I am an American. The question is, are you?

My experience at the 2014 Texas GOP convention

Posted on June 11, 2014
By Heba Said

My heart palpitated with the unnerved feeling I had just from the thought of attending a Republican convention as a veiled Muslim woman.

It is not news that Republicans don’t seem to like Muslims. As close as the city of Keller, and as recently as last week, Trustee Jo Lynn Haussmann wrote on her Facebook page “SOUTH LAKE - Do you realize because SO FEW voters took the time and responsibility to VOTE in the municipal elections - YOU NOW HAVE A ‘MUSLIM’ on the City Council!!! What A SHAME!!!!!” 

The comments have since been deleted and referred to Southlake councilman Shahid Shafi. 

With influences such as Pamela Gellar and Pat Robertson, it is no wonder that Republicans are so easily associated with Anti-Islam sentiments, the instigation of Islamophobia and outright hatred toward Muslims.

After two days at the convention, the only emotions I could describe were anger and disappointment.

I attended the convention as a reporter hoping to tell readers about the panel discussions I attended, but I discovered a cult-like hatred that is simply disgusting.

As I walked through the halls, people stopped in their tracks and frowned and shook their heads at me. Panelists threw the word “Islamist” around as if it were perfectly OK, and one man even asked if I felt alone at a meeting. I was referred to as “you people” and “y’all Muslims” more times than I can count. The worst part was the way delegates looked at me, as if I were something to fear when I approached them.

The Muslim voter was disregarded completely in discussions on how to tackle politically engaging religious minority groups. So as a reporter, I asked, how the Republican party plans to reach out to the eighth largest Muslim population in the United States. The sheer lack of regard for that population was appalling. 

After discussing with one candidate whether there were Muslim outreach plans, I almost didn’t feel like I was allowed to be American, as if what he said stripped me from my American identity. He asked me where I was from. When I responded, “Texas,” he asked me where I was really from, as if there were no way it could possibly be from Texas.

Ted Cruz attended the event and took photos with his supporters. As I waited for him to return from a phone call so that I could grab some photos to tweet out, a police officer nearby came up to me and said hello. I responded hello. A normal interaction, I guess. Shortly after, I found five police officers behind me, hands on holsters watching me intently. Armed with a press badge and an iPhone, I turned to them held up my media credentials and asked if I could help them with something, as my heart tried to escape my chest. They did not respond but broke up into groups of two and continued watching me. If I was the biggest threat at that convention, then I must be seriously underestimating myself.

I cannot believe how a piece of cloth made from cotton and polyester can instill so many misconceptions in people.

I am still angered by the experience. I have the constitutional right to be a Muslim, and no one, not even Ted Cruz or five police officers, has the right to make me feel inferior. They definitely do not have any right to hate not just Muslims, but any race, creed or population. My vote may not be on your agenda, but my vote counts as much as anybody’s who votes in this country.

To the man who followed me into the IHOP bathroom after calling me a terrorist, to the woman who said she would see me in Hell at the grocery store, to the girl who pulled my hijab off my head during a fire drill in ninth grade, and to the hundreds of people who have asked me where I’m really from — I am an American. The question is, are you? 

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The beast in paradise

The ugly head of Islam has once again found a way into the news.

A 15-year-old girl from the remote Feydhoo Island in the Maldives has been ordered to receive eight months under house arrest and 100 lashes for the dastardly crime of being repeatedly raped by her stepfather. The flogging will be delayed until the girl reaches 18-years-old, but in a touching display of compassion the court ruled the girl could petition to take here lashes sooner if she wishes to just get it over with.

Maldives is a Muslim country employing Sharia law in their court system and under this wonderful system of laws pre-marital sex is a crime punishable by flogging. The men involved are often sentenced as well, with public flogging almost universally meted out to the female. Both partners are sentenced regardless of circumstance… even rape.

The courts in this otherwise beautiful country seem particularly fond of religiously-inspired misogyny and tend to enjoy beating women as often as possible. As recently as September 2012 a Sharia court ordered public flogging for a 16-year-old girl who had confessed to premarital sex, and in 2009 a pregnant 18-year-old woman received 100 lashes in public after she admitted to having sex with two different men. She was only one of over 100 women similarly sentenced that year.

