What Religion Can Do For You

Here’s a sad article from the BBC about a 19-year-old boy who was apparently planning a suicide bombing. Thankfully he was found out before he could go through with it; now he’s facing charges of terrorism.

You know, it’s hard to be a teenager. He was new to Bristol. He’d recently converted to Islam.

When I was a teenager, when you wanted to piss off Mom and Dad, you just read the Tao Te Ching or something. Now kids are strapping on vests full of explosives and sharp objects. I think I prefer Taoism as a form of teenage rebellion; at least there’s nothing in the text that can be construed as encouraging violence.

Some Muslims will insist that the Koran doesn’t, either. But if that’s so, then how come so many have killed in the name of Allah? (And lest anyone think I’m claiming Christianity doesn’t, trust me…I know plenty of violence has been done by both Christians and Jews, too…I think they’re all nuts.)

And I’ll also give credit where it’s due: the article states that the kid was picked up after an investigation following a tip-off from within the local Muslim community.

We Are the Most Lied-To, Gullible Populace on the Planet

Wowsers. This book of Noam Chomsky’s, Failed States, is just chock full of facts that show up our media and our government as a pack of liars.

The list of atrocities committed by our own government (like the 1985 bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, which was actually committed by the CIA, a known fact at this point, though the media never bothered to correct the perception they created by passing along the government’s story that it was a terrorist) just boggles the mind. Presidents from both parties over the years have protected the oil companies’ interests in the Middle East with crime after crime against civilian populations over there. Some of them we’ve never heard a word about, some we’ve heard about but with a twisted slant to blame it all on terrorism. Wherever, in the Middle East, South America, or Asia, real democracy has flowered, we’ve stamped it out in favor of fascist regimes (like that of Saddam Hussein, who was put in power by JFK in the 60s) willing to cooperate with our interests.

If you want to know the facts about what’s really going on in the middle east, get this book. Like they’re stamping on our mail these days, those words of one of my cousins however many times removed and however imperfect himself, John Adams, “Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.” We need to wake up as a country and deal with the fact that we are living under a long-term fascist regime that started long before any of us were born, right back to the founding of our country, which purports to value freedom but which only gives it lip service, and which is actually set up to benefit the few, the super-rich, who head these multi-national corporations. It started with cotton. Now it’s oil.

The primary obstacle to progress for us as a species is America and our corrupt government. This is not a partisan issue, either. The Democrats are just as complicit, though BushCo, with its clumsy handling and constant underestimation of our intelligence, has certainly taken it to new heights, or should I say lows?

Please, let’s stop acting like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed a load of BS. Let’s seek the truth, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Illuminati or reptilian hybrids. It’s got to do with money and power.

I’m Ashamed Somedays to Be an American; Thanks, Mr. President

I know that’s a sarcastic title, not exactly in the holiday spirit, but this just makes me sick. (Thanks to my friend Monte for this find.) It’s a clip (and an article to go with it) of an ex-CIA agent admitting that he participated in “enhanced” information-gathering techniques (read: torture), and that the order came straight from the White House.

I’m just sick at the thought of this being done in my name. I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS! And I can’t believe that anywhere near most Americans do, no matter how much they’ve been manipulated to do so by shows like 24 Hours that imply that it’s somehow “necessary” (or effective, for that matter) to stop terrorism. It’s neither. And even if it were, the ends simply never justify the means. Torture is always wrong. Good people, and good nations, don’t do it.

God is Not Great: Excellent Excerpt at Slate

Here’s one of three excerpts from Christopher Hitchens’s book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I haven’t read the other two yet, but this was so good I had to post it here.

A little bit to whet your appetite:

While some religious apology is magnificent in its limited way—one might cite Pascal—and some of it is dreary and absurd—here one cannot avoid naming C. S. Lewis—both styles have something in common, namely the appalling load of strain that they have to bear. How much effort it takes to affirm the incredible! The Aztecs had to tear open a human chest cavity every day just to make sure that the sun would rise. Monotheists are supposed to pester their deity more times than that, perhaps, lest he be deaf. How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan? How much self-respect must be sacrificed in order that one may squirm continually in an awareness of one’s own sin? How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required, to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to “fit” with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities? How many saints and miracles and councils and conclaves are required in order first to be able to establish a dogma and then—after infinite pain and loss and absurdity and cruelty—to be forced to rescind one of those dogmas? God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.

Let’s Stop a War before it Starts

Thanks to Homeyra for emailing me this link. Here’s a blog that’s got the right idea: let’s send messages to the folks behind the scenes who are agitating for war, telling them to “think again.”

As I commented over at my friend Monte’s blog, the resistance to the invasion of Iraq marked the first time in history that the people have protested a war before it even started. Maybe we’ll actually be able to stop one this time.

I don’t know about my fellow Americans, but I for one am not going to stand silently by while my government bombs more brown people for profit. This fascism has to end. So many have commented about the German people’s tolerance of Nazism. How is history going to paint us?

Now This is More Like It! Secular Islam

Here’s a group of really sane folk. Thank goodness.

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called “Islamaphobia” in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.

