I’m accustomed to hearing stories of cops Stopping and Frisking African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. I’m accustomed to stories of cops brutalizing citizens of the US, especially People of Color. I’m not use to hearing stories of police officers proselytizing during the course of a traffic stop. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened to Ellen Bogan:
Continue reading “First it was Stop N Frisk. Now it’s Preach N Ticket?”
Antonin Scalia is a very conservative, Catholic Supreme Court Judge. On Wednesday, he told a conservative audience that
“I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non-religion,”
[…]
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Scalia said. “It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution.”
Scalia told the group, which included lawmakers and other public officials, that Americans honored God in the pledge of allegiance and in “all our public ceremonies.”
Antonin Scalia is a very conservative, Catholic Supreme Court Judge. On Wednesday, he told a conservative audience that
“I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non-religion,”
[…]
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Scalia said. “It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution.”
Scalia told the group, which included lawmakers and other public officials, that Americans honored God in the pledge of allegiance and in “all our public ceremonies.”
It may be an old post, but Daz does a great job of shredding Pascal’s Wager.
Over at En Tequila es Verdad, Dana wrote (in response to this post):
Getting over gods is a great start, but it’s only a beginning. Once the gods are gone, we’re left with people, and civilization, and all of the imperfections that plague both. I’m sorry, but losing religion doesn’t mean all problems are solved. Religion amplifies some of our worst qualities, but those are still human qualities, and they remain once religion is gone.
I used to think it would be easier to fix things like sexism and homophobia and racism once religion was gone. But looking at how so many of our atheist celebrities and their fans have reacted to even the most mild requests to please not make sexist assumptions or do sexist things, I’ve realized it can actually be harder. The men (and some women) who have let go of gods seem so assured of their own rightness that they refuse to listen to the people affected by their words and actions. They sneer at the evidence presented, although they pretend that evidence is important to them. They don’t question their assumptions. They don’t do the hard work, but worse, don’t believe they need to. They got what they feel is the most important question right. They coast on that. And when people don’t go along for the ride, they get pissed.
I agree with her (obviously). Eliminating religion and religious belief will likely make the world a little better, but it’s not going to make the world a harmonious one because there are a host of other problems that exist. These problems are independent of religion, but they are also interconnected with religion. Religious belief helps sustain and propagate many of the social ills in the world. As I wrote on Dana’s blog:
Doing his best impression of William Lane Craig, Pat Robertson declared that there are different flavors of genocide. One type is ok, but the other is a big naughty no-no. Via Addicting Info:
In today’s airing of “The 700 Club”— a live television program that airs weekdays before a studio audience from The Christian Broadcasting Network’s (CBN) broadcast facilities in Virginia Beach, Virginia—Pat Robertson failed miserably in his attempt to answer a viewer’s rational question.
The question asked:
“While I understand the reason God told King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:3 to slay the Amalekites, how do you explain it to those who see it the same as the Quran teaching to “behead in the battlefield?”
Without realizing it, Robertson explained the similarities and struggled to distinguish a single difference between passages on killing and genocide in the Bible and the Quran. Pat cited Biblical references, which strengthened the parallel between the two religious texts; he even portrayed the genocidal context from the Biblical passage to be more extreme than those found in the Quran.
Here’s the video:
****
‘Bullshit on stilts’-The Pseudoscience of Christian Fundamentalist Education
I went to an Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) school from the age of 11 to 14, and I can think of many reasons why this kind of education is a poor preparation for university. I spent half of every school day alone in a cubicle, working silently though PACEs (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education) – workbooks that incorporate religious instruction into every academic subject, for example teaching that evolution is a hoax.
These bastions of fundamentalism have been operating in Britain since the early 1980s. In 2010 the BBC reported that there were 60 in the UK.
In 2012 I began a PhD studying ACE, and discovered that little had changed since I left in 1999. I have campaigned against ACE, with some success. The shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has described its stance on homosexuality as “dangerous” and “backwards”; the Advertising Standards Authority ruled last month that some ACE schools were mis-selling their qualifications; and the press finally noticed they were teaching that wives must submit to their husbands.