Certainly some of the incidents involve simple promiscuity, but in other cases the woman/girl is punished for the crime of being raped. Someone please explain the fairness in such insanity.

The girl involved in this latest case received the harsh sentence after it was learned that she had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather, gave birth to her rapist’s baby and then watched as the man murdered the newborn and buried the body under the home. The man faces up to 25 years in jail if he is convicted of rape and murder.

Maldivian President Mohamed Waheed, Masood Imad is quoted by AFP as saying that the girl should be treated as a victim rather than a perpetrator of a crime, but added, “…she is not going to be lashed to cause her pain... rather, it is for her to feel the shame for having engaged in activity forbidden by the religion.”

Religious idiocy in Islam is endemic across the Muslim world. The Maldives has been in the news several times but the country is actually not any worse than all majority Islamic societies. Christianity was every bit as dangerous and stupid some 600 years ago. Since Islam splintered from Christianity in about 600 CE, it appears that what we are witnessing is merely delayed development.

The Afghan idiots pictured in the video are bronze age throwbacks, and the behavior deserves the worldwide criticism it is receiving. Amnesty International is on the case, and the United Nations Human Rights Council has issued statements. This religious stupidity has got to be stopped.

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Pakistan acid attack parents 'feared dishonour'

In the end, who was it that dishonored the family?

“A couple arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of killing their 15-year-old daughter with acid say they carried out the attack because she looked at a boy. The girl's father told the BBC that they feared she would bring dishonour on their family. Her mothe r said it was her "destiny" to die that way.”

This kind of thinking goes so far out into the weeds that even the snakes are running for their lives.

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Fairytales and Misconceptions

Time for another long rant...

It should come as little surprise that this blogger self-identifies as atheist… or more precisely as non-theistic. Although always open to new data, there has so far has been no credible evidence offered to even hint of the existence of any supernatural power or being. The supernatural has always been a product of a fearful mind... an invention to explain the as yet unexplained. As humankind's knowledge base has grown, the myths have receded. We laugh at many of those myths these days.

So I am godless. Unlike many others with similar lack of belief my atheism does not seem to be the result of a de-conversion or some sudden epiphany. Being exposed to evangelical Christianity while still in grade school, I have no memory of ever actually believing. Even at that early age I felt it was all hogwash.

This was not a fact that in those days was often shared with friends... and not until relatively  recently with family. Although just a child it was apparent to me that making any statement of disbelief would very likely result in poor reaction... so lack of faith was hidden and I just went along with the mumbo jumbo for the sake of getting along.

...Continued below the fold....

###

How to Not Win Friends or Influence People

In March 2001, six months before al Qaeda’s September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan used anti-aircraft guns to destroy two ancient, 3rd and 5th century AD statues of the Bamiyan Buddha. In this classic example of the utter stupidity and uselessness of dogma, the Islamist Taliban all but wiped out a chapter of human history.

Their reasoning? They wanted to cleanse the of country Hindu heresy, even though according to one Afghani government official, the Taliban have the purest of motives...

"We are not against culture, but we don't believe in these things. They are against Islam," the Taliban's Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from southern Kandahar--the headquarters of the Taliban.

Islam in general but the hard-liners in particular have not earned much of a reputation for open mindedness or respect for cultural diversity. Much like religious extremists of every stripe and in all parts of the globe, the goal is to revise history to fit the dogma of the day.

Moving past the madness of the most obvious example of Islamist extremism, let’s skip to just earlier this month and a location once referred to as the ends of the Earth; Timbuktu.

Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes have destroyed the centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the Unesco-listed city of Timbuktu in front of shocked locals, witnesses say.

What once looked like this…

Now looks like this…

So they’ve done it again, even though they are “not against culture.” What we witness whenever these Islamists gain power is the destruction of culture and distortion of history. A religion that the moderates claim to be one of peace, thanks to the likes of the Taliban, al Qaeda and a hundred other extremist groups, is being used as justification for intolerance.

The Islamists are not the only religious extremists this old world has had to deal with. Christians can be just as determined to erase or change the course of history. Take for instance Catesby’s treason, otherwise known as the Gunpowder Plot.