We call on the governments of the world to

reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;

eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women;

protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence;

reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims;

and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.

We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy.

We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.

We say to Muslim believers: there is a noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine;

to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’is, and all members of non-Muslim faith communities: we stand with you as free and equal citizens;

and to nonbelievers: we defend your unqualified liberty to question and dissent.

Before any of us is a member of the Umma, the Body of Christ, or the Chosen People, we are all members of the community of conscience, the people who must choose for themselves.

I hope this turns out to be contagious.

Privacy and Responsibility

At another blog (which will remain nameless) some ego-ridden pundit who thinks using his middle initial gives him the moral high ground has decreed that my blog is somehow not valid because I choose to remain anonymous. Just like a religious person (he’s not religious, though he’s just as attached to his own ideas) he can’t accept that someone else’s choice, while different from his, could still be valid.

He reminds me of Tom Cruise dissing Brooke Shields for using antidepressants, looking ridiculous on his high horse (which looks an awful lot like a hobby horse from here — he fancies himself a writer, but I think he’s just a lawyer).

I wasn’t going to write about this, but I began to think I ought to. You see, his lack of understanding my perspective is, I’m afraid, too common. Despite the fact that one of his “authors” recently wrote about her rape, he seems to fail to recognize that things are a bit different for women in this world than they are for men.

I remember in my political science class in college (which I took before the iron curtain came down), my prof was trying to explain to us what “low-grade terror” was like, to help us understand what it was like for people living in the Soviet Union. He made a comparison to what women experience here, with the pervasive violence. We (if we’re smart) are always on the lookout for men hiding, waiting to jump out and grab us. My dad was a cop, and he taught me to check my backseat, to check under the car as I approached, all that sort of thing. He also taught me some tricks his green-beret Vietnam-vet friend had taught him. (I taught them just last night to my daughter, in fact — you know, how to gouge out eyeballs, that sort of thing.)

Men here don’t get what it’s like to live with low-grade terror. So no man is going to make me feel bad for keeping myself and my family safe by blogging anonymously.

I used to blog with my name, but nutty men became attached much more easily, and then I had the additional concern that, with my name, it wouldn’t be too hard to come find me. Not a nice thought, and it became too hard to feel free to speak authentically, to really say what I needed to say, without concern of hurting someone’s feelings.

Yes, I may hurt feelings when I write the way I feel free to do here. But sometimes hurt feelings are necessary for growth. No one ever died by having their faith questioned. But women die at the hands of mentally-ill men every day.

Reading around the blogosphere the other day I came across a young woman’s blog. She had her young, pretty, smiling face right on the front page, and used her name. She was a bit outspoken, like me, not afraid to say it like it is. And here’s the thing. One of her readers was leaving comments about what he wanted to do to her, and it was pretty horrid. (Necrophilia, anyone?) I don’t think she took the threat seriously, but she should have. There have been too many cases now of young women being found by some nutbar who’s formed some sick attachment online, and ending up dead.

It may seem cowardly to write anonymously, and sure, we don’t get the ego strokes of seeing our name up on the screen (I get enough of that, seeing mine in print), but I think more women should take their security more seriously.

And no man has any business decreeing what our choices should be.

Violent Scriptures Increase Aggression in Study

Here’s a study we found online. It seemed pertinent. Now who’s gonna tell me religion isn’t toxic?

Public release date: 23-Feb-2007

Contact: Brad Bushman
bbushman@umich.edu
Association for Psychological Science
When God sanctions killing, the people listen

New research published in the March issue of Psychological Science may help elucidate the relationship between religious indoctrination and violence, a topic that has gained renewed notoriety in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. In the article, University of Michigan psychologist Brad Bushman and his colleagues suggest that scriptural violence sanctioned by God can increase aggression, especially in believers.

The authors set out to examine this interaction by conducting experiments with undergraduates at two religiously contrasting universities: Brigham Young University where 99% of students report believing in God and the Bible and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where just 50% report believing in God and 27% believe in the bible.

After reporting their religious affiliation and beliefs, the participants read a parable adapted from a relatively obscure passage in the King James Bible describing the brutal torture and murder of a woman, and her husband’s subsequent revenge on her attackers. Half of the participants were told that the passage came from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament while the other half were told it was an ancient scroll discovered in an archaeological expedition.

In addition to the scriptural distinction, half of the participants from both the bible and the ancient scroll groups read an adjusted version that included the verse:

“The Lord commanded Israel to take arms against their brothers and chasten them before the LORD.”

The participants were then placed in pairs and instructed to compete in a simple reaction task. The winner of the task would be able to “blast” his or her partner with noise up to 105 decibels, about the same volume as a fire alarm. The test measures aggression.

As expected, the Brigham Young students were more aggressive (i.e. louder) with their blasts if they had been told that the passage they had previously read was from the bible rather than a scroll. Likewise, participants were more aggressive if they had read the additional verse that depicts God sanctioning violence.

At the more secular Vrije Universiteit, the results were surprisingly similar. Although Vrije students were less likely to be influenced by the source of the material, they blasted more aggressively when the passage that they read included the sanctioning of the violence by God. This finding held true even for non-believers, though to a lesser extent.

