left biblioblography: July 2014

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Voudon Vs. Catholicism–Which Shaman Would You Choose?

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Do do that voodoovoodoobankrobbery
that you do so well.
For you do something to me
that nobody else could do! – Cole Porter, You Do Something To Me

Sometimes I think my nose should be flat and I should be suffering a concussion, considering all the facepalms and headdesks I do when reading ‘headlines’ like the following:

Voodoo won't save Haiti, says cardinal 

Haiti's first Roman Catholic cardinal has described voodoo as a "big social problem" for his desperately poor country, arguing that the religion offers "magic" but no real solutions to a population deprived of justice and a political voice.

Chibly Langlois, who was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in February, linked Haiti's belief system to its chronic political problems, which he says force poor Haitians – the overwhelming majority of a population of 10 million – to seek supernatural solutions.

"If a person is well educated and has the financial means, they will go to a doctor [instead of the voodoo priest] when they get sick. If that same person went to the court to get justice they would not go to the voodoo priest to get revenge. It's a big problem for the church. And for Haiti," he said.

About 80% of Haitians are Roman Catholic; roughly half the population also practises voodoo – though many do not do so in public. "That's why voodoo ceremonies are conducted at night–time. They are ashamed to say they practise it," said Langlois.

Voodoo, which has its roots in west Africa's pantheist religions but incorporates images and rituals of Catholicism, has played a central role in Haitian society since before colonial times. A voodoo ceremony in August 1791 is said to have helped trigger Haiti's first big slave insurrection against the French colonisers. It was banned in 1934 and categorised as sorcery in the penal code.

In the 1940s Catholics in Haiti burned voodoo masks and drums in a series of "anti-superstition" campaigns. Meanwhile, Hollywood popularised the (entirely fictional) image of voodoo as a religion of zombies, devil worship and ceremonies involving wax dolls and pins.

Voodoo remained banned in Haiti until 1987, when a new constitution came into force, and it was not until 2003 that it was given legal recognition as a religion with equal standing to Catholicism.

But after decades of uneasy tolerance by the Catholic church, Langlois declared that Haitians cannot follow both religions. "The church cannot – and does not – ignore the cultural elements and uses of voodoo, like the drum, the rhythm, the way of singing. But you can't be voodooist and Catholic. The Catholic should be pure Catholic; the voodooist should be pure voodoo," he said.

It is a clear, if controversial, message, for the poorest country in the Americas.

Richard Morse, a Haitian-American anthropologist and musician, whose mother was a voodoo priestess, described the cardinal's remarks as dishonest.

"If you want to talk about Haiti's ills, you've got to start with slavery, in which the Catholics were very involved. So I'm not sure what good comes of blaming the victim."

Morse also questioned the Catholic church's right to prescribe for Haitians. "Voodoo was born in Haiti, of Haitians and it is our culture. Catholicism is imported and we respect it and embrace it but we also love the truth."

Jeanguy Sainteus, founder of Haiti's leading dance company, said that he regarded voodoo as being more meaningful than the Catholic faith. "I feel more connected with the lwa [voodoo spirits] than [anything I feel] when I go to church," he said.

"Voodoo is a religion, like the Catholic faith. It's certainly not a big problem for Haiti. If people use voodoo properly and if we are open about it and talk about who we really are, it can only be good."

Sainteus said voodoo's standing as the religion of the poor meant it was "misused and misunderstood". He added that the cardinal and other Haitians "need to see voodoo with their eyes, not their prejudice, because it is the key to Haiti's future".

Langlois, 55, the youngest of Jesuit Pope Francis's recent crop of 19 cardinals, is seen to epitomise the Vatican's determination to refocus the church's attention on the poor.

He says it was this commitment to the poor that led him to broker negotiations between President Michel Martelly's administration and the opposition in mid-March, in an attempt to break political deadlock over the organisation of senate and local authority elections that are more than two years overdue.

"As Pope Francis said, he would rather have a church that gets its hands dirty than one that is closed in on itself," said Langlois. "I should work to help provide a better solution to the country even if I know I'm taking a risk."