In all of this, however, little attention has been paid to the pseudoscience that ACE passes off as education. PACEs sometimes get basic science wrong, but more importantly they demonstrate that ACE can’t tell the difference between science and nonsense obscured with long words. For example, ACE’s Science 1087(aimed at students in year 9) suggests it might be possible to generate electricity from snow:
Scientists have known for years that snowflakes are shaped in six-sided, or hexagonal, patterns. But why is this? Some scientists have theorised that the electrons within a water molecule follow three orbital paths that are positioned at 60° angles to one another. Since a circle contains 360°, this electronic relationship causes the water molecule to have six ‘spokes’ radiating from a hub (the nucleus). When water vapour freezes in the air, many water molecules link up to form the distinctive six-sided snowflakes and the hexagonal pattern is quite evident.Snowflakes also contain small air pockets between their spokes. These air pockets have a higher oxygen content than does normal air. Magnetism has a stronger attraction for oxygen than for other gases. Consequently, some scientists have concluded that a relationship exists between a snowflake’s attraction to oxygen and magnetism’s attraction to oxygen.Job 38:22, 23 states, ‘Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?’ Considering this scripture, some scientists believe that a tremendous power resides untapped within the water molecules from which snowflakes and hailstones are made.How can this scripture, along with these observations about snowflakes, show us a physical truth? Scientists at Virginia Tech have produced electricity more efficiently from permanent magnets, which have their lines of force related to each other at sixty-degree angles, than from previous methods of extracting electricity from magnetism. Other research along this line may reveal a way to tap electric current directly from snow, eliminating the need for costly, heavy, and complex equipment now needed to generate electricity.My scientific knowledge isn’t superb – not helped by three years of ACE – so I asked Professor Paul Braterman, a chemist at Glasgow University and a committee member of the anti-creationist British Centre for Science Education, what he thought. “Bullshit on stilts” came his reply, in a brusque email pointing out that snow has no magnetic properties. The prospect of generating free electricity from snow, he added, “bears no relationship to reality”.
Content Note: Long rant ahead
In an article titled ‘Cut it out, atheists! Why it’s time to stop behaving like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins’, Salon writer Steve Neumann argues that atheists need to work on our image so that we can be seen as more positive:
If you’re at all familiar with atheism in America, then the following two scenes should probably come as no surprise: Biologist Richard Dawkins exhorting his followers to mock and ridicule believers with contempt, Bill Maher telling MSNBC host Joe Scarborough that “religion is a neurological disorder.” As an atheist who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian milieu, I admit that this rhetoric is not without its appeal. But the atmosphere this kind of animus creates has become as pungent and disagreeable as the stale bread and cheap wine of the church I grew up in.
So I got to thinking: First there was the Ice Bucket Challenge, then there was the Positivity Challenge (wherein you have to write 3 or 4 positive things as your Facebook status every day for 7 days). So why not get into the act and start my own?
I’d like to challenge all atheists, myself included, to refrain from posting disparaging commentary about Christian newsmakers on Facebook and other social media sites — including blogs — for one month. Let’s call it The Atheist Positivity Challenge, or the APC for short. The purpose of this challenge is to draw attention to two things: The fact that gloating about the lunacy and misdeeds of specific Christians is not only unnecessary, but probably counterproductive; and the need to rehabilitate the reputation of atheism in America.
Let me first say that I don’t like the idea of mocking and ridiculing people for their beliefs. As an atheist, I don’t do that. I will mock and ridicule the beliefs themselves, but I’m not going to do so for the believers. So when Richard Dawkins advocates doing so, well, I’m not going to listen to him. As for Bill Maher, he’s neither a psychiatrist, nor a psychologist, and he has no place trying to diagnose believers with any form of mental illness. Such actions serve to do nothing other than shame his targets, and have the added “perk” of causing splash damage to those people who do suffer from mental disabilities. Unlike Steve Neumann, such rhetoric does not appeal to me in the slightest. That behavior attacks the people, rather than their harmful beliefs.
It may come as a shock after reaching the end of this post, but I also agree with the idea of ‘rehabilitating the reputation of atheism in America the United States’ (note to Neumann-‘America’ can mean South America, Latin America, or the United States of America). With the behavior of high profile atheists like Sam Harris (with his recent sexist comments about the lack of women in the atheist movement or his follow-up “explanation” as well as his irrational anti-Muslim bigotry), Richard Dawkins (who has diminished the harm of child sexual abuse, engaged in rape apologia, and who-along with Jerry Coyne– deploys overwrought histrionics at the very thought the he’s a sexist fuckwit, which further drives home the point of his critics-that he needs to examine his assumptions of gender), and the sexual predator and rapist Michael Shermer, it is not hard for me to see how one might view atheists as assholes. Such an opinion-which lumps all atheists together, as if we’re one monolithic entity with no differing views-is wrong, but I understand how people can reach that conclusion.