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) is a Baptist Christian group operating in North-East India. As terror groups go, the NLFT ranks somewhere not far below al Qaeda. In the same region of India we also find the Manmasi National Christian Army (MNCA). This tribal group is also Baptist and just as dominionist as the NLFT. Both groups are known to forcibly convert Hindus to Christianity and to murder those who resist.

And who can forget Uganda’s Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army. Thanks to the documentary this cult guerrilla army is well known for such good christianlike behavior as kidnapping, forcing children to act as soldiers and sex slaves, mutilation, murder, rape and general genocidal behavior. Koni represents himself as god’s spokesman on Earth. Members of the Acholi tribe, this terrorist cult mixes Christian beliefs with tribal spiritualism, fondling rosary beads and reciting biblical scripture before going into battle.

The list of religion inspired cults and terrorists could go on almost forever. Last year we had Anders Behring Breivik in Norway combining extremist Christian beliefs with radical right wing politics, back before World War II there was the Romanian Iron Guard, Northern Ireland’s Orange Volunteers were Protestants who terrorized Catholics for years, and here in the good old U.S. of A. we’ve had enough religious oriented and political terrorism to fill several books. The anti-abortion movement alone could fill one of those books.

In every case there is the attempt to wipe out the culture and revise the history of the targeted population… conversion by the business end of guns. No religion seems immune from this dogmatic practice, but Islam seems to have the extremism thing down to a fine art.

The recent destruction of 16^th century architecture in Timbuktu bares strong witness to the intent, and these acts should serve as forewarnings of Islamist determination to erase anything not in line with their extremist values. The radicals value only the dogma. History, culture and human lives mean little in the face of dogma.

Related story: Radical Islamists stone adulterous couple to death in northern Mali

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Leading Ourselves into Captivity – Part 1

Dominance is always the goal: How fear, hate mongering and greed set the stage for carnage.

Loud voices of late are screeching from on high… warning of the threat of radical Islamists. Muslims, they warn, are either moving en masse to violently overthrow western nations, slaughter infidels, dispense with secular, democratic governments, forcibly implement Sharia law… or standing passively by as their religious kin foment discontent and plan terroristic attacks.

No doubt these harpies have some facts correct, but on the whole much of what is being trumpeted is not much more than exaggerated, chicken littlesque fear mongering. For the past few decades we have indeed seen a marked growth in the number of world citizens preaching fear and loathing of the Great Satan, the United States of America, and the radical Islamists have found no shortage of ignorant suckers willing to swallow the religious mumbo jumbo and launch themselves into oblivion.

Poverty makes good fodder for revolution, especially when the haves are so willing to flaunt success and good fortune. Our corporations and our own government have done so very much to feed that hatred and the opportunity for advantage is not lost on the Islamists. The rise in fear mongering in poor Muslim areas has been on the increase for a century or more. Their success may be witnessed daily as poor slobs blow themselves up seeking respite from this world and salvation in the next.

Our very own Christians do little to help the situation… using almost identical language in describing Islam in very nearly the same fashion as Islamists describe the Christian west. We have two religious factions making almost identical or very similar claims while standing on either side of a divide chunking rocks at the other.

Religious extremists have succeeded in doing a good bit of damage to the opposing side. Islamists have managed to inflict damage on the western world both large and small. We in America remain focused on 09-11-2001, when a successful terrorist operation planned by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda killed some 3,000 humans a single stroke. In Madrid in 2004 the same group killed almost 200 and injured some 2,000. They were well-funded then, well-organized and intent upon killing infidel non-Muslims.

The Judeo-Christian west responded by launching wars in two countries and has since engaged in organized military and covert “black” operations in no fewer than a dozen others. The dead and injured cannot be counted, but conservative best guess estimates place the body count somewhere in the tens of thousands. We’re still there and we’re still killing them… guilty and innocent alike. It seems we are constantly seeking new places to stick our noses and toss a few bombs.

Shrill harpies like Pam Geller and Glenn Beck seek to focus hatred and dehumanize individuals, creating a sense that we really aren’t killing men and women and children… we’re killing demons and devils. It’s okay to kill demons and devils… just as its okay for an Islamist to kill an infidel. The reasoning is identical.

