow that the government should have zero influence on the church and it's ability to deny birth control to employees of church affiliated institutions, even if they're not of that religion and even if the church isn't actually paying for it. Yes, religious freedom, according to this latest dust-up over birth control coverage, means the freedom of the church to control the behavior of all their employees, even if they're not of that religion and are acting according to their own conscience.

And, of course, Santorum and his church have long reserved the right to interfere in the choices of Americans everywhere by pressuring federal, state, and local governments to restrict access to abortion and to prevent gay marriage. I guess that's, again, where Santorum sees the permeability in the Jeffersonian wall that would allow people of religious conscious to bring that influence into the public square... unless they're conscience is non-Biblical, like those wacky Muslims and environmentalists with their weird theologies.

Dizzy yet? I know I am.

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Christian Fundamentalist Caught Telling the Truth

Bradlee Dean

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is being sued for quoting Christian rocker Bradlee Dean word for word. The excerpt from his radio broadcast was aired during an August 9, 2010 broadcast and reads as follows:

"Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America. They themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible, the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than the American Christians do. Because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination. If America won't enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that."

Dean does not dispute the accuracy of the quote. But despite the fact that Maddow also quoted his disclaimer -- "we have never and will never call for the execution of homosexuals" -- Dean argues that his intent was distorted.

Despite the very clear disclaimer by Bradlee Dean on his ministries website and elsewhere regarding the false accusation that he was calling for the execution of homosexuals, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and others seized on and accused Dean on her show of supporting the killing of homosexuals, as is the practice in some radical Islamic countries. This seriously has harmed Dean and the ministry, who pride themselves on respect and love for all people.

The transcript of Maddow's broadcast can be found here. (Scroll down for video.) Nowhere does she claim that Dean actually supports a death sentence for gay people. The only text from which such an inference could possibly be drawn is from Dean's own words. Maddow's "slander and defamation" of Bradlee Dean, for which he is suing MSNBC and Maddow personally for $50 million, lies in her use of his exact words in his own voice.

His biggest complaint against Maddow and the news network appears to be their liberal agenda.

The lawsuit is filed by attorney Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, in DC Superior Court and seeks in excess of $50 million in damages. However, money is not the issue. "This case is filed as a matter of principle," stated Klayman. "We need more Bradlee Deans in the world and hateful left wing television commentators must be made to respect not only his mission but the law," he added.

I found the use of the word "hateful" in this context particularly interesting because it strikes me as such a clear case of projection. It would be hard to describe Dean's message as anything but hateful, despite his protestations of love for gay people. You can read a more complete quote released by Dean and his organization You Can Run But You Cannot Hide Ministries here. (Boy, that doesn't sound too threatening, does it?) Not included in Maddow's excerpt was some blather about loving his gay friends who "nitpick" everything he says and some sharp words about President Obama's hypocrisy.

The problem with Dean's statement is that he is at cross-purposes with himself. He doesn't want to be perceived as calling for the death of his "gay friends" but he is openly gushing about Muslim extremists having the courage of their convictions. He describes them as "more moral" than Christians in America. He attributed the "raising up of a foreign enemy" who would call for the death of gay people to none other than God. That's hard to misconstrue. It's pretty blatant. But when it comes to the follow-through, he flinches. He can't quite bring himself to admit that a literal reading of the Bible would indeed call for the execution of gay people. And fundamentalist Christians claim to take "God's word" literally.

"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." ~ Leviticus 20:13

That seems pretty straightforward to me.

The unfortunately named John Thomas of Philadelphia took it quite literally and murdered a gay neighbor the Biblical way -- by stoning. And yet, he was prosecuted for it. It would seem the American legal system is not in alignment with scripture -- a point I've made before.

There are actually numerous offenses that call for the death penalty in the Bible so Bradlee Dean is really cherry-picking. At least, to my knowledge, he has not similarly praised Muslim fundamentalists for killing adulterers or girls who've otherwise lost their virginity. That said, he has given voice to something many have long argued -- that Christian and Muslim fundamentalists have a lot more in common than they will usually admit to publicly.

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