[Guestblog] Anti-Theists and the Religion Scapegoat

Heathcliff knocks one out of the park with this guest post, which I agree with in writing style and message.

Images stolen, altered, and captioned by Phil the Pill.

As economist Robert Solow once said about the famously single-minded Milton Friedman “everything reminds [him] about the money supply. Everything reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out of my papers.” Bill Maher will not like being compared to his economic antithesis, but Maher is also quite good at finding a single cause for many of today’s major issues, from the ineptitude of the United States government to the violent political climate of the Middle East: religion.

I shouldn’t be picking on Maher, though: he’s only one in a large group of anti-religion polemicists including Christopher Hitchens and the all-powerful Richard Dawkins who know that religion is truly the root of all evil. I know I should respect these luminaries, especially because these days it takes real guts to blame religion for the world’s major problems considering how much power and esteem religious institutions such as the Catholic Church wield. Seriously though, before these brave men arrived, we were simply too afraid to blame religion for the violence of undereducated, underfed, oppressed, and cripplingly poor people worldwide. Now that they are here, solving our major global issues will only be a matter of time.

The tradition of blaming a nation’s culture for the violence of its citizens or some other undesirable trait is nothing new. U.S. settlers used it to soothe their worries over decimating Native American populations, slave traders employed it to feel alright for selling humans as property, and Rudyard Kipling popularized it in his poetry. The White Man’s Burden lives on today, from conservative attitudes toward fatherless black families (It’s the rap music!) to Maher’s denunciation of Islamic states (It’s the Koran!). All irony of Hitchens’ calls for violence against violent Islamic states aside, what we have here is a group of men who can’t really be serious, right?

Prayer stance. Homicidal glare. Coincidence?

Does religion really cause violence? There are plenty of religious people who are not violent. So, that claim is out. We can refine it a bit, maybe claim that Islam causes violence. Again, plenty of nonviolent Muslims. We can keep going like this until we get to a tautology–only true Islam causes violence—or some other, equally useless claim. This process can be repeated for any variant on the theme “religion causes ______” that Maher and crew throw out there. Why is this so? Because religion alone is not causing the problems. It is the poverty, the inequality, the injustice, the broken political and economic systems of these nations making their citizens violent. This should be obvious, but to Maher and his crew, it isn’t. In fact, some may go as far as to say that religion causes the poverty, the inequality, the injustice, and so on, but by that point we have removed ourselves from reasonable discourse.

Nearly all people yearn for some deeper purpose and for many, religion provides that purpose. In the very prosperous United States, basic survival is pretty much ensured. This means that Americans do not need some deeper purpose to get them through the day. Hence, we do not value religion as highly as poorer countries. In most of the world, however, life is extremely difficult, and religion gives people a reason to make it through every painfully difficult day. Religion is very important to a poor person. Naturally, we should get rid of it.

But if religion is not there to fill the void of meaning in a poor person’s life, then something else will. That could be nationalism – as in Palestine – greed – as in Sierra Leone – or some other belief system that gives purpose to a person’s life. Trying to eliminate religion in poor countries is a lot like using Band-Aids to cure haemophilia. Treating the symptoms is not the same as treating the cause. The real problem is that the majority of the world lives in terrible conditions. We can tell the savages that their beliefs are stupid, think that injecting western intelligence into their lives will help them see the light, or we can actually help them. Give money, support organizations like Oxfam or Kiva, but for the love of God, quit listening to Bill Maher.

Heathcliff is a math and economics student who has known some Mormons in his day.

Obama vs. the Left + News Round-Up

Dude…I didn’t realize how good the soundtrack for Lost season 4 was.

News Round-Up

Tricky Dicks

The Supreme Court has ruled that Pakistani Javaid Iqbal (who oddly enough shares a name with a Supreme Court Justice in Pakistan) cannot continue his lawsuit against FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Attorney General John Ashcroft for keeping him in solitary confinement for six months based on his religious beliefs.

But the government argued that there was nothing linking Mueller and Ashcroft to the abuses that happened to Iqbal at a Brooklyn, N.Y., prison’s Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit, and the court agreed.

“The complaint does not show or even intimate, that petitioners purposefully housed detainees in the ADMAX SHU due to their race, religion or national origin,” said Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion. “All it plausibly suggests is that the nation’s top law enforcement officers, in the aftermath of a devastating attack, sought to keep suspected terrorists in the most secure conditions available until the suspects could be cleared of terrorist activity.”

The court’s liberal justices — David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens — dissented from the court’s opinion.

“There is no principled basis for the majority’s disregard of the allegations linking Ashcroft and Mueller to their subordinates’ discrimination,” Souter wrote….

..