Even without the “helpful” assistance of asshole atheists like Harris, Dawkins, and Shermer, the public perception of atheists is quite poor. The only group viewed as untrustworthy as atheists are rapists:
According to the Vancouver Sun, University of British Columbia researchers conducted a total of six experiments on 350 Americans and 420 UBC students, of varying religions (67% of the Americans were Christian). In one experiment, they presented participants with the story of an “archetypal freerider” who cheats and steals a lot, and asked what group they thought that person might belong to. Participants were more likely to categorize the person as an atheist than as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, gay person, or feminist (some of the groups were chosen because they were “often described as threatening to majority religious values and morality”). Only rapists fared as poorly — participants were about as likely to put the “freerider” in this group. According to the study, “People did not significantly differentiate atheists from rapists.”
A 2014 Pew Research survey, the ‘Religion and Public Life Project’ further supports the idea that atheists are viewed poorly by the American public:
Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating – all three groups receive an average rating of 60 or higher (63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for evangelical Christians). And 44% of the public rates all three groups in the warmest part of the scale (67 or higher).
Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons receive neutral ratings on average, ranging from 48 for Mormons to 53 for Buddhists. The public views atheists and Muslims more coldly; atheists receive an average rating of 41, and Muslims an average rating of 40. Fully 41% of the public rates Muslims in the coldest part of the thermometer (33 or below), and 40% rate atheists in the coldest part.
All of that makes me sympathetic to Neumann’s desire to help transform the public’s view of atheists. With that said however, I don’t agree with Neumann’s challenge. When I criticize religion or religious beliefs, I do so not to gloat or to belittle others. I do so because I genuinely believe religion and religious beliefs are a net harm to society. While many people use their religious beliefs to justify their good deeds or moral beliefs, many others use their religious beliefs in ways that actively cause harm to others. Whether we’re discussing the Quiverfull movements use of women as little more than human incubators, the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and contraception, the refusal of Jehovah’s Witnesses to accept blood transfusions, or the anti-LGBT bigotry of prominent Christian organizations, religious beliefs often cause demonstrable harm, and can and DO lead to people being killed. Even that, however is but the tip of the iceberg. Religious beliefs are used to support policies that oppose anthropogenic global warming, healthcare reform, and environmental regulation. Of course it doesn’t end there either. The Boy Scout ban on atheist members and leaders, the near impossibility of getting an open atheist elected to high office, the Christian Right’s support for corporal punishment (I initially typed ‘abuse’, then erased it, but I really should have left it-corporal punishment IS child abuse), and the discrimination faced by nonreligious students are further examples of harm done in the name of religious beliefs. I could keep going by mentioning the lies the Catholic Church has told about condom use in Africa, the child sexual abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church, the baby trafficking scandal in Spain (where nearly 300,000 babies were stolen from their parents over a period of 5 decades), Ireland’s infamous Magdalene Laundries, and more still. I’m not arguing that all of these are examples of harm done solely due to religious beliefs. Rather, I’m arguing that religious beliefs have been used to justify or cover up these harms and are often found, front and center, where awful shit is occurring.
Thus, when Steve Neumann argues for us to be nicer (read: accommodate religious beliefs) to improve the image of atheists, he’s asking atheists to stop criticizing the harms done by religion. He’s asking us to not comment on the child sexual abuse, the anti-LGBT bigotry, the selling of babies, the treatment of women as human incubators, and more. “Wait”, some may argue. “He’s not saying to ignore all that stuff, he’s saying we shouldn’t criticize the small stuff”. On the surface, this does seem to be what Neumann is saying:
The idea for the APC came to me when I read a post last week from atheist blogger Libby Anne, who wrote about the continued downhill slide of mega-church pastor Mark Driscoll. In this post, Libby Anne draws our attention to something Driscoll had said on a message board in 2001, where he opined about the relationship between men and women from an allegedly biblical perspective. He wrote: “Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.” I don’t doubt that Driscoll wrote that, or even that he sincerely believes it. But the problem with focusing on clowns like Driscoll is that it’s much too easy to single out for righteous indignation the most visibly disgraceful member of a group. And the unavoidable implication that others get from this is that the entire group must hold those beliefs as well.
My first big problem is that Neumann is saying “ignore the fact that some religious leaders say harmful, misogynistic shit about women”. Treating women as if they are nothing more than homes for a penis is deeply misogynistic. It denies the fact that women are people, and treats them as mere objects for the satisfaction of men, while dressing that satisfaction up in god talk. That’s a problem, to say the least. One can take a look at Reddit subthreats or 4chan (neither of which will I link to, as I want nothing to do with those cesspools and I don’t want to give them any traffic) to see examples of people who think women exist to satisfy the desires of men. Sexism pervades our society and attitudes like Driscoll’s, while perhaps not held by the mainstream, do exist on a spectrum of misogyny and sexism. Neumann seems to be of the opinion that such beliefs should not be criticized. I wonder if it’s because he’s a man who hasn’t had to deal with this shit. No matter the reason, to not call out these beliefs is to give them tacit support and approval. People need to know that sexism and misogyny are wrong and should not be tolerated.