They hurl airplanes at large buildings and blow us up in suicide bombings while we take them out surgically and remotely with unmanned drones from 25,000 feet in the sky. The drones and their operators thousands of miles away don’t care who they kill. We pretend that we do, but a little collateral damage is to be expected and the more the enemy is shocked and awed the better. A little fear is good for maintaining order, and in the end we don’t care who we kill either.

The struggle is religious in nature, and the question must be asked… which religion is right in this bloody conflict? Well… It does not matter which side you are on, that side is always right. Such is the way of mythology.

So we mobilize our Christian/Mohammedan soldiers, send them off for some old-fashioned indoctrination military training, and then march them off to holy war with a Bible/Quran tucked in their pockets… selected verses conveniently bookmarked. We make certain our commanders remind them every day of their Christian/Muslim duties, and we weed out those not worthy of the Kingdom of God/Allah. Only the pure at heart can be trusted to slaughter other humans in the name of Jesus/Muhammad.

They are different than us and they must be destroyed for that reason… May the circle be unbroken.

###

The above is but a prelude to the goal of this article. It is written from the perspective of an atheist/skeptic/freethinker living in the Christian west but who has spent much time in Muslim areas of the globe. The author has witnessed the fanatics on both of the sides, and has made friendships with moderates following each of these belief systems as well as others and of none. This author is skeptical of the motives of the religionists, and is convinced that the real threat to freedom, in America and in every country, comes not from outside aggressors… but from dogmatic theocrats within.

The true threat to freedom comes when good people allow religion into positions of power or authority. In America Christianity is not the solution… it is the threat.

To be continued.

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The war on science

This has been growing for decades, but the snowball has recently picked up both size and speed. Anti-intelectualism in societies with heavy evangalistic religious societies is now the rule.

“The ‘war on science’ has ballooned long past any mere attack upon the credibility of researchers and professors. It now manifests as a general ‘war on all knowledge castes’ — including teachers, economists, journalists, civil servants, medical doctors, skilled labor, judges, diplomats …”

H/T Lots of other good stuff here too.

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Ill-informed? Under informed? Clueless?

Islamofascists have for years schemed, planned and launched petty attacks against the non-Islamic world, all in an effort to insinuate their particular brand of religionist perversion into the lives of unwilling peoples. There have been pockets around the world where this found success… either by some sort of evangelistic effort or by force of arms.

Islam is Christianity’s little brother, each supposedly spawned from the loins of Abraham… in spite of the fact that Abraham died some two thousand years before the birth of Christ.

Johnny-come-latelys both…. but who was going to dispute them? Everyone who knew anything had been dead for centuries and the written evidence had been altered, edited, translated, redacted, hidden, found and edited again a hundred times.

Jesus didn’t really have a bunch to do with the religion that carries his name. The actual father of the sect is Paul, AKA “The Mythmaker,” which is why we call it Pauline Christianity (I think I dated that girl!)

Paul probably heard about this hapless do-gooder who had wandered around the desert some 600 years earlier, made up a bunch of impossible stuff and pulled off what has become a very successful con. Call it an early version of the L. Ron Hubbard scam.

Anyway, there was a bunch of people even back then not buying this routine (similar to why Mittens gets no respect,) with some splintering off or even creating their own new religions. Islam split from the Cult of Paul about 700 years after the death of Christ. According to the myth, it all started on the night (known by the faithful as laylat al-qadar) Muhammad was visited by a God’s messenger Jibril (the angel Gabriel) who revealed the Qur’an to him and told him he was to take the people back to a time prior to all of this Christ crap.

This competition for God’s good name didn’t sit any better with the Paulites of the day than it does with our modern christofascists, so the game was on. Toss in a whole bunch of Hebrews who didn’t buy into either of the more modern fantasies and we now have the recipe for perpetual global conflict.  

There were petty little battles and larger wars over the ages with the competitors vying for new territory as if playing some cosmic game of La Conquête du Monde. For a seemingly long time the “Christian” world seemed to have the edge. The Paulites maintained superior weapons and pretty much walked all over the Muhammadans, but then after the last big war things changed.

It was then that the civilized world decided to boot an entire population of heathens out of a territory that had been disputed since the dawn of recorded history to create the modern state of Israel. A whole bunch of people got pissed about this, seeing as how it was the Muhammadans who had last conquered the area and they thought they should retain title.