It’s this kind of nonsense that makes me throw my hands up in disgust when I read shit like this. One witch doctor criticizing other witch doctors is pretty much pot.kettle.black. If the Holy Cee (guess what word I substitute for ‘church’?) is really really worried about these folks, howzabout they actually sell their papist trappings and trimmings to help them out? (Rhetorical question, of course: they never shall).

And who would win in a Cage match? The Virgin Mary vs. Baron Samadi? And which belief is wackier? One states that ‘gods’ wander around waiting to possess willing individuals, the other propounds that a human woman untouched by male semen gave birth anyways. Need I elaborate?

Sad, sad world we live in.

Till the next post then.

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Saturday, July 19, 2014

More On The Madness Of Muslims: Islamic Taxation With Representation

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

"kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191);moandjesuscompulse

"fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5);

"slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter" (5:34).

These idiots won’t stop until they drag us all back to medieval barbarism:

Convert, pay tax, or die, Islamic State warns Christians

Islamist insurgents have issued an ultimatum to northern Iraq's dwindling Christian population to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death, according to a statement issued by the Islamic State (Isis) and distributed in the militant-controlled city of Mosul. The al-Qaida offshoot that led last month's lightning assault to capture swathes of northern Iraq said the ruling would come into effect on Saturday.

In the statement, Isis said Christians who wanted to remain in the "caliphate" declared earlier this month in parts of Iraq and Syria must agree to abide by terms of a "dhimma" contract – a historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy known as "jizya". "We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract – involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword," the announcement said.

A resident of Mosul said the statement, issued in the name of the Islamic State in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, had been distributed on Thursday and read out in mosques. It said that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which the group has now named Caliph Ibrahim, had set a Saturday deadline for Christians who did not want to stay and live under those terms to "leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate". "After this date, there is nothing between us and them but the sword," it said.

The Nineveh decree echoes one that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the former name for the Islamic State, issued in the Syrian city of Raqqa in February, demanding that Christians pay the jizya levy in gold and curb displays of their faith in return for protection.

The concept of dhimma, governing non-Muslims living under Islamic rule, dates back to the early Islamic era in the seventh century, but was largely abolished during the Ottoman reforms of the mid-19th century.

Mosul, once home to diverse faiths, had a Christian population of around 100,000 a decade ago, but waves of attacks on Christians since the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein have seen those numbers collapse.

The Mosul residents who saw the Islamic State announcement estimated the city's Christian population before last month's militant takeover at around 5,000. The vast bulk of those have since fled, leaving perhaps only 200 in the city.

The ‘Caliphate’ is just another name for tyrannical ideological theocrat. This is the 21st century, this shit’s gotta stop.

What someone needs to do, is take a squad into Iraq, and dust these assholes off. Not a big fan of US foreign intervention myself, but if these fucks take Iraq, they’ll be on to Libya next, and then who knows?

And all this because of some charlatan named Abe decided he was the father of the ‘chosen people’ (whatever that nauseating neologism is supposed to mean, besides enabling the worst kind of tribalism ever).

Till the next post then.

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Saturday, July 12, 2014

There’s A Memo? Who Knew?

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

old-atheists-vs-new-atheistsI have never been a big fan of Julian Baggini – he tends to be an accommodationist who  recites the Rodney King mantra, mistaking tone for temperament (and content), trying to bridge those vast schisms between believers and non-believers. It’s a nice thought, one I’d entertained many years ago but abandoned when faced with the ferocious tenaciousness and the unbelievable capacity for dishonesty that religious folk in general exhibit. Anyways, here’s his ‘manifesto’:

Atheists, please read my heathen manifesto

In recent years, we atheists have become more confident and outspoken in articulating and defending our godlessness in the public square. Much has been gained by this. There is now wider awareness of the reasonableness of a naturalist world view, and some of the unjustified deference to religion has been removed, exposing them to much needed critical scrutiny.