The second problem I have is that the “unavoidable implication that the entire group must hold these beliefs” is false. That’s not the implication. Libby Anne is quite careful to not make such a blanket generalization. She’s talking about the harmful beliefs of one individual and how those beliefs can influence others. At no point does she hint that all Christians feel the same as Driscoll, and it’s a highly dishonest reading of her post to claim otherwise.
The third problem I have with Neumann’s comments is that he ignores how much influence Driscoll has. As Avicenna writes at A Million Gods:
By contrast? Mark Driscoll has millions of fans. I repeat. Millions of people listen to this douche. Calling out his bullshit is quite necessary particularly in a movement that struggles to treat women better within its own ranks. We can’t just say “sorry Libby! You got to be nicer to Mark Driscoll! You are making us look like angry harridans!”. I say “goddamn Mark Driscoll! This kind of stuff is precisely why young men grow up to be young douchebags like Mark Driscoll who think women were put on this earth for the fucking penises to live in”.
The fourth problem I have with Neumann is his use of Libby Anne’s post as an example of what atheists need to not do, which is call out sexism and misogyny. He’s effectively telling women in general, and Libby Anne specifically, to sit down and shut up. Sure he’s couching it in civil terms, but he’s saying her comments are not helpful. He’s saying that it is more important to be nice to theists than to call out their harmful bullshit, and he’s doing it as a member of a movement which has a big problem with sexism and misogyny. Dude, you’re not helping. Some of us want an atheist movement that is welcoming to women and other oppressed groups. Telling them to sit down, shut up, and not complain is not the way to go. In fact, it treats their concerns as if the’re unimportant. Here’s both middle fingers to you for that.
One might say “Mark Driscoll is merely one example Neumann uses. He’s talking about individual Christians. He’s saying that we shouldn’t criticize them.” To which I’d say “Duh. I know that.” That’s part of my point. Neumann is asking atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, Humanists, and secularists to not criticize the harmful beliefs of religious people (though he limits it to Christians). Given the plethora of examples I gave above concerning the harm done in the name of religion and religious beliefs, I find Neumann’s suggestion to be laden with privilege. He doesn’t seem to see much of the harm done in the name of religious beliefs, whether that harm is on an individual level or national level (if he is aware of the harm, he minimizes it greatly).
In the end, Steve Neumann is sounding a call to civility. He wants nonbelievers and their allies to not be so mean to religion and religious beliefs. He thinks that is important. As I said above, that is important, but it is NOT more important than criticizing the injustices done to human beings in the name of religion and religious beliefs. As long as he is asking for that, my response is “Fuck your Atheist Positivity Challenge”.
Content Note: Long rant ahead
In an article titled ‘Cut it out, atheists! Why it’s time to stop behaving like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins’, Salon writer Steve Neumann argues that atheists need to work on our image so that we can be seen as more positive:
If you’re at all familiar with atheism in America, then the following two scenes should probably come as no surprise: Biologist Richard Dawkins exhorting his followers to mock and ridicule believers with contempt, Bill Maher telling MSNBC host Joe Scarborough that “religion is a neurological disorder.” As an atheist who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian milieu, I admit that this rhetoric is not without its appeal. But the atmosphere this kind of animus creates has become as pungent and disagreeable as the stale bread and cheap wine of the church I grew up in.
So I got to thinking: First there was the Ice Bucket Challenge, then there was the Positivity Challenge (wherein you have to write 3 or 4 positive things as your Facebook status every day for 7 days). So why not get into the act and start my own?
I’d like to challenge all atheists, myself included, to refrain from posting disparaging commentary about Christian newsmakers on Facebook and other social media sites — including blogs — for one month. Let’s call it The Atheist Positivity Challenge, or the APC for short. The purpose of this challenge is to draw attention to two things: The fact that gloating about the lunacy and misdeeds of specific Christians is not only unnecessary, but probably counterproductive; and the need to rehabilitate the reputation of atheism in America.