The cold war came upon us in the years subsequent to this momentous event, which pitted two nuclear-armed super powers against each other in yet another Conquête du Monde. After a period of time the Soviet Union ceased to be a player in this game, but not before they had supplied arms to everyone in the middle east to whom the United States had not already armed.

The ideological wars had reached a new scale. Christofascism and Islamofascism each grew more intent upon conquering and subduing the other side, in the name of Christ… or Muhammad… or whomever. But now the Islamists were almost as well armed as their adversaries.

What is it that each of the warring sides wants? What is the point in one side dominating the other? A better question might be from whence this desire originates? Simple answer… the desire of one individual to wield power over another. Simple authoritarianism. It is people who want to be able to tell others how they must live in order to satisfy that individual’s particular version of how it ought to be without regard to individual liberty.

This is a long story to get to a simple point…

How in the hell is it that this country… the nation that all the politicians and pundits claim to be the “Home of the Free…” how in the hell is it that we are currently witnessing large segments of our population enthralled by and marching in figurative lockstep with the likes of Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and the current religious wingnut survivor in the Republican clown car race… Rich Santorum?

Each of these individuals are modern day christofascists, and each has stood upon a podium and pointedly told us exactly how they plan to force a personal version of what some mythical sky daddy has told them in dreams that he wants… regardless and in spite of principles that are the very foundation of this nation?

How exactly is this happening?

###

TRIVIA: The word Islam originates with the Arabic SALAAM, which translated to English means SURRENDER or SUBMISSION. It shares kinship with the common Hebrew greeting, SHALOM, which evokes the same translation.

A translation of the term Muslim is ONE WHO MAKES PEACE.

###

Exercising a Heckler's Veto...

...or the fear of loss of power?

"...do we want them to proceed ploddingly from one standardized test to the next, concerned only with dining on the reheated and prefabricated meals that schools put before them, never dabbling in anything that might offend or cause controversy or headlines? Of course, young people who explore and learn and engage and write on their own are independent in ways that might not please people whose power depends upon them acting like junior stenographers."

Ken makes some really fine observations in this story of a bright, skeptical 17-year-old, his treatment by some small-minded individuals, poor decisions by school administrators, and a society's loss of direction.

Pop on over to Popehat to read the rest of the article.

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On Religious Freedom

The concept of the natural rights of man has been recognized for some time. In some of the earliest known writings on the topic the Stoics of ancient Greece described slavery as an unnatural, or external condition of man. The philosophy of sui juris, or the freedom of the human soul was espoused in many writings of the day.

It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by this prison of the body, wherein it is confined.

-- Seneca the Younger, De beneficiis, III, 20.

The worst speculative Sceptic ever I knew, was a much better Man than the best superstitious Devotee & Bigot.

-- David Hume in a letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto, March 10, 1751

###

Those were the first few words of the first missive offered for this blog. That was on 2008.12.10, and the post was titled THE RIGHTS OF MAN (With Apologies to Thomas Paine) and the topic was the 60^th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Just a few months prior to this blog's début a Saudi led coalition of 56 Islamic nations managed to reverse Eleanor Roosevelt’s signature achievement of 60 years prior. They accomplished this by inserting language effectively criminalizing blasphemy under the guise of "religious anti-defamation". It was just this kind of religious intolerance that was the focus of Mrs. Roosevelt’s drive for human rights, yet every effort to override this movement was stymied.

Now just a short few years later we see attitudes swinging more in Mrs. Roosevelt’s favor. On 2011.03.24 Reuters reported on the groundbreaking consensus that had been reached by UN member nations to abandon the blasphemy language inserted in 2008. A new three-page resolution recognizing that there is "intolerance, discrimination and violence" aimed at individuals in all regions of the world emerged after discussions between U.S. and Pakistani diplomats.

Washington, DC – Today in Geneva, members of the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a groundbreaking resolution that seeks to address violence, discrimination and incitement to religious hatred without reference to the controversial notion of “defamation of religions.” Human Rights First said the move marks an important shift away from efforts at the UN to create an international blasphemy code, something that has for the past decade been supported by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

The move by the UN Human Rights Council is important because we can now expect to see a shift from protection of religion to the protection of individual rights. And yes, change will come slowly. The resolution is a good start but recent events [HERE, HERE, HERE] remind us that the Islamic world is unlikely to make any rapid changes.