The research sheds light on the possible origins of violent religious fundamentalism and falls in line with theories proposed by scholars of religious terrorism, who hypothesize that exposure to violent scriptures may induce extremists to engage in aggressive actions. “To the extent religious extremists engage in prolonged, selective reading of the scriptures, focusing on violent retribution toward unbelievers instead of the overall message of acceptance and understanding,” writes Bushman “one might expect to see increased brutality”
###

Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. For a copy of the article “When God Sanctions Killing: Effect of Scriptural Violence on Aggression” and access to other Psychological Science research findings please contact Catherine West at (202) 783-2077 or cwest@psychologicalscience.org.

Sexism, Racism, Nationalism, Xenophobia, and the PTA

The objectification of women is just one example (albeit one of the worst) of the process of creating an Other which a person can then feel free to use, abuse, or simply hate. It’s for some reason part of human nature. Probably part of our Stone Age brain, evolved when tribes really did need to be wary of people outside of the tribe. But now it’s much less acceptable to hate people for being part of another “tribe” (read “race”). So it’s easier to make it about a person’s sex. I mean, there are some real differences between men and women, so it’s easy to justify the perception of otherness. But of course we’re all people. (The same regrettable process underlies the rampant hatred of homosexuals.)

In North America the native peoples, in their own languages, always referred to their own nation with a word that meant “The People.” (Of course, the names we’ve given the nations usually came from their enemies. “Navajo,” for example, is the Hopi word for “head basher,” because that’s how the Navajo killed the Hopi when they fought.) They recognized their own People-hood, but not that of outsiders.

Nationalism still seems to hold sway. The same sort of men who objectify women (and, in private, I’m sure, other races) have no trouble seeing the citizens of “enemy” nations (religions?) as less than human. One man littering Bloggernista’s blog with belligerent posts insists that we ought to be bombing Iran (he’s got a rooster as his avatar…you think he knows he’s a cock?). In case you’ve forgotten what bombing does to people, watch this video from Christmastime again, and please note two things: one, those Iraqi faces don’t look like evil terrorists to me; two, there’s grieving on plenty of American faces, too. (Do we really want to get involved in another war? Who in their right mind would say we ought to be bombing Iran?)

Of course terrorists have long been good at seeing enemy people as less than human. How else could they do what they do? But surely everyone knows that two wrongs do NOT make a right. An Israeli leader whose name I forget once said to the Palestinian terrorists, “I don’t hate you for what you’ve done to us. I hate you for what you’ve made us become.” I don’t want America to become (though I fear it’s too late) monstrous. I don’t want to be a bully on the global stage. I don’t know how to make our leaders understand that it breaks my heart (and makes me really angry) to have my tax-dollars spent to kill innocent people, or even to deny them their liberty. Yes, we do have a real enemy in the terrorists. But going around the globe bombing cities? How does this protect us? The only profit from this goes to the corporations that make the bombs and that rebuild afterward.

Sigh. Sometimes I get really sad for the world. It’s such an amazing place. And the role we play here could be one of responsible, loving community, community with our human and our non-human neighbors. I get juiced when I observe nature, when I share a cup of tea with a friend, when I stare into my husband’s eyes. But some people seem to get juiced when they watch planes drop bombs on our enemies, when they read headlines about atrocities, when they watch a flag wave over a pile of rubble. What has to happen to a boy to make a man turn out like that? That’s where we need to focus our attention, I think.

Before, dear reader, you imagine that I think this is only a male problem, let me freely acknowledge that there are some really messed up women, too. (Ann Coulter is a glaring example.) I’m a housewife with kids in elementary school, and I see women at school assemblies, and hear talk about them from those same friends over tea, who seem to thrive on conflict, though at a much smaller than national level. Same reason many marriages don’t make it. What makes someone feed on strife? Personally, it gives me indigestion.

Interdependence

In order to really understand the necessary change of mind for progressing into a stable and sustainable and reasonably peaceful future, there are a few ideas that need to be grasped. One of them is interdependence. There are obvious reasons a global understanding of interdependence is necessary in the political sphere. Understanding interdependence on a cosmic level brings myriad benefits as well, not the least of which is an understanding of one’s true value. And as a human being, able, if so inclined, to see the universe as it is, you’re very important, indeed. For the first time, on this planet at least, the universe is self-aware. For are we not a manifestation of the universe? And with these brains and the knowledge of astronomy and physics and biology and anthropology that they’ve amassed we’re able to grasp what’s going on here. And even steer it, if we all agree to work together.

I have pretty high hopes for humanity. But we’re having a difficult birth. Gaia’s labor pains must be immense. (For any religious folks reading, that was poetry, so don’t go calling me any kind of theist.) The future could be truly wonderful, if we’d unite as a species. If we don’t, if we continue to fail to recognize how much we need each other, I’m afraid we may be creating a centuries-long nightmare. Or, if some crazy nations start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other, the nightmare could last for thousands of years.

I read recently some article disparaging Iran’s leaders for having apocalyptic ideas. The author seemed completely unaware that American leaders share the same crazy ideas, albeit from a different book.