Let me first say that I don’t like the idea of mocking and ridiculing people for their beliefs. As an atheist, I don’t do that. I will mock and ridicule the beliefs themselves, but I’m not going to do so for the believers. So when Richard Dawkins advocates doing so, well, I’m not going to listen to him. As for Bill Maher, he’s neither a psychiatrist, nor a psychologist, and he has no place trying to diagnose believers with any form of mental illness. Such actions serve to do nothing other than shame his targets, and have the added “perk” of causing splash damage to those people who do suffer from mental disabilities. Unlike Steve Neumann, such rhetoric does not appeal to me in the slightest. That behavior attacks the people, rather than their harmful beliefs.
It may come as a shock after reaching the end of this post, but I also agree with the idea of ‘rehabilitating the reputation of atheism in America the United States’ (note to Neumann-‘America’ can mean South America, Latin America, or the United States of America). With the behavior of high profile atheists like Sam Harris (with his recent sexist comments about the lack of women in the atheist movement or his follow-up “explanation” as well as his irrational anti-Muslim bigotry), Richard Dawkins (who has diminished the harm of child sexual abuse, engaged in rape apologia, and who-along with Jerry Coyne– deploys overwrought histrionics at the very thought the he’s a sexist fuckwit, which further drives home the point of his critics-that he needs to examine his assumptions of gender), and the sexual predator and rapist Michael Shermer, it is not hard for me to see how one might view atheists as assholes. Such an opinion-which lumps all atheists together, as if we’re one monolithic entity with no differing views-is wrong, but I understand how people can reach that conclusion.
Even without the “helpful” assistance of asshole atheists like Harris, Dawkins, and Shermer, the public perception of atheists is quite poor. The only group viewed as untrustworthy as atheists are rapists:
According to the Vancouver Sun, University of British Columbia researchers conducted a total of six experiments on 350 Americans and 420 UBC students, of varying religions (67% of the Americans were Christian). In one experiment, they presented participants with the story of an “archetypal freerider” who cheats and steals a lot, and asked what group they thought that person might belong to. Participants were more likely to categorize the person as an atheist than as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, gay person, or feminist (some of the groups were chosen because they were “often described as threatening to majority religious values and morality”). Only rapists fared as poorly — participants were about as likely to put the “freerider” in this group. According to the study, “People did not significantly differentiate atheists from rapists.”
A 2014 Pew Research survey, the ‘Religion and Public Life Project’ further supports the idea that atheists are viewed poorly by the American public:
Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating – all three groups receive an average rating of 60 or higher (63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for evangelical Christians). And 44% of the public rates all three groups in the warmest part of the scale (67 or higher).
Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons receive neutral ratings on average, ranging from 48 for Mormons to 53 for Buddhists. The public views atheists and Muslims more coldly; atheists receive an average rating of 41, and Muslims an average rating of 40. Fully 41% of the public rates Muslims in the coldest part of the thermometer (33 or below), and 40% rate atheists in the coldest part.
All of that makes me sympathetic to Neumann’s desire to help transform the public’s view of atheists. With that said however, I don’t agree with Neumann’s challenge. When I criticize religion or religious beliefs, I do so not to gloat or to belittle others. I do so because I genuinely believe religion and religious beliefs are a net harm to society. While many people use their religious beliefs to justify their good deeds or moral beliefs, many others use their religious beliefs in ways that actively cause harm to others. Whether we’re discussing the Quiverfull movements use of women as little more than human incubators, the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and contraception, the refusal of Jehovah’s Witnesses to accept blood transfusions, or the anti-LGBT bigotry of prominent Christian organizations, religious beliefs often cause demonstrable harm, and can and DO lead to people being killed. Even that, however is but the tip of the iceberg. Religious beliefs are used to support policies that oppose anthropogenic global warming, healthcare reform, and environmental regulation. Of course it doesn’t end there either. The Boy Scout ban on atheist members and leaders, the near impossibility of getting an open atheist elected to high office, the Christian Right’s support for corporal punishment (I initially typed ‘abuse’, then erased it, but I really should have left it-corporal punishment IS child abuse), and the discrimination faced by nonreligious students are further examples of harm done in the name of religious beliefs. I could keep going by mentioning the lies the Catholic Church has told about condom use in Africa, the child sexual abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church, the baby trafficking scandal in Spain (where nearly 300,000 babies were stolen from their parents over a period of 5 decades), Ireland’s infamous Magdalene Laundries, and more still. I’m not arguing that all of these are examples of harm done solely due to religious beliefs. Rather, I’m arguing that religious beliefs have been used to justify or cover up these harms and are often found, front and center, where awful shit is occurring.