The cult of Muhammad ibn Abdullah is as firmly entrenched in the Muslin world as the cult of Jesus of Nazareth once was in Christian regions. Over time the greater freedoms allowed in the west promoted increased tolerance and a more secular society, gradually pushing onerous laws out of the books. Christians became a less authoritarian sect, but the Muslims were just on the rise.

Unfortunately when the adherents of one sect or cult feel threatened by encroachment of another we see protectionist laws resurface. The growth of Islam and the threat of terrorism has done exactly that to the west.  

Witness the unnecessary "Anti-Shariah" law now on the books in Oklahoma, and those proposed in several other states. This type of futile reaction tends to strengthen the will of those promoting religious intolerance elsewhere. Fortunately there are cooler heads and the effects of our home grown intolerance is somewhat muted.

In spite of the reactionism here and the intransigence of Muslim states, we are seeing changing attitudes elsewhere. Likely this is due to ever greater and uncomfortable encroachment of religion into public dialogue, as well as news stories such as those illustrated above.  

The change in the UN resolution comes as many of the globe’s borderline religionist states, led by  more secular nations, are leaning toward greater tolerance and political moderation. Initially Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Fiji, the Republic of Korea, the Solomon Islands, Mexico, Uruguay and Zambia all voted in favor of the anti-defamation resolution in 2008, yet in this most recent move those same nations all switched sides.

In a recent Human Rights First report scores of cases were identified providing actual examples of the dangers of enacting a global blasphemy law. More than 70 cases were identified in 15 countries where the enforcement of such laws resulted in death sentences, long prison terms or arbitrary detentions, all based upon suspect accusations. A person accusing another of blasphemy cannot even recount the offense without also being accused of the sin, leaving a court to accept the accuser’s statement with no evidence that the accused might be able to refute.

Fundamentalist citizenry enabled by these laws have been documented attacking, assaulting, and sometimes murdering those accused; often with no evidence other than the accusation. The assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer by his own body guard, and the murder of Pakistani Minister Shabhaz Bhatti were identified as results of blasphemy accusations, as were outbreaks of mob violence in Indonesia. 

The tides, hopefully, are turning. On Monday, 2011.12.19, as the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly came to an end, it adopted two resolutions on the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief. One of these called for the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief and the other for combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons, based on that person's religion, belief, or lack of belief.

It is a small start, but perhaps this will be the beginning of something grand. We can hope.

More reading on this topic at the links below:

USCIRF Welcomes Move Away from "Defamation of Religions" Concept

Islamic Bloc Drops U.N. Drive on Defaming Religion

Human Rights First Ten-Point Plan for Combating Hate Crime

The Consequences of Criminalizing “Defamation of Religions” [PDF]

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Islamists kill dozens in Nigeria Christmas bombs

As reported by Reuters, violence promoted by the devotees of one cult of religious insanity is visited upon devotees of another.

Islamist militants set off bombs across Nigeria on Christmas Day - three targeting churches including one that killed at least 27 people - raising fears that they are trying to ignite sectarian civil war.

Being afraid of all islamists is crazy, but there are some of which the world should certainly be afraid. The same can be said of christians and most of the other creator superstitions. 

Sad.

###

So what else did your talking snake tell you?

From a couple weeks ago... Scientific American guest blogger Jessica Fostvedt, a Biology and Religious Studies graduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, discusses Harold Camping and the reason humans fall for End of the World propheteers.

"Many neurologists have proposed the existence of a “God Spot”, a region of the brain linked to belief in the supernatural. Even though no such neural pathways were found that differed from those of non-believers, there is still much debate as to the origin of religion and its evolutionary significance."

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Religions of peace...

... unless you're not one of them. (Beware the most annoying pop-up)

"Tuesday, an Atheist wearing a “Zombie Muhammad” costume while marching in a local Pennsylvania Halloween parade was attacked by a Muslim."

Watch the video.

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Why evangelicals shoud stop evangelizing.

Carl Medearis is an international expert in Arab-American and Muslim-Christian relations and is author of the book Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism. Medearis recently penned a piece for the CNN Belief Blog titled, My Take: Why evangelicals should stop evangelizing.