Unfortunately, however, in a culture that tends to focus on the widest distinctions, the most extreme positions and the most strident advocates, the "moderate middle" has been sidelined by this debate. There is a perception of unbridgeable polarisation, and a sense that the debates have sunk into a stale impasse, with the same tired old arguments being rehearsed time and again by protagonists who are getting more and more entrenched.

It is time, therefore, for those of us who are tired of the status quo to try to shift the focus of our public discussions of atheism into areas where more progress and genuine dialogue is possible. To achieve this, we need to rethink what atheism stands for and how to present it. The so-called "new atheism" may have put us on the map, but in the public imagination it amounts to little more than a caricature of Richard Dawkins, which is not an accurate representation of the terrain many of us occupy. We now need something else.

This manifesto is an attempt to point towards the next phase of atheism's involvement in public discourse. It is not a list of doctrines that people are asked to sign up to but a set of suggestions to provide a focus for debate and discussion. Nor is it an attempt to accurately describe what all atheists have in common. Rather it is an attempt to prescribe what the best form of atheism should be like.

1 Why we are heathens

It has long been recognised that the term "atheist" has unhelpful connotations. It has too many dark associations and also defines itself negatively, against what it opposes, not what it stands for. "Humanist" is one alternative, but humanists are a subset of atheists who have a formal organisation and set of beliefs many atheists do not share. Whatever the intentions of those who adopt the labels, "rationalist" and "bright" both suffer from sounding too self-satisfied, too confident, implying that others are irrationalists or dim.

If we want an alternative, we should look to other groups who have reclaimed mocking nicknames, such as gays, Methodists and Quakers. We need a name that shows that we do not think too highly of ourselves. This is no trivial point: atheism faces the human condition with honesty, and that requires acknowledging our absurdity, weakness and stupidity, not just our capacity for creativity, intelligence, love and compassion. "Heathen" fulfils this ambition. We are heathens because we have not been saved by God and because in the absence of divine revelation, we are in so many ways deeply unenlightened. The main difference between us and the religious is that we know this to be true of all of us, but they believe it is not true of them.

2 Heathens are naturalists

Heathens are not merely unbelievers: we believe many things too. Most importantly, we believe in naturalism: the natural world is all there is and there is no purposive, conscious agency that created or guides it. This natural world may contain many mysteries and even unseen dimensions, but we have no reason to believe that they are anything like the heavens, spirit worlds and deities that have characterised supernatural religious beliefs over history. Many religious believers deny the "supernatural" label, but unless they are willing to disavow such beliefs as in the reality of a divine person, miracles, resurrections or life after death, they are not naturalists.

3 Our first commitment is to the truth

Although we believe many things about what does and does not exist, these are the conclusions we come to, not the basis of our worldview. That basis is a commitment to see the world as truthfully as we can, using our rational faculties as best we can, based on the best evidence we have. That is where our primary commitment lies, not the conclusions we reach. Hence we are prepared to accept the possibility that we are wrong. It also means that we respect and have much in common with people who come to very different conclusions but have an equal respect for truth, reason and evidence. A heathen has more in common with a sincere, rational, religious truth-seeker than an atheist whose lack of belief is unquestioned, or has become unquestionable.

4 We respect science, not scientism

Heathens place science in high regard, being the most successful means humans have devised to come to a true understanding of the real nature of the world on the basis of reason and evidence. If a belief conflicts with science, then no matter how much we cherish it, science should prevail. That is why the religious beliefs we most oppose are those that defy scientific knowledge, such as young earth creationism.

Nonetheless, this does not make us scientistic. Scientism is the belief that science provides the only means of gaining true knowledge of the world, and that everything has to be understood through the lens of science or not at all. There are scientistic atheists but heathens are not among them. Science is limited in what it can contribute to our understanding of who we are and how we should live because many of the most important facts of human life only emerge at a level of description on which science remains silent. History, for example, may ultimately depend on nothing more than the movements of atoms, but you cannot understand the battle of Hastings by examining interactions of fermions and bosons. Love may depend on nothing more than the physical firing of neurons, but anyone who tries to understand it solely in those terms just does not know what love means.