Thus, when Steve Neumann argues for us to be nicer (read: accommodate religious beliefs) to improve the image of atheists, he’s asking atheists to stop criticizing the harms done by religion. He’s asking us to not comment on the child sexual abuse, the anti-LGBT bigotry, the selling of babies, the treatment of women as human incubators, and more. “Wait”, some may argue. “He’s not saying to ignore all that stuff, he’s saying we shouldn’t criticize the small stuff”. On the surface, this does seem to be what Neumann is saying:
The idea for the APC came to me when I read a post last week from atheist blogger Libby Anne, who wrote about the continued downhill slide of mega-church pastor Mark Driscoll. In this post, Libby Anne draws our attention to something Driscoll had said on a message board in 2001, where he opined about the relationship between men and women from an allegedly biblical perspective. He wrote: “Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.” I don’t doubt that Driscoll wrote that, or even that he sincerely believes it. But the problem with focusing on clowns like Driscoll is that it’s much too easy to single out for righteous indignation the most visibly disgraceful member of a group. And the unavoidable implication that others get from this is that the entire group must hold those beliefs as well.
My first big problem is that Neumann is saying “ignore the fact that some religious leaders say harmful, misogynistic shit about women”. Treating women as if they are nothing more than homes for a penis is deeply misogynistic. It denies the fact that women are people, and treats them as mere objects for the satisfaction of men, while dressing that satisfaction up in god talk. That’s a problem, to say the least. One can take a look at Reddit subthreats or 4chan (neither of which will I link to, as I want nothing to do with those cesspools and I don’t want to give them any traffic) to see examples of people who think women exist to satisfy the desires of men. Sexism pervades our society and attitudes like Driscoll’s, while perhaps not held by the mainstream, do exist on a spectrum of misogyny and sexism. Neumann seems to be of the opinion that such beliefs should not be criticized. I wonder if it’s because he’s a man who hasn’t had to deal with this shit. No matter the reason, to not call out these beliefs is to give them tacit support and approval. People need to know that sexism and misogyny are wrong and should not be tolerated.
The second problem I have is that the “unavoidable implication that the entire group must hold these beliefs” is false. That’s not the implication. Libby Anne is quite careful to not make such a blanket generalization. She’s talking about the harmful beliefs of one individual and how those beliefs can influence others. At no point does she hint that all Christians feel the same as Driscoll, and it’s a highly dishonest reading of her post to claim otherwise.
The third problem I have with Neumann’s comments is that he ignores how much influence Driscoll has. As Avicenna writes at A Million Gods:
By contrast? Mark Driscoll has millions of fans. I repeat. Millions of people listen to this douche. Calling out his bullshit is quite necessary particularly in a movement that struggles to treat women better within its own ranks. We can’t just say “sorry Libby! You got to be nicer to Mark Driscoll! You are making us look like angry harridans!”. I say “goddamn Mark Driscoll! This kind of stuff is precisely why young men grow up to be young douchebags like Mark Driscoll who think women were put on this earth for the fucking penises to live in”.
The fourth problem I have with Neumann is his use of Libby Anne’s post as an example of what atheists need to not do, which is call out sexism and misogyny. He’s effectively telling women in general, and Libby Anne specifically, to sit down and shut up. Sure he’s couching it in civil terms, but he’s saying her comments are not helpful. He’s saying that it is more important to be nice to theists than to call out their harmful bullshit, and he’s doing it as a member of a movement which has a big problem with sexism and misogyny. Dude, you’re not helping. Some of us want an atheist movement that is welcoming to women and other oppressed groups. Telling them to sit down, shut up, and not complain is not the way to go. In fact, it treats their concerns as if the’re unimportant. Here’s both middle fingers to you for that.
One might say “Mark Driscoll is merely one example Neumann uses. He’s talking about individual Christians. He’s saying that we shouldn’t criticize them.” To which I’d say “Duh. I know that.” That’s part of my point. Neumann is asking atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, Humanists, and secularists to not criticize the harmful beliefs of religious people (though he limits it to Christians). Given the plethora of examples I gave above concerning the harm done in the name of religion and religious beliefs, I find Neumann’s suggestion to be laden with privilege. He doesn’t seem to see much of the harm done in the name of religious beliefs, whether that harm is on an individual level or national level (if he is aware of the harm, he minimizes it greatly).
In the end, Steve Neumann is sounding a call to civility. He wants nonbelievers and their allies to not be so mean to religion and religious beliefs. He thinks that is important. As I said above, that is important, but it is NOT more important than criticizing the injustices done to human beings in the name of religion and religious beliefs. As long as he is asking for that, my response is “Fuck your Atheist Positivity Challenge”.