"When I tell my Christian friends in America that some of the fiercest militias were (and are) Christian, most are shocked. It doesn’t fit the us-versus-them mentality that evangelism fosters, in which we are always the innocent victims and they are always the aggressors."

Indeed those American never exposed to other cultures tend to be a tad ethnocentric in their views… and indeed there are a very many of that type of person in America. Medearis emphatically makes the point of just how much damage is done, not just by Christian evangelizing, but by religion in general.

“When I lived in Lebanon I saw firsthand how destructive an obsession with religious identity could be. Because of the sectarian nature of Lebanese politics, modern Lebanese history is rife with coups, invasions, civil wars and government shutdowns.”

Lebanon of course is in the crosshairs of two major religions, and multiple schisms within each. The article is short and to the point. Well worth the read. Full article HERE.

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Everyboy has to hate somebody sometime...

Minnesota's teabaggin' Torgerson is back... this time running as a Republican... but still speading the same hate and discontent.

Torgerson says Rep. Ellison doesn’t see the U.S. Constitution as ‘supreme’

Incumbent Democrat Keith Ellison is one of two Muslims in the U.S. House. Torgerson accuses Ellison of being a “radical Islamist” who “fails to oppose banning Islamic Sharia law in the United States.” Responding to the hate mongering, Ellison eloquently responds:

I took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion for all Americans. Religious acceptance is a deeply rooted American value, and regardless of political persuasion, it’s a value we must protect.

It’s too bad that someone can obtain so much attention based on their intolerant rhetoric, especially when unemployment is above 9 percent. On the other hand, the nation will be able to see how extreme the rhetoric has become. I call on all Americans to reject religious intolerance and embrace our constitution which upholds the promise of liberty and justice for all people.

Justice for all people is a concept not understood by that element of society who spend so much time being afraid... and hating because of it.

###

Another Islamic panty wad

Will it never stop?

Naguib Sawiris is a Coptic Christian and one of the richest dudes in Egypt. His telecom company, Orascom, is Egypt's largest private employer. A few days ago he retweeted some cartoon images depicting Mickey and Minnie Mouse wearing Muslim garb, and now the fanatics are screeching for his head.



Sawirisis has profusly apologised, but that hasn't stopped the idiots from marching in the streets.

###

Death of a Madman

Writing for SLATE, Christopher Hitchens adds a secular and decidedly caustic 2-cents worth.

Death of a Madman

What Obama does next will help define the legacy of Osama Bin Laden.

Monday, May 2, 2011, at 10:30 AM ET

“If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.”

Calling a spade… a spade. Link embedded in the title.

###

Did he really say that?

Newt was in Texas Sunday… addressing John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church. The man has no clue, and I wish he would just shut his trap and go home.

"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9... I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

How stupid can a human be? Hagee is a zealot... a religious extremist akin to the Taliban, and even McCain rejected his endorsement.

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Blasphemy is a victimless crime

In a March 24, 2011 story in their online Religion, Faith and Ethics feature, Reuters reports on the ongoing efforts of the UN’s Islamic bloc to pass what they euphemistically called a Religious Anti-defamation Resolution. This effort, led by the Saudis, began in 1998. I mentioned it rather critically in my first post on this blog.

The Reuters headline gives great hope that the World Body may now be ready to move beyond the 12-year effort by Islamic member countries, which was actually just a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize blasphemy, specifically of Islam, on a world scale.

Western nations in alliance with Latin American allies have consistently opposed the defamation concept, and on Thursday, joined by Muslim and African states, the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva approved a plan to promote religious tolerance. The new approach would switch the focus from protecting beliefs to protecting people.

Leonard Leo, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is quoted in the article as saying, “What is needed now is for countries, such as Pakistan, that have blasphemy laws to eliminate them.”

Pakistan is far from the only offender. Canada, Brazil, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Sudan and the UAE could be added to the list. Australia and New Zealand have laws on their books that are not enforced, and Britain had a Christian-specific blasphemy law until just three years ago.

A full version[PDF] of the resolution may be found HERE.

H/T Hemant

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...about as much sense

With a tip of the hat to PZ, the following is offered. As PZ says, it is subtle and powerful... for those willing to see.



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