Iqbal was arrested at his Long Island home on Nov. 2, 2001, and charged with nonviolent federal crimes unrelated to terrorism. Two months later, he was moved to a holding facility in Brooklyn, where he was in solitary confinement for more than 150 days without a hearing, his lawsuit alleges.

He said he was subjected to physical and verbal abuse, including unnecessary strip searches. On the day he entered solitary confinement, he says, he was thrown against a wall, kicked in the stomach, punched in the face and dragged across a floor by federal prison officers.

He was cleared of any involvement in terrorism and was deported in January 2003 after pleading guilty to fraud and being sentenced to a year and four months in prison.

Religious and racial discrimination? All we were doing was locking up Arabs. What's discriminatory about that?

Congrats, Bush court. You’ve ensured that yet another group of slimeballs gets to experience no reprecussions for breaking the letter and the spirit of the law.

So when’s Obama’s pick getting seated again? As if it would matter.
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Here be Dragons

The Tamil Tigers have been “militarily defeated” as their rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed. The rebel group was a secessionist organization fighting the Sri Lankan government since 1976. The Tamils are an ethnic minority that have had strained relations with the Sri Lankan Sinhalese majority since Sri Lanka gained independence. I think I first learned about the Tamils senior year of high school when we read a book called Anil’s Ghost.

Anyway, this supposedly puts an “end” to the civil war. FTA:

While Velupillai Prabhakaran (Ve-LU’-pi-lay PRAH’-bah-ka-ran) was a hero to some, his group was branded a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, and it was accused of waging hundreds of suicide attacks, including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female bomber. The rebels also forcibly recruited child soldiers.

Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Sareth Fonseka, said on television that his troops routed the last rebels from the northern war zone Monday morning.

“We can announce very responsibly that we have liberated the whole country from terrorism,” he told state television…

..

Suren Surendiran, a spokesman for the British Tamils’ Forum, the largest organization for expatriate Tamils in Britain, said the community was in despair.

“The people are very somber and very saddened. But we are ever determined and resilient to continue our struggle for Eelam,” he said, invoking the name of the Tamils hoped-for independent state. “We have to win the freedom and liberation of our people.”…

..Full-fledged war broke out in 1983 after the rebels killed 13 soldiers in an ambush, sparking anti-Tamil riots that human rights groups say killed as many as 2,000 people. By the time the war ended, more than 70,000 had been killed.

I’m sure both the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan committed terrible atrocities. I don’t know when people will realize that taking up arms and trying to wage war against an institution or an ideal never works. What I do know is that the violence can’t be over and it’s a shame. Sri Lanka will still be a major spot for human rights abuses, civilian violence, and oppression…And the world merely looks on.

In other world news, Obama met with Irsaeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today and told him it’s time to start talking peace again.

"Get your hand off my ass, Obama."

FTA:

“We have seen progress stalled on this front, and I suggested to the prime minister that he has a historic opportunity to get a serious movement on this issue during his tenure,” Obama said. “That means that all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations that they have previously agreed to.”

Added Obama: “I think that there is no reason why we should not seize this opportunity and this moment.”

Netanyahu said he was ready to resume peace talks with the Palestinians immediately but said any agreement depended on their acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. It was not immediately clear in the way he phrased the response whether Netanyahu was demanding that as a precondition for talks.

Palestinians offered praise for Obama but expressed disappointment with Netanyahu’s remarks.

Netanyahu “did not mention a commitment to a two-state solution, and we need to see American action against this policy,” said Nail Abu Redden, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who visits the White House on June 28.

Saeb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator, issue a similar assessment:

“Mr. Netanyahu failed to mention the two-state solution, signed agreements and the commitment to stop settlement activity. He said he wants the Palestinians to govern themselves. The question to Mr. Netanyahu is, ‘How can I govern myself while your occupation continues everywhere in the West Bank and Gaza, and how can I govern myself under your wall, roadblocks and settlement activities?'”

It looks like the only way they’ll ever work together is if Iran becomes a common enemy.

You know, I can’ twait until we meet a race of aliens that is truly just evil and bad. Then we can unite together AND be totally justified in killing things.

Ba-ROCK or Not

Checking in after 5 months

People may notice a lot of Barack Obama criticism on this blog. I want to make clear that I do not watch Fox News, listen to Rush Limbaugh, nor do I have Ann Coulter’s mug plastered on my walls. I voted for Obama. I believe in progression, change, and social responsibility. I also believe in our responsibilities to watch our leaders and make sure they’re sticking to their ideals.

Obama, predictably, isn’t sticking very much to his.

Politico blogger Josh Gerstein talks about how Obama’s making enemies on the left as well as the right.

He has pushed gun control to the back burner, used the state secrets privilege to try to quash lawsuits over warrantless wiretapping, opposed a “truth commission” to investigate alleged torture and sought to deny some legal protections to detainees in Afghanistan.