Science may also make life uncomfortable for us. For example, it may undermine certain beliefs about free will that many atheists have relied on to give dignity and autonomy to our species.

Heathens are therefore properly respectful of science but also mindful of its limits. Science is not our Bible: the last word on everything.

5 We value reason as precious but fragile

Heathens have a commitment to reason that fully acknowledges the limits of reason. Reason is itself a multi-faceted thing that cannot be reduced to pure logic. We use reason whenever we try to form true beliefs on the basis of the clearest thinking, using the best evidence. But reason almost always leaves us short of certain knowledge and very often leaves us with a need to make a judgment in order to come to a conclusion. We also need to accept that human beings are very imperfect users of reason, susceptible to biases, distortions and prejudices that lead even the most intelligent astray. In short, if we understand what reason is and how it works, we have very good reason to doubt those who claim rationality solely for those who accept their worldview and who deny the rationality of those who disagree.

6 We are convinced, not dogmatic

The heathen's modesty about the power of reason and the certainty of her conclusions should not be mistaken for a shoulder-shrugging agnosticism. We have a very high degree of confidence in the truth of our naturalistic worldview. But we do not dogmatically assert it. Being open to being wrong and to changing our minds does not mean we lack conviction that we are right. Strength of belief is not the same as rigidity of dogma.

7 We have no illusions about life as a heathen

Many people do not understand that it is possible to lead a meaningful, happy life as a heathen, but we maintain that it is and can point to any number of atheist philosophers and thinkers who have explained why this is so. But such meaning and contentment does not inevitably follow from becoming a heathen. Ours is a universe without guarantees of redemption or salvation and sometimes people have terrible lives or do terrible things and thrive. On such occasions, we have no consolation. That is the dark side of accepting the truth, and we are prepared to acknowledge it. We are heathens because we value living in the truth. But that does not mean that we pretend that always makes life easy or us happy. If the evidence were to show that religious people are happier and healthier than us, we would not see that as any reason to give up our convictions.

8 We are secularists

We support a state that is neutral as regards people's fundamental worldviews. It is not neutral when it comes to the shared values necessary for people of different conviction to live and thrive together. But it should not give any special privilege to any particular sect or group, or use their creeds as a basis for policy. Politics requires a coming together of people of different fundamental convictions to formulate and justify policy in terms that all understand, on the basis of principles that as many as possible can share.

This secularism does not require that religion is banished from public life or that people may not be open as to how their faiths, or lack of one, motivate their values. As long as the core of the business of state is neutral as regards to comprehensive worldviews, we can be relaxed about expressions of these commitments in society at large. We want to maintain the state's neutrality on fundamental worldviews, not purge religion from society.

9 Heathens can be religious

There are a small minority of forms of religion that are entirely compatible with the heathen position. These are forms of religion that reject the real existence of supernatural entities and divinely authored texts, accept that science trumps dogma, and who see the essential core of religion in its values and practices. We have very little evidence that anything more than a small fraction of actual existent religion is like this, but when it does conform to this description, heathens have no reason to dismiss it as false.

10 Religion is often our friend

We believe in not being tone-deaf to religion and to understand it in the most charitable way possible. So we support religions when they work to promote values we share, including those of social justice and compassion. We are respectful and sympathetic to the religious when they arrive at their different conclusions on the basis of the same commitment to sincere, rational, undogmatic inquiry as us, without in any way denying that we believe them to be false and misguided. We are also sympathetic to religion when its effects are more benign than malign. We appreciate that commitment to truth is but one value and that a commitment to compassion and kindness to others is also of supreme importance. We are not prepared to insist that it is indubitably better to live guided by such values allied with false beliefs than it is to live without such values but also without false belief.

11 We are critical of religion when necessary

Our willingness to accept what is good in religion is balanced by an equally honest commitment to be critical of it when necessary. We object when religion invokes mystery to avoid difficult questions or to obfuscate when clarity is needed. We do not like the way in which "people of faith" tend to huddle together in an unprincipled coalition of self-interest, even when that means liberals getting into bed with homophobes and misogynists. We think it is disingenuous for religious people to talk about the reasonableness of their beliefs and the importance of values and practice, while drawing a veil over their embrace of superstitious beliefs. In these and other areas, we assert the right and need to make civil but acute criticisms.