On September 11, 2014, a group of 20-something year olds brutally beat a gay couple in downtown Philadelphia, PA (PA’s laws don’t include sexual orientation in its hate crimes statutes, so even though the crime was hate based, it can’t be prosecuted as a hate crime).
The attack happened at 10:45 p.m. on Thursday, September 11th near Rittenhouse Square.
Investigators say the victims, a 28-year-old man and a 27-year-old man, were in the 1600 block of Chancellor Street when police say they were approached by a group of ‘unknown males and females.’
The attack left both victims with multiple injuries. One of the men has had his jaw wired shut and will have to drink through a straw for months.
Let that sink through your head: a group of men and women brutally beat two human beings because they were gay. They violated their human and civil rights. They treated them as things. Things to exert their power over. They terrorized these two young men because they did not like their sexuality. This is 2014, and there are still plenty of people who view LGBT people as second class citizens and will freely terrorize them simply for expressing their sexuality or gender identity. This both disgusts me and worries me.
On September 12, the Philly Police Department released this video of the attackers:
Central Detective Division is looking to identify and locate the suspects wanted for Hate Crime/Assault and Robbery in Rittenhouse.
On September 11, 2014, at 10:45 pm, the complainant, a 28 year-old male, along with a friend, a 27 year-old male, were on the 1600 block of Chancellor Street when they were approached by a group of unknown white males and females. As the group approached the complainants they made disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation. The group then attacked the complainants holding them while other members of the group punched them in the face, head and chest. During the assault one of the complainants dropped his bag containing his cell phone, wallet and credit cards. When police approached one of the suspects picked the bag up from the ground. The group then fled and were last seen north on 16th Street towards Walnut Street. Both complainants were transported to Hahnemann Hospital for multiple injuries. One complainant was treated for fractures and deep lacerations to his face requiring surgery and his jaw wired shut.
- Suspect Description: A group of approximately 10-12 white male and females all in their early 20′s “clean cut” and well dressed. One suspect was described as having a husky build, brown hair, wearing a brown shirt and shorts.
[interlude: for people who are heterosexual-this is an example of straight privilege. You don’t have to worry about walking down the street with your partner and be worried about being attacked because of who you love. You don’t have to worry about people hurling bigoted epithets that denigrate your sexuality.]
The couple was on their way out for pizza when a group of a dozen well-dressed men and women in their 20’s approached them about 10:30 p.m. Thursday night.
“Somebody says as we cross 16th. Is that your f-ing boyfriend? And I looked at him, and said that is my f-ing boyfriend. He goes you are a dirty (bleep). And I said yes I am a dirty (bleep) and he punched me int he face,” said the victim.
The victims say the group of attackers were yelling homophobic slurs during the beating. Then, they took off leaving one of the men in a pool of his own blood.
“When I saw 3 or 4 of these guys on me, I turned around and saw his head hit the ground like hard and didn’t come up and I was horrified. I thought he was dead,” said the victim.
In no time at all, concerned citizens took to social media to search online for the identities of the attackers.
Hours after authorities released surveillance video, Twitter users were credited by Philadelphia Police for searching online for the identities of people from a group seen in the video.
Twitter user fansince09 told Action News he was disgusted by the attack. Apparently many of his followers were, too, and they joined in the effort.
Fansince09 tweeted the video to his thousands of followers, and soon re-tweeted a picture apparently taken of this group at a nearby restaurant.
He looked on Facebook to see who had checked into that restaurant, and started clicking links, matching pictures to the video.
His effort resulted in a picture of a large party dining at a Center City restaurant. Police sources say that photograph is now part of the investigation.
Fansince09 got a shout-out on Twitter from police for his detective work.
Thanks to the efforts of citizens on social media, the gang of attackers were identified:
Philly.com is reporting that one of suspects identified through the video is Fran McGlinn, a former student and assistant basketball coach for Archbishop Wood Catholic High School. (Photo above) Kenneth Gavin, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia confirmed earlier today that McGlinn has been fired for his role in the incident:
“He was terminated this evening and will not be permitted to coach in any archdiocesan school,” Gavin said. “We expect all those who work with students in our schools to model appropriate Christian behavior at all times.”
Like McGlinn, several of the young men who turned themselves are reported to be former students of Archbishop Wood Catholic High School.
Once again, the claim that religiosity leads to morality is shown as the lie it is.