And he’s made clear he’s in no rush to do immigration reform or repeal the military’s ban on openly gay servicemembers.

A growing number of organizations, bloggers and pundits, many of whom kept quiet about slights in Obama’s first few months, are now going public with their disillusionment.

“On torture, change we wanted to believe in feels like more of the same,” the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch said in a joint statement Friday.

“I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on [gay] issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away,” the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan wrote last week, dismissing Obama’s pledge to end the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy as “toilet paper.”

Maddow accused Obama of doing a “blatant 180” on military commissions. On issues like the wiretapping suits, some critics have suggested Obama is even worse than Bush.

I’m not going to join the growing group of left loons and anarchists who claim Obama will betray us all and continue this country on a path of ruination…

But almost half a year into his presidency and I don’t feel that much better about my government than I did under Bush.

Why do we only elect people who seek to serve themselves?

I’ll be happy if Obama tosses out the states secret privilege, stops illegal detainment of world and national citizens, gives every detainee left a fair trial, allows government officials and torturers, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, to be sued and/or prosecuted and stops amping up the funding to kill innocent people abroad.

So it looks like I’m not going to be a proud patriot anytime soon.

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I’ll leave you with an understanding of religion as compared to trilogies that I found on Reddit (note: are there better social media sites out there? The buzz on Reddit is pretty tiresome).

The Pill Goes to Class — Obama Gives the Finger to Lobbyists

Obama has Epic First Day.

“As of today, lobbyists will be subject to stricter limits than under any … other administration in history,” Obama told reporters as he signed the new rules. The restrictions included a ban on gifts by lobbyists to anyone serving in the administration.

He also imposed a pay freeze for about 100 White House aides who earn $100,000 or more. Its implementation was unclear, since none of them was on the payroll before Tuesday’s noontime inauguration.

On Tuesday, within hours of Obama’s inauguration, his administration froze last-minute Bush administration regulations before they could take effect.

Among them was an Interior Department proposal to remove gray wolves from Endangered Species protections in much of the northern Rocky Mountains, and a Labor Department recommendation that would allow companies that manage employee retirement plans to market investment products to plan participants.

Well done, sir. Well done.

While I like the idea of Obama’s administration avoiding exorbitant self-reward, I wonder if the pay freeze will harm anyone who relies on that income. I hope Obama took family situations into consideration. Still, less kickbacks = better, in my book.

What do you all think? Are these, along with the plan to close Gitmo within the year, his foreign policy approach, and the economic stimulus, steps in the right direction? Or is he doing anything wrong?

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Aaaand I’m back in the CT multimedia office after getting some story assignments in and tweaking the website. I’m sore as a Mother from my second gym attack this semester, but it’s that silly “good” pain that fitness afficiandos refer to and I suppose I’m a minute or so further from death, so…cheers.

Class Run Down

Judicial Process – I appreciate Hult’s straightforwardness and her thus-far observed penchant for dropping interesting case anecdotes in lecture. The reading isn’t a bear so far and occasionally informative. She stresses that it’s not necessarily a law school indicator class, but I’m excited and it may determine if I bother with that pesky LSAT. Person I know in this class: Gonzo.

Creative Writing – This time around I’ve got Lucinda Roy, a professor from London with four published books and a maternal attitude toward her students. I’ll be grateful for the chance to exercise some writing muscle and she’s just so darn sweet, it’s going to soften the blow of getting up before noon. Person I know in this class: Ilex.

Economics – Well, with David’s help, I registered my iClicker in time to use it for the basis questions. It looks really straightforward and is actually kind of evocative of Spotila’s Rock for Jocks class my freshman year, being in the same room and all. I forsee little difficulty. Person I know in this class: Bear Force One.

Philosophy of Religion – Awesome. At first I thought Olson might be a little too dry, but he has a pretty good streak of humor. The subject matter is fascinating and the reading looks really good, plus his attendance/grading policies seem fair. This coupled with a Bible Study I might be doing in MC will fill the whole “experimenting with God talk” thing I’m trying out. Person I know in this class: Lottie Moon.

Chinese 1106 – I’m back! After suffering miserably in intermediate Chinese and realizing that I had completely lost a grip on my elementary skills, I’ve been allowed to come back. It was refreshing to actually be able to look at a list of Chinese character phrases and, after some concentration and memory recall, understand them. It’ll still be my hardest class, but if I do Chinese sentence drills every. freakin’. day…I should be prepared for next semester this time. Person I (knew) in this class: Delta Delta Delta.

I’m also in two Honors reading groups. One focusing on gender issues and the other on healthcare.
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Currently listening to: “Good Vibrations” – The Beach Boys
Watching tonight: LOST!!!
Thinking of reading: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare

Until next time…Sorry, Caroline, beware the peanut butter, and wish Akon a happy birthday everyday for the next year — it won’t make a difference.