And although our general stance is not one of hostility towards religion, there are some occasions when this is exactly what is called for. When religions promote prejudice, division or discrimination, suppress truth or stand in the way of medical or social progress, a hostile response is an appropriate, principled one, just as it is when atheists are guilty of the same crimes.

12 This manifesto is less concerned with distinguishing heathens from others than forging links between us and others

Our commitment to independent thought and the provisionality of belief means that few heathens are likely to agree completely with this manifesto. It is therefore almost a precondition of supporting it that you do not entirely support it. At the same time, although very few people of faith can be heathens, many will find themselves in agreement with much of what heathens belief. This is what provides the common ground to make fruitful dialogue possible: we need to accept what we share in order to accept with civility and understanding what we most certainly do not. This is what the heathen manifesto is really about.

For the most part, it all seems fairly rational. The real red flag here is bullet point # 10, ‘Religion Is Often Our Friend’. No it isn’t. Religion isn’t a person: it can no more befriend us than be our enemy. Only another living being can be our friend. Religion inspires no one: it is an excuse for people to do what they wish to do, a prepared societally-sanctioned explanation for craziness.

Bullet point # 11: ‘We are critical of religion when necessary’. This is that ‘there’s-a-time-and-a-place’ jazz, where there never is nor ever will be a ‘time and a place’. We are at a critical juncture here: religion is telling people to spew forth as many children as possible, because their particular delusion has some cosmic babysitter coming down from on high to clean the planet up and wipe the boogers out of their hair. The issue of overpopulation by itself is an issue that threatens our species survival. So it is always necessary to criticize it, to ridicule it, to marginalize it.

We keep treating these mooks with kid gloves, pretty soon there’ll be too many people with too many feelings making too many problems (apologies to Phil Collins), and not enough space to live in.

Till the next post, then.

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Saturday, July 05, 2014

Allegories Gone Wild–‘We Are Legion’ Is An Empty Threat

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

exorcismThe devil made me do it, oh, oh, oh, oh
It was an act of a man possessed now
The devil made me do it, oh, oh, oh, oh
Your honor, I am innocent

– Ru Paul

It (almost) never ceases to confound me, the idiocy the Holy Cee will stoop to:

Vatican gives official backing to exorcists

Exorcists now have an extra weapon in their fight against evil – the official backing of the Catholic church. The Vatican has formally recognised the International Association of Exorcists, a group of 250 priests in 30 countries who liberate the faithful from demons.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported this week that the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy had approved the organisation's statutes and recognised the group under canon law.

More than his predecessors, Pope Francis speaks frequently about the devil, and last year was seen placing his hands on the head of a man supposedly possessed by four demons in what exorcists said was a prayer of liberation from Satan.

The head of the association, the Rev Francesco Bamonte, said the Vatican approval was cause for joy. "Exorcism is a form of charity that benefits those who suffer," he told L'Osservatore.

Charity? No. Personally, I’d like to see every single ‘exorcist’ on earth get tried for crimes against humanity. Because demons don’t exist. Period. Here in the 21st century, we don’t require the aid of a bunch of iron-age-shepherd shamans – and people who proffer a false alternative are worse than liars…mistaking superstitious drivel  for actual psychological therapy. So many human minds, suffering because of other people’s ‘spiritual charity’.

And scars like these…scars too, have ripples. Pain has a memetic echo that carries its message across the years somehow, an evolutionary flourish the hindbrain inherits.

And these pointy-headed witch doctors are doing nothing but increasing the risk and pain of those individuals who require actual professional help, not the Voodoo Catholick dance jive, some old geezer spraying the victim with water and chanting some Latin rubbish.

It’s a disgrace. A disgrace to the human race. Somebody should seriously lock these con artists up.

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