To make matters totally not better at all, the Philadelphia Archbishop issued a statement condemning the attack, but offered no support for the couple:
“A key part of a Catholic education is forming students to respect the dignity of every human person whether we agree with them or not. What students do with that formation when they enter the adult world determines their own maturity and dignity, or their lack of it. Violence against anyone, simply because of who they are, is inexcusable and alien to what it means to be a Christian. A recent beating incident in Center City allegedly involved, in some way, a part-time coach at Archbishop Wood High School. After inquiries by school leadership, the coach was contacted regarding the matter and he resigned. Archbishop Wood’s handling of the matter was appropriate, and I support their efforts to ensure that Catholic convictions guide the behavior of their whole school community, including their staff.”
I’m sure if the victims were a heterosexual couple the Archbishop (why the fuck does that get capitalized? These guys worship and pray to an imaginary being. There is literally nothing special about them. If someone claimed to worship invisible pink unicorns, would you need to capitalize ‘ministers of invisible pink unicorns’?) would have issued a statement expressing his sympathies for them. I’m not surprised though. The Catholic Church hardly treats LGBT people as if they’re human. Yes, on paper, or in the mealy-mouthed words they utter, they say LGBT people are human, but through their actions, they demonstrate their disdain, contempt, disregard, and often utter hatred, of LGBT people. Through their actions, they demonstrate that they don’t view us as human beings. Fuck the goddamn Catholic Church.
This is wretched. Back in 2001, Pastor Mark Driscoll (of Washington megachurch Mars Hill) referred to women as ‘penis homes’:
The first thing to know about your penis is, that despite the way it may see, it is not your penis. Ultimately, God created you and it is his penis. You are simply borrowing it for a while.
While His penis is on loan you must admit that it is sort of just hanging out there very lonely as if it needed a home, sort of like a man wondering the streets looking for a house to live in. Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.
My first reaction to all of that is “where’s my puke bucket”. Driscoll isn’t speaking about women as if they’re human beings. He’s talking about them as if they’re nothing more than receptacles for a man’s penis. That’s deeply misogynistic because it denies women their very humanity. To add to that, Driscoll makes a number of blatant assertions about the deity he believes in (and tells others to believe in and give money to). He talks about his god as if it exists. Where’s the evidence? He talks about his god as if it created humanity. Where’s the evidence? He makes pronouncements about the nature of humanity as if he has any clue, but it’s clear he doesn’t. Like many believers, he simply asserts his opinions as if they’re truths. Of course when you’re religious, you don’t need evidence for your beliefs, you just need faith. Have I mentioned how much I detest faith? Believing in things for which there is no evidence…no reason to believe, it is utter hogwash. To also hold faith up as a virtue is to say “reality bends to my whims”, despite the fact that that isn’t how reality works. No matter how much you believe it, the Earth isn’t flat. No matter how deeply held your belief, the sun does not revolve around the Earth. Women were not created from the rib on a man made from dirt and dust. Plants were not created before the stars were. There is no dome covering the Earth. There was no global flood. These things (and many more) are (or were) believed by many people for a very, very long time, despite the lack of evidence to support their beliefs. With the advance of science, we’ve learned that so many religious beliefs were false. Flat out wrong. Not correct. Deeply wrong. Yet people still cling to some of them. Yes, God still provides “explanations” for various things we don’t understand, but as we’ve come to understand the world, the number of things we do not understand has diminished. God is increasingly being forced into smaller and smaller gaps in our understanding of the world around us (hence God of the Gaps). Despite this, many people still use god as the support for their beliefs. Pastor Driscoll is but the latest person to justify his beliefs by invoking god. Even though he can’t prove that his god exists, nor that his beliefs about women are justified, he continues to hold them. This is one of the dangers of faith. It is resistant to reality. It resists evidence and scientific inquiry. All while being held up as virtuous. Because of that, people can hold vile, anti-human opinions and not be ridiculed and condemned (oh, it happens, but not nearly enough).
The beliefs Driscoll holds, vile though they are, are not that different from the views of many elected officials in the United States. In fact, in this country, being a person of faith, not matter how deplorable your opinions are, is treated as a badge of honor. It’s also viewed as a get out of jail free card. How many politicians cite their “sincerely held religious beliefs” that LGBT people should continue being second class citizens? They truly think that being religious means they aren’t hateful bigots. That these people are supposed to represent the American populace, all while holding beliefs that are irrational at best, and bigoted at worst, beggars belief. These people should be laughed out of office. They should be viciously mocked. They shouldn’t even be able to get into office in the first place (the broken nature of our political system is a post for another time). Yet here they are, making life hell for millions of Americans, and in many cases, it’s because they want everyone to be bound by their deeply held religious beliefs (beliefs with no empirical evidence as support).
Over at her blog Love, Joy, feminism, Libby Anne (hat tip to her for this post) discusses Driscolls’ misogyny. You ought to check